Airlines cope with FAA chaos + we take your questions

I'm Brett Snyder, author of Cranky Flyer, and I'm John Ostrower, editor-in-chief of The Air Current. You're listening to The Air Show, the podcast where we talk about what goes on in the business of the sky. This week, we're doing a mailbag episode, but first, Brian is on the road, which means he'll be extremely lucky if his flight goes on time and, well, anywhere. It's been a rough week for USAVs. Yes, it has, and John, you have a flight coming, so let's see what happens there. Yeah, I am off to the Dubai Air Show on Wednesday. I get to spend 30-something hours going back and forth to the Middle East, which should actually be a really nice respite from the chaos of U.S. airspace. Yes, this week, the government shutdown reached new heights of, I don't even know how to describe this, insanity, stupidity, ridiculousness, but hey, maybe it will be ending soon. There seems to be a deal, but even if it does, it's still gonna take a while for flights to get back to normal. Oh, John, what can we even say about this self-inflicted chaos? Every government shutdown is self-inflicted, really, but, you know, look, this has been going on since October 1st. I don't think we need to get into the political dynamics here that resulted in the government's shutdown. No, I want to. I'm gonna name names. Okay, but look, as we sit here, what is it? The afternoon of November the 10th, the U.S. national airspace system is a total mess. Yes. Late last week, the DOT and FAA ordered the U.S. airlines to start canceling flights up to 10% of daily operations at the top 40 markets across the country to ease strain on understaffed air traffic controllers. Look, the result, along with a very hasty and chaotic implementation, has created a total, I mean, how many times do you say the word "mess" - chaos, disorganization, and general level of - oh, my God. Okay. You okay, John? I'm okay. I'm okay. Look, at one point on Sunday evening at DFW, operations were halted on the west side of the airport, ostensibly due to some staffing issues. They resumed fairly quickly, but this is where the medium of audio falls short. Let me just describe the flight radar, our 24 aerial view of DFW showed dozens of aircraft piled up waiting to move on the east side of the field. Look, the last time the government shut down in 2019, yeah, there was a component to the end of that shutdown due to ATC staffing, which helped curtail that. But look, history is repeating itself in a big way here, and even more intensely now, especially as there are elements of safety claims from DOT and quiet rebuttals behind the scenes from US airline executives who see the hand of politics in this as far as exerting leverage on congressional Democrats. Look, there is not a lot of data that was provided in advance of this, sort of a trust us, but this is really messy and it's going to take a while to unwind even once the government reopens. Yeah, I have so many things to say. You remember in the movie Clue where Madeline Cohn's like, "I can't even get the word," flames, burning, breathing, flames on the sides of my face. Great movie. There were a whole bunch of Gen Zers listening here like, "What? I don't know what you're talking about." It's fine. Just fast forward for 10 seconds people, but yes, that is how I feel every time I look at this stuff. I'm not one to doom-scroll. I hate social media for the most part and don't want to look at all of these things, but my version of doom-scrolling this past week has been going to nasstatus.faa.gov and watching it light up every airport with delays due to other. Then when Atlanta hit 337 minutes with an arrival rate of 30, I was like, "Oh, that is a new one, but I don't understand this attempted solution. It is insane to me." They picked these 40 airports. It was 33 of the top ones, then it was six cargo and Teterboro. One of those that was not chosen was Nashville. Or Austin. Or Austin, but Saturday, Nashville was up on the big board with delays due to staffing, so I don't understand it. I don't see how this even helps. It's more of an acute problem. It's whack-a-mole is what it is because you never know what's going to pop up and now you've got controllers that are feeling stressed and overworked and they're being told by the president to get back to work and risk being fired. This is an insane situation all the way around. All we can do is sit here and wait for it to end. When it does, I don't know how long it'll take to get it back to normal because they've already said, at least in the order, which came out hours before it went into effect requiring airlines to reduce schedules, it was well over 24 hours after the press conference that the order came out. This is absolutely irresponsible on behalf of the FAA and DOT to run it this way. It didn't solve anything and yet in the order it says, well, you're going to have to file your schedules a week in advance. That would suggest that whenever the government does reopen, at the very least, it's going to be a week beyond that. We're getting close to Thanksgiving. The only thing I can say is kudos to all the network teams that are listening to this right now and the scheduling teams and the departure teams. How you pulled this together, I have no idea. There's absolutely no reason that it should have gone down this way and it is so frustrating. Well, here's the thing. The whole episode underscores how politicizing aviation, either for leverage or just politicians versus the controllers, the controllers situation themselves, whether it's the flying public caught in the middle, whatever, the lesson would be we need to create structures where aviation and the chaos resulting from a shutdown in aviation is mitigated, minimized and sequestered from the rest of the system in the event of a budget lapse. However, great. How do I sign up? The problem is that what we've seen is a massive amount of incentive to use aviation to do exactly that. The air current actually went deep on this on Friday. We talked to nine different sea level executives and senior officials at six different US airlines about their thoughts on why this was unfolding and all the leaders saw growing operational strain on the system as the shutdown dragged on, but they couldn't see the safety justification in their own data. In the absence of demonstrable data from DOT, this looked like an increasingly political exercise here. I would just strongly recommend that all our listeners read that report, kind of lays out all of this, but again, I think it underscores how much aviation has become a football for each side to kick back and forth when it's convenient. This is not a good situation and this is not the way aviation should be used by anybody for political purposes. Yet here we are. Was I the only one sitting there watching the press conference and it looked like FAA operator Brian Bedford, he kind of looked like he was being held hostage or something. People have plenty of opinions on him, but one thing he knows how to do is actually run an airline and there's no way that he could have looked at this and said, "This all makes sense," but there was clearly a mix of a lot of things going on here. Absolute chaos, completely unacceptable in every way and good on all of you, our listeners at the airlines for somehow surviving to this point and getting your airline to function. I think that's pretty great. Now all right, we have to get to the mailbag. We want to get to the mailbag, but why don't we just take a break here John and we'll come back and start going through some things. Fast, reliable in-flight connectivity is a must-have and that's why many airlines partner with SES, with both KU and KA options across multiple orbits and a platform that can be tailored to meet each airline's unique objectives, SES delivers exceptional connectivity experiences everywhere airlines fly. To learn more, visit ses.com/ifc. And we're back. Brett, should we go to the mailbag? Yeah, I have calmed down a little bit over the break, so Brett poured himself a drink. He's doing okay. He's relaxed. He's relaxed. It's not the word I'd use, but he's cranky, but he's calm. Comer. Let's just start by saying thank you to everyone who did respond to our call for comments and questions because these are the things that we really like. I have to say, I'm going to admit, I feel like I get fewer emails on these kind of things than maybe you guys do or maybe in the general inbox. You can always come to me, people. I love getting these emails and hearing what you think about this, especially when you're on the inside. You have good information. Same, by the way. I get very little mail also. Oh, you do? Okay. Is this a Brian thing? Maybe. Like, does Brian just bring out people sending him strongly worded emails? Could be. I could see that. I mean, I send him strongly worded emails all the time, but that has nothing to do with any of this. Stop writing him all caps, Brett. It's the only way I know how. All right. Let's get to it. We're going to start with feedback from our recent three-part series on what's wrong with American. First up, we had a note from Alex. Now, Alex said, "You hit it out of the park with your analysis. Many of us have been screaming for years at the top of our lungs to management about these issues, but nothing ever happens. They always know better. Many of us have worked in this industry for decades. And to say that AA is a complete three-ring circus right now is an understatement. What's worse is that our leadership does not seem to care or fully grasp the situation. We are a rudderless ship being steered by a CEO who is out of his league. No leadership, no vision, no common goal for the employee group other than to, quote, "Just move the metal" and do it as cheaply as possible. It's gotten so bad that Isom won't answer any unscripted questions anymore during the quarterly employee financial meetings. He answers a few, quote, "select" questions that were submitted in advance, BS." Was there a question in there? Fair enough. There actually was later in his email, but we trimmed that one up just to give you a sense of maybe what people are feeling there. But we did have another listener, Vincent, who had the same basic question. So I thought we'd shift over here, which is, "How is Isom still at the helm?" In closing, recently, American did a media blitz that they are going to focus on improving their premium product. They hired someone internally to head the project and reached out to Marriott and Disney for help. What they didn't do is reach out to their own people. No focus sessions, no town halls, no working groups. Crews at American Airlines know what is wrong with our premium product, but no one is asking us and they certainly are not listening to our Mountains of Monthly SIRS reports. Please put some light on this. American is just lipstick on a pig. They're not interested in doing the work to bring the airline back. So yes, this was sort of that common theme, is, "How is Isom still at the helm?" Let's put it this way. In a corporate environment, you have a job and the support of the board until you don't. Yeah, that's it. Of course, we can't answer this question, because we are not in charge of this. That is up to the board. And until the board decides to do something different, then this is who is leading American. But here's a curveball I'm going to throw out here. Let me actually give some kudos to Robert. For his interview with Phil LeBeau on CNBC last week, this is about the FAA ordered reduction. He was appropriately angry and he was well spoken about it. I thought his response was one of the best we've seen from an airline CEO in this whole thing. This doesn't really change anything, but look, if we're going to point out problems, it seemed appropriate to actually highlight a win like this. Well, when Robert wants to communicate, he's very effective at it. When he knows what he wants to say and where he wants to put the ball, he's really good. This is not a skill that he lacks. I think that when it's out of his comfort zone, it gets a little bit more troublesome. But look, I think that he definitely spoke for a lot of US airline executives who were on the ceiling for all of this and with little recourse than to say to their passengers and employees, call the government. All right, Brett, here's one for you from David. My questions are related to my home airport, Chicago O'Hare International Airport. I'm interested in your thoughts on how the American United War plays out. In 10 years, what will be the state of play at O'Hare? Is there any opportunity or space for other airlines to grow at O'Hare in the coming years? Oh, this is a fun one, but it might require a whiteboard here so people can start writing this down. It is not a straight line. So what we saw in the 2025 reallocation of gates, United got their six new gates and that started on October 1st just last month and they've ramped up flying with those new gates. But American also added a lot of flying this year before the gate change, before it lost some gates on October 1st. The next reallocation will be announced in the new year in 2026, but that is actually based on calendar year 2025 flying. So that means that the first three quarters of the measurement period is based on the time before the last allocation went into effect. And as you can see, this is confusing to everyone, but the point is that next year American had ramped up so much that they are very likely to regain some gates because this is measuring before they had lost gates and when they had already ramped up. But that won't even go into effect until October 1st of 2026. So I see where this is going. So this means in early 2027, when they have to do the next reallocation, right? Yeah. It's going to be based on calendar 2026 when United would have had the higher level of gates for three quarters of the measurement period and around and around we go. Yeah, exactly. So it's this weird lagging measurement after things have already changed that's just going to make it choppy for a while. So in 2027, I'd imagine United will gain again and it'll just keep yo-yoing. But the way that I see this playing out, if United keeps its foot on the gas and schedules as many flights as it can on its gates and really pushes, then that means it'll probably keep gaining, then giving a little back, then gaining more, giving a little back, you get the point down the line. So that would mean American will be on its back foot, assuming it wants to keep playing in the market and trying to play the game. So if American does stick it out, I don't think there's room for any other notable players to come in. But if American does decide this isn't worth it and gives up, then it would get really interesting. Somebody would want to come in. I would think it would be someone like a Southwest or a Frontier or something like that, much more targeted than a full hub the way that American has. But that would really depend on United continuing to push really hard and then American deciding to give up. I don't think the latter is likely, but the former absolutely is. OK, John, one for you here. OK, hit me. What do you got? This is from Jeff. "No one is making a 50 seat jet and the only scope compliant 70 to 76 seat is a several decade old design. The major carriers continue to vacuum up pilots and mechanics. Slot restrictions are going to require increasing up gauge at all the legacy carrier hubs. I don't foresee any of the pilot unions giving up scope. What is the fee for departure industry going to look like in 10 years? What does that mean for mainline fleet and route structures? Will Delta become an all mainline airline with the A220? Will United have to buy something smaller than a 737-8?" OK, so how long do I get for my answer? OK, 30 seconds, go. The 50-seater has a future in the US, but it's definitely getting smaller by the day. That fleet is reaching a notional retirement age. But there is obviously, as Jeff noted, there's no jet replacement on the horizon. MHIRJ is the keeper of the Bombardier CRJ type and product support. And MHIRJ for the 145 are going to try to keep those aircraft going for as long as they can. That's a natural thing that's going to happen, absolutely. Look, but this is probably going to be an MD-80 situation, except there's no replacement for an aircraft that size. And they're just going to be around forever. They're going to be massively depreciated. They're going to burn a ton of gas, but that's going to be cheaper than going out and buying or developing a new airplane. OK, the air connection is a really big special on this exact issue a few months ago. This is where ATR wants to play in the single class 50 seat ATR 42 or the three class 50 seat ATR 72 a la CRJ 550 product. But the reality is that the regional carriers that made their money flying everything from 19 seats and up have just gotten squeezed from the bottom, like one big hit at a time, all the way to the point of continuing lopping off of different markets and smaller aircraft sizes. Look, there are regional markets where 76 seats for each departure is just too big. There are important questions here around how much US travelers also just prefer to drive given the time required for the collective misery of the US airport experience. But look, as far as like new aircraft development goes, the reason the segment is so challenging is because pilot costs are going in one direction. The cost of everything else is going in one clear direction. That's all happening along with aircraft certification cost rising. And when a 76 seat airplane has the same expensive cockpit avionics as a 50 seat airplane, but with 26 fewer seats for a plane maker to sell to an airline, it's a tough economic proposition to justify an airplane of that size. So there's either going to be a major leap in technology or in the cost of acquiring that technology. So in the meantime, we're going to be stuck with CRJs. But we don't even have a 76 seat replacement. Oh no. We only have the 175s. So I mean, it's bigger than just a 50 seat issue. Oh, absolutely. The question is, what period of time is it going to take for there to be either a significant update of technology with the E175 or scope moving to wherever it needs to go from there to allow for the E175 E2, which is an airplane that actually flew to kind of about 88 seats based on the E2 with the smallest Pratt and Whitney gear turbofan engine. One of the really interesting things that you should be watching for is really around what happens with the E195 E2 and its continued availability for the U.S. airlines and whether or not there's some universe where American in this whole strategic picture ends up thinking about an aircraft with higher gauge than E175, but lower cost than an A319. And that looks a lot like either an A220 or an E195 E2. So in many ways, the regional market is getting squeezed and that level of consolidation ultimately pushes toward the mainline guys doing the regional flying for them. But to what point does that actually hit a limit? Let's go back into the mailbag. How about this one from Ben? I know you usually focused on the U.S. American market, but recently something highly unusual happened. Ben Smith and Karsten Schpor, our bestie on the show, have given a joint interview to a large German newspaper and I thought this might be a surprise even for you. They are complaining about the unfair conditions for European airlines compared to their Middle Eastern competitors. Nothing extremely new is in there, Ben notes, but I am very surprised that they did actually come together to discuss the issue. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and hope you did find the interview as interesting as I did. Yes. First of all, I'd like to clarify, I'm pretty sure this is not Ben Smith who wrote to us. I think it's a different guy. Yeah. It's not Ben Smith. No. That would be something else. Yeah. But I did see this, I had to do a double take on this and then I just had to shake my head because this is just like the same old fight against the Middle East Airlines coming back again just from a different geography. It's like 2015 all over again in the U.S. Of course, the European airlines, they have a lot more to lose than U.S. airlines do or did, but the arguments are almost entirely the same. I think the only one that is different is the argument that Europeans should reduce some of their burdensome environmental regulations that the Middle East Airlines don't have to obey. But you know, fine, fight that out if you want, but this is not a winning fight. I for one, support Carson's dream of creating an even playing field and I think he'll agree that Germany should really stop protecting Lufthansa, make it easier for low-cost carriers like Ryanair to enter the market in a significant way, right, Karsten? Anyway, next question for you, John. This one's from Peter. Why is FAA resistant to virtual control towers in the U.S.? I became aware of these flying out of London City. I used to like the Speedbird 0102 flights on the A318 and avoiding Heathrow. To uninitiated me, it would seem that the obvious solution to our ATC labor shortage geographical mismatch is, am I missing something? This is something that I actually really want to study more on because I think it is a really interesting use of technology in the U.K. for these virtual towers. But they don't necessarily, in a U.S. context, as far as I can tell, solve the fundamental problem of you need people to staff the towers, whether they're virtual or not, and getting controllers to move or uproot themselves, actually has been a big issue. We obviously saw that with Newark Traycon relocation to Philadelphia. But again, I think it really is for the U.S. about trying to modernize the system before you start even getting into virtual towers that only at a level of complexity that the current system can't handle, and there aren't enough people to work real towers for get virtual ones regardless. So yeah, it's an interesting one to watch. It's definitely something that I actually want to spend more time learning about. Okay, I want to finish up with my favorite. We were sent a haiku, two episodes in a row of haikus. Okay, what's up, YTZ, Air Canada versus Porter? What's the plan? Who wins? This is the kind of audience engagement I'm talking about. This is great. Send us more haikus, everyone. So good. Now, what this listener is talking about for those not aware is Air Canada has decided to move into the transporter market from Toronto's close in Billy Bishop Airport. That was just Porter's domain until Air Canada decided to go into these. It's going to do New York LaGuardia, Washington Dulles, Chicago Hare, and Boston. This is all happening now. There's a pre-clearance facility going into the airport, so it's a whole different story. What do you think about that, John? Who wins? What's the plan? This is a great question. I'm actually hoping that my answer spurs even more mail. Someone once described the Canadian airline market as one of the most questionably competitive on the planet. Air Canada allows WestJet to exist, is the way they phrased it to me. Same with Porter. By the way, this is a sentiment I've heard in many places over the years. Air Canada has the scale and political influence, and they get to have their hand on the throttle for how much profit and pain that those airlines get to make. Look, they're never going to destroy Porter or they're never going to destroy WestJet, but they sure as hell won't let them thrive beyond where it's comfortable for Air Canada. Yeah. Basically, they're getting worried that these markets are going to work really well, especially with pre-clearance, and they don't want Porter to win. So here we are. All right. Thank you, everybody, for chiming in and, again, keep sending us feedback. I know, again, that I really like getting good questions and comments here and on Cranky. You can always get me at [email protected]. You can email us at [email protected] as well. You've been listening to The Air Show. If you have suggestions or questions for us, if you're interested in sponsoring the podcast, go to our website, theairshowpodcast.com, to get in touch. The Air Show podcast is produced and edited by Sara Fay. Our theme music is by Joshua Mosher. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back soon.