IAGblog Podcasts

Canada is at forefront of aviation biofuel testing. Dave Marcotte, Group Leader Airborne Research at National ResearchCouncil Canada, discusses the test with us.

Interview with Pedro Vincente Azua, COO of the EBAA.

Rob Dewar, VP & GM CSeries Program, spoke with us today about the tightening timeline the program is facing. Although this is not big news, he shares that the program has already seen significant benefits from its investments in its CIASTA investment - they have been able to accumulate ten times the flight hours that a typical program (flying an airplane) is capable of doing. The assembly team is also seemingly trained and well down the learning curve. But, based on this call we think there won't be a first flight in 2012. First quarter 2013 seems more likely.

We had a chance to speak Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, and also a 21 year veteran pilot at American. The conversation quickly moved into a review of the Chapter 11 situation plus its origins. While the conversation is the view from organized labor, with its attendant bias, one is left with the impression that matters have sunk to a truly low level. Morale is down. The TWU and Flight attendants have joined the pilots in siding with the management at US Airways. The pilots want the merger as soon as possible because they see the delays further disrupting the airline's recovery.

Erik Venter is CEO of South Africa-based Comair. Mr Venter speaks with us about his airline and the challenges it faces, as well as the opportunities, of operating in South Africa. Comair has been operating profitably for over 60 years. But it gets tougher as the state-owned competition continues to lose money and has a seemingly bottomless taxpayer funded bank account. Meanwhile a plucky team at Comair runs the highest level domestic service as a British Airways franchise while at the same time operating its own LCC (Kulula). Looking ahead Comair must seek other markets given the limited size of the South African travel market. Mr Venter drops hints at an Africa hub to the north which could ultimately allow its 737-800NGs to serve the EU.

Dublin-based Patrick Edmond is a former CityJet GM Commercial (part of Air France). Recently Patrick wrote an article for Airline Business in which he makes the case that while regional airlines are threatened by industry structural changes, they remain viable. We go on to discuss right sizing, emerging airplane programs and the potential of replacing the ~30-seater turboprop.

EFBs, as they are known, are a big item coming to flight decks. We discuss these with Joe Ayson, Director of Business & Corporate Development at Allegiant Systems Inc., a part of Allegiant Travel Company.

We had a fascinating call with an EMBRAER pioneer recently. Satoshi Yokota has served as Member of the Board of Directors of Embraer SA since 2011. He previously served as Member of the Executive Board and EVP for Strategic Planning and Technology Development of EMBRAER from 2007 to J2009. He is an electrical engineer trained at the Technological Institute of Aeronautics in 1964.

He has held several positions at EMBRAER from 1970 to 2008 as Assistant Director of Programs and Commercial Contracts, EVP of Engineering and Development, VP Industrial and finally to Executive VP of Strategic Planning and Technological Development. He was Chairman of the Board of ELEB EMBRAER Liebherr SA of Brazil from 2000 to 2008 and consultant of EMBRAER from 2009 to 2011. He is Director of TPI, the Contec Fiesp, Parque Tecnologico Association SJC, Chairman of IpplanInstitute for Research, Planning and Administration and Member of the Board of Jacto Equipamentos Agricolas.

With a background like this you can imagine what an interesting man he is.

Today Teal Group VP Analysis, Richard Aboulafia, published his monthly newsletter. The September newsletter will be found here.  In it Richard describes seven "good" things about such a deal and four "challenges".  Discussing these ideas with Richard are AirInsight's Ernie Arvai and Addison Schonland.

There are many ways to look at the potential (and quite likely) merger of American Airlines and US Airways. There are the obvious issues everyone is talking about, but take a listen to the less obvious issues. The impact on start up airlines, the alliance impact, the impact on US airlines like Alaska and jetBlue and quite importantly, the impact on the GDS systems. The disruption of such a merger will be not be ripples in a pond. The most clear impact will be on airfares - they will rise even higher. This improved financial situation might be good for airlines as their improved financials might even make them investment options again. But the impact will also have to run through political approval - which is not obvious.

Discussing the situation for nearly 30 minutes we have airline and travel industry analyst Henry Harteveldt from Atmosphere Research and Timothy O'Neill-Dunne, managing partner at T2Impact.

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