Chinese Competitor

Is C919 really a Chinese made Aircraft?

According to my research, I would say C919 is a very international aircraft, most of the key component is actually made by U.S.A the electric system and APU of the aircraft is making by Honeywell, The flight control systems and the fuel systems are making by the Parker Aerospace, which is also a U.S company. The engines are making by CFM. Other components for example, fire detection, Engine reverser, radar, anti-icing, are made by European companies. COMAC is only building the wings, radar cover, air frame and final assemble. (Aerotime, 2015) This aircraft would be more “American” than “Chinese”. The fact that the aircraft is mostly contributed by the American companies would increase the possibility of getting the FAA certification, since most of the essential parts of the aircraft is produced by American companies and most of the past are currently installed on Boeing and Airbus aircrafts as well.

What is the advantage and dis-advantage of C919?

The main competitor of C919 would be Boeing 737Max and A320 NEO since they are the newest model of Boeing and Airbus with the same capacity of 158-180 seats class. From the technological side, one of the disadvantages of C919 comparing to Boeing 737 and Airbus 320 is that Boeing 737 and A320 would able to cover a larger range than the C919. According to the research, 737 can able to cover nearly 1000 miles more than the C919, (Hahn, 2012) also Boeing 737 and A320 would have more fuel efficiency engine (Hahn, 2012). In terms of sustainability, the lifespan of the C919 aircraft might be questionable. Would it be depreciating much faster than 737 and A320? Since the aircraft is still in a testing stage the answer still remains unknown until COMAC gives actual data, which is also a huge disadvantage to C919 since there are not any actual data to prove the performance, however, this is the forth generation of Boeing 737, and Second generation for A320, they would have tone of data and proof the performance and fuel efficiency of their aircraft. Most of the customer would not want to take a risk of trying a brand new product.

Just like other products that are making in China, pricing is always a big advantage. The price for a C919 is almost 50 millions. The listing price fro A320 and 737 is from 75 million to 90 million, (Johnson, 2015) it is almost 30% cheaper than the airbus however most of the operator will be considering the maintenance cost, Operation cost, sustainability and also the pilot training cost. Most of the airline would prefer remain their fleet diversity small so that it would help them to save training and maintenance cost, and they are not willing to take risk of trying new products, this is the huge disadvantage of C919.

Modern Ark 60, Most successful product of Chinese Aviation Manufacture  

Prior to the establish of COMAC, there is another Chinese aircraft manufacture also know as Modern Ark starting producing their MA60 aircraft, it is a 50-60 seats turbo prop aircraft, it is competing against ATR 72 and Dash 8, It was firstly starting operating in Feb 2000 within regional route in China. The Chinese government start promoting their products to developing countries in Asian and Africa with a numerous of discounts. MA60 start delivering to operators such as Laos Airway, Zest Airway of the Philippine, Kyrgyzstan Airlines, and Nepal Airways. Merpia Airlines  became the largest oversea operator of MA60, they are currently operating more than 12 MA aircraft. (Modern Ark, 2012) However the MA60 aircrafts had fail to receive certification from the FAA, which cause the target market of the aircraft limited within developing African country and Asian countries that does not follow FAA regulations. The is the first ever aircraft that china successfully promoted to oversea market.

However, MA60 aircraft are not keeping a very good safety record, there are several fatal accidents happened throughout these few years. There are almost 13 incident filed within the past 5 years most aircraft were totaled.(Aeroinside, 2015) The manufacture Modern Ark claim that those accident were mostly due to human errors, lack of pilot training and maintenance technology in the developing country, however those incident still causes a huge impact on the reputation of the Chinese made aircraft.

Competing in Local Chinese Market.

Since C919 is doubtful of receiving FAA certificate, which currently did not create any threat in the oversea markets. However, I do believe C919 will creates some pressure to both Boeing and Airbus within the Chinese aviation markets, as we know Chinese aviation industry is  developing very fast, and they have a huge demand of new airplanes. The second largest airline in China, China Eastern Airlines states that they are currently operating more than 500 airbus and Boeing aircraft, by 2020, they are planning to expand their fleets to 800 aircraft. However 4 biggest Airlines in China Hainan Airlines, Air China, China Eastern, and China southern, each of them had only placed 20 aircraft. Other remaining orders are placed by financial and leasing instituted, their operator are not confirmed yet. (Jiang, 2015) However Airbus and Boeing both receive more than 300 aircraft orders from Chinese operators, and they are planning a huge expands on Chinese market. For example Boeing decided to build a new assemble line in China, according to Boeing officials Chinese aviation market could bring Boeing over 1 trillion dollars of revenues within next 20 years (Forbes, 2015). Chinese market is very significant to them. Adding a new assemble line in China will be speeding up their aircrafts deliveries which will be helping to with more advantages toward oncoming competition against Airbus and COMAC. Also Airbus start operating their final assemble line located in China back in 2008, it could speed up their delivery to Chinese carriers, they are planning on expanding their plant in Tian Jin Chinese and adding Airbus 330 wide body assemble line to current facilities in China. .(Rapier, 2015) As we can see, the competitions in China is very intense, however Airbus and Boeing is way ahead of COMAC.  

How can the FAA certification benefits C919\?

Both Airbus and Boeing are treating Chinese market very importantly. However C919 is still in the testing and certification processes. By looking the orders from Chinese local airline, we could see that there are still lack of confident on Chinese products even from Chinese local operators. However receiving FAA certification would be a huge step to COMAC, it is a chance to proof their products are achieving an international standard intern of air worthiness and quality, and it would be more reorganization by the industry.

References

Airline Incidents for aircraft type XIAN MA-60. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.aeroinside.com/incidents/type/ma60/xian-ma-60

Hahn, L. (2015, November). Can COMAC break the Airbus-Boeing duopoly in commercial aircraft? Retrieved from https://www.quora.com/Can-COMAC-break-the-Airbus-Boeing-duopoly-in-commercial-aircraft

Jiang. (2015, November). China takes on Boeing, Airbus with new passenger jet. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/02/asia/china-new-c919-passenger-jet/

Johnson, P. (2015, December). Competition For Boeing As COMAC's C919 Is The New Kid On The Block. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/pierrjohnson/2015/12/17/competition-for-boeing-as-comacs-c919-is-the-new-kid-on-the-block/#f4d49306c1af

MA60 passenger aircraft. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.modernark.cc/en/a.asp?bigclass=MA Series&smallclass=MA60 passenger aircraft

Rapier, G. (2015). Here's the Chinese factory where Airbus assembles its most popular plane. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/airbus-china-factory-a320-2015-8

Why C919 can hardly be called Chinese. (2015, November 20). Retrieved from http://www.aerotime.aero/en/people/people-news/editorial/20413-made-in-china-why-c919-can-hardly-be-called-chinese

Why Is A China Plant Important For Boeing? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/09/25/why-is-china-plant-important-for-boeing/#6f00f69c2871

NTSB Most Wanted List 2016

1.   Prevent loss of control in flight

2.   Fatigue relayed accident

3.   Medical fitness

4.   Reducing distractions

5.   Cockpit image recorder

According to my research, I have came out with the ranking above, I ranked prevent loss of control in flight at the top is because this is the reason that is directly resulting in fatal accident, however other reasons only indirectly causes fatal accident. If the pilot could not prevent the plane from stall or recover stall condition, he/she would not able to react correctly and putting everyone’s life in danger. According to my reading, this is the reason causes most fatal in an accident, pilot suppose to have ability to recover from stall, if they could not recover the plane in a stall condition then they should receive more training. (Bellamy III , 2016)

I ranked fatigue at the second place, because there are several fatal accident are directly caused by fatigue and fatigue will affect the judge and decision making process of an pilot during emergency situation. And I believe that fatigue is still happens within aviation industry, epically with Cargo industry and smaller operator which on call policies which give pilot very limited time to prepare before they notice that they have a trip.

I ranked medical fitness at 3^rd place because medical fitness became an important issue after German wing accident, because medical fitness is not measuring both physically and mentally. And it is very difficult for pilot to self-reporting their mental health condition.

I ranked reducing distraction as 4^th because I do think most companies have strict policy regarding using personal electronic device during flight, and most of the company’s device for example ipads could be very helpful to pilots if they using it correctly. And I do believe most of the professional pilot will have ability to judge when could be the great time to use their personal devices.

I ranked cockpit image recorder at last is because there are a lot of argument regarding if it is appropriate to put image recorder in the cockpit. I do think it is not suppose to belong to the list. There is a lot of argument about the image recorder, firstly the privacy issues, pilots claim that the cameras in the cockpit invade their privacy and there are possibility of miss-using and leak to the public. Also, some pilots believe that adding a camera will create additional stress and affect their decision making process, they feel like there are people watching them while they are making every decisions. Also they feel like the purpose I overlapping with current cockpit voice and flight data recorder which can provide same information that can provided by the image recorder.( Davis, 2014)

Dec 11, 2013 Asiana Airlines flight OZ214 crashed in San Francisco airport, the investigation shows that both of the pilots are significantly lack of experience of operating the 777 aircraft manually, most of their flight hours are operating the plane by auto pilot. I do think NTSB should start making rules for Operators to make sure their pilots are fully trained on how to manually land a plane to prevent from similar accident happening as auto pilot are taking over most part of the flight. (Martinez, 2014)

I do think FAA will be taking action on fatigue because it is a very serious problem, which caused a lot of accident, and there are still a lot of violation and companies with bad scheduling policies especially in cargo industry. However fatigue is not only happening within pilots. Fatigue of controller, maintenance technician might also cause accident. FAA should definitely start taking actions to prevent operating under fatigue. 

Bellamy, W., III. (2016, January 14). NTSB's 5 Most Wanted Aviation Safety Improvements in 2016 retrieved from: http://www.aviationtoday.com/av/commercial/NTSBs-5-Most-Wanted-Aviation-Safety-Improvements-in-2016_86948.html#.Vwr8cRIrImJ

Davies, A. (n.d.). Why pilots dislike being on cockpit cam. Retrieved from http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-07/11/mh370-cockpit-camera

Martinez, M. (n.d.). Asiana Flight 214 Crash Anniversary. Retrieved 2016, from http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/06/us/california-asiana-plane-crash-anniversary/

AAAE & GAAC

According to my research, there are two organizations that is important and interesting for me to join in my future carrier path. The first one is AAAE, which stands for American Association of Airport Executive, and the second one would be GAAC, which stand for General Aviation Airport Coalition. These two associations is directly related to my future career path as an airport manager. 

The AAAE is founded in 1928, it is a professional organization for Airport executives and manager personnel at public and general aviation airport, the purpose of the organization is to provide industry service through professional development including training, conference and accreditation program. (AAAE, 2016)Within the industry, they are the representing of the airport manager, it is a great platform to provide training, meeting and update with industry news and issues. It is also a great place to communicate with different members from the different parts of the world to exchange experiences. They also have foundations to provide scholarship for Aviation management student. (AAAE, 2016)

The second association is GAAC it is less popular compare to AAAE, it is a association mainly representing General Aviation airports, the purpose is to promote GA to the public about their economic impact, Unify the voice of GA airports to support legislation and policies that benefit GA airports and share experience for day to day operation of GA airport. (GAAC, 2015) Within the aviation industry, GA is definitely a very large and important sector. As a GA airport manager it is always important to let the community to understand the benefited of the GA airport to the society, since most people still think GA is mainly benefiting wealthy populations.

AAAE and GAAC are very good association since it can provide valuable experience, knowledge and training for my future carrier. Also it is updating with current affair and always keep me alert and update with industry trend and news. For GAAC it is the manager’s responsibility to let the community recognize the benefit of the GA airport, it is helping to promote GA to the society which is very helpful to the industry.

AAAE Foundation and Scholarships. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.aaae.org/aaae/AAAEMBR/About_AAAE/AAAE_Foundation/AAAEMemberResponsive/About_AAAE/AAAE_Foundation/AAAE_Foundation.aspx?hkey=efc9c7ef-70e7-4245-ad09-39614d2c6c38

About AAAE. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.aaae.org/aaae/AAAEMBR/About_AAAE/AAAEMemberResponsive/About_AAAE/About_AAAE.aspx?hkey=17fa23bc-bfe6-4589-9c8b-c362c1e7c303

About GAAC. (n.d.). Retrieved April 03, 2016, from http://www.gaairportcoalition.org/

Made in China, Using in China

There's a very interesting critics made by Chinese aviation experts, how would you know if Chinese made aircrafts are safe? just look at if government leaders are willing to travel on C919. Even if it is irony made by Chinese public, but for many years the label “Made in China” on most of the products  might always stands for cheap and low quality. For year Chinese aircraft manufacture COMAC is aiming to get certification for its current product ARJ21 and on coming product C919, getting a certified by FAA will be recognition of quality and standard and giving the public more confident to travel on the Chinese made aircraft. I would say this is a first step mad by COMAC and they are catching up very quickly, they used 10 years to accomplished something that took Boeing for more than 50 years.   

In my opinion, it is still too early to say if the C919 will be able to get certified by FAA, as the aircraft was recently rolled out, and the testing was not even started yet. The detailed of the result of test flight will able to determine if the plane can be certified. It is way too early to tell. However according to COMAC’s previous product regional airliner ARJ21-700. (COMAC, n,d) Which is still under testing stage after it has been rolled out nearly 10 years, we could see that there are a lot of challengers for COMAC to get certified by FAA.

So far I do not see any impact on U.S carrier even if it is certified, I do not see the market of the C919 in the U.S.  As we can see most of the U.S carrier are loyal to their current customer. Delta is still prefer Airbuses, AA is still prefers Boeing. For Low cost carriers it is cost saving for them to keep small varieties of their fleets, for example southwest is keeping their fleet all 737 series and Spirit is keeping their fleet all in A320 series. So I do not see a big opportunity for C919 to enter U.S market, unless it involves with politic trades.

As we can see, most buyers of C919 are not even airliner carrier; they are mostly government owned financing institute of China for example ABC (Agricultural bank of Chinese) 50 aircrafts, CBC (Construction bank of China) 30 aircrafts, (Chiu, 2014), will they ever receive their aircrafts? Do they have to pay for the orders? Who knows?

So lets take a look at order placed by Chinese carriers, Chinese top 5 carriers, Air china, Chinese Eastern, China Southern, Hainan airlines, Xia men airlines, each placed 20 aircrafts orders. (Chiu,2014) Since these companies are all government subsidies it is still very suspicious if these orders are involved with politic mission, how about lets take a look at biggest Chinese carrier China Eastern, they are currently operating 161 Airbus A320 aircraft which is the direct competitor of C919, and they are receiving 131 more of both newest airbus newest narrow body products A320NEO, which make them the biggest a320 operator in the world and they also recently place a 60 Boeing 737-800 orders. Compared to the 20 aircrafts order placed fro C919, it is very east to tell which products Chinese carrier prefers more. (Sinodefence, 2015)

Finally, Both Boeing and Airbus did not directly response to the roll out of C919, as we can see C919 is still in a very early stage of product. It still requires many years of testing flight before It can officially put into service. Furthermore as we can see so far c919 did not create any impact to both Boeing and airbus,. Chinese carrier still placing huge order china Southern placed a 110 aircraft over 10 billions, and Chinese Eastern placed 7.9 billion with 80 737 and 20 777-300. (Krishnamoorthy ,2015)

China's Long March to the 'Big Jet Club' (2015). Retrieved from http://sinodefence.com/2015/12/12/chinas-long-march-to-the-big-jet-club/

Chiu, J. (n.d.). China's Comac Gets More C919 Jet Orders. Retrieved March 27, 2016, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-comac-gets-more-c919-jet-orders-1415693564

Comac Product list. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://english.comac.cc/products/rj/pi2/

Krishnamoorthy, A. (n.d.). Boeing Secures $4.6 Billion China Eastern Plane Order. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-09/boeing-secures-4-6-billion-china-eastern-order-for-new-aircraft

Flying cheap vs Flying professional

The current status of regional airline industry is that the profit margin is getting lower, which mains it is harder and harder to make profit from the regional operations, according to my research, Delta CEO mentions that most of the 50 seats regional jets for example CRJ-200 series and EMB145. They requires 150% loading factors to make money, (CAPA, 2015) the estimation show that the retirement of 50 and lower seats regional aircraft will be significantly increasing.

In terms of pilot shortage, I believe it is real and it is not only happening in U.S but all around the world, especially according to the number of new pilot will be entering the industry. The industry will be facing a significant shortage of pilots. It is not hard to find the reason, firstly pilot is a highly processioned job, and it take a long time and high cost to fully trained and qualified pilots. Yet the standard can’t be lowered even if it is facing a shortage due to the high safety requirement for the industry. The shortage of pilot is more critical within the regional industry, since it is more stressful, low paid, and many pilot was taking it as a temporary job to gain more flight hours. (Smith, 2016) according to the statistic from Forbes, the pilot demand for the next 20 years is about 95000, however the maximum supply for 1500 hour fully trained pilots will be at 65000( Anderson, 2016)  the shortage is real, but it is definitely avoidable. There are people who is very poisoned about flying, however it requires mainline carrier, regional carrier and the flight school to cooperate together, to come out with better program for the next generation to believe that being a pilot is not as hard as they thought, the goal is achievable.

The new regulation increase the requirement for flight hour and certification for entry level pilots, which requires at 1500 hours to be hired and 250 hours as in commercial pilot certification. However before the Colgan air accident, the pilots can be hired to a regional airlines within hour as little as 350 hours. ( Smith 2016) most of the pilots take the regional airlines as an opportunity to gain hours fill up the gap between commercial certification and being hired by mainline carrier. After the regulation, they have spent much more money for training to get enough hours to be hired. I think increasing wage is not the only solution, the regional carrier should world coefficient with flight school, provide scholarship and financial aid to students to complete the 1500 hour training requirement. They could also provide student with student loan service, which they can pay the airline back from their future wage after they gets hired. it will also guaranty a position if they could complete the train with qualified score. Which gives whole lot more confident to for students to choose pilot as their career path.

In terms of unions, other than ALPA, there are several different kind of union for different type of aviation employees, according to my research on Southwest airlines, they gave a very detail chart about different work group and which unions they belongs to. Ramp, operations cargo, provisioning employees belongs to TWU (transport workers union). Pilots belongs to ALPA and SWAPA (South West Airlines Pilots Association). Mechanic Inspectors controllers, belongs to AMFA (Aircraft Mechanic Fraternal Association. Flight attendant are belongs to AFA (association of Flight attendants) (Southwest, 2016)

In my own word, I will define professionalism as “ completing all task and jobs according to professional expectations by using knowledge’s and appropriate skills ” In the documentary it is very obvious that both management and pilot did not demonstrate professionalism. As we all know, safety is the top priority for aviation industry, as a professional airline worker, safety of crew and passengers are the first factor we have to concern, one of the way that the management of colgan air demonstrates unprofessionalism is that they are placing probability on top of safety, some of their cost saving strategy was strongly affecting the safety of operation, for example hiring unqualified and less experienced pilots. Upgrading inexperienced pilot into captain position. Assigning flight missions to pilot without making sure they have appropriate amount of resting time, which causes operating under influence of fatigue. The second way if that the captain of the Colgan air 3407 clearly know that his qualification was strongly questionable, due the failure of different check ride, he clearly know about the standard and qualification of being a captain, however he decided to hide some of his record upon hiring by Colagn air, which could be an good explanation of he reacted wrong during the stall condition.

 I do agree that the pay of the first year pilot is contributing to un-professionalism, the low wage of the pilot is definitely a cost saving strategy for regional carriers, also according to the documentary, some of the pilot mentions that they are only get paid after the plane leaves the ground. The delays and cancellation of flights will strongly affect how much they are getting paid, this is definitely a cause of un-professionalism. It is very important for a pilot to make go and no-go decision professionally and the first concern should always be safety of operation, however the fact of not getting paid due to delay and cancellation will cause un-professionalism when they are making the decision, to take the risk to operate the plane under dangerous conditions. Just because they did not get paid enough. And also a lot of pilot will risk to fly the plane under the influence of fatigue, just because they are not getting paid enough and they want get more hours.

After I entered aviation industry, the first way that I plan to maintain my professionalism is to ensure, not only me but all my co-workers will be making all operational decisions by putting safety of crew and passengers on the top of the priority, because this is the way everyone are expecting us to be, nothing is more valuable of lives of human beings. Secondly I will make sure all of the operations will be conducting following the rule and regulations.

Anderson, B. (n.d.). Pilot Shortage Threatens To Slow U.S. Airline Growth. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverwyman/2016/01/28/pilot-shortage-threatens-to-slow-u-s-airline-growth/#660da69fbb6e

Labor Relations, South West Airlines. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://swamedia.com/channels/labor-relations/pages/labor-relations

Smith, P. (n.d.). Fact and Fallacy of the “Pilot Shortage”. Retrieved from http://www.askthepilot.com/pilot-shortage/

U.S. Regional airline restructuring Part I: Is consolidation inevitable  or essential? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://centreforaviation.com/analysis/us-regional-airline-restructuring-part-i-is-consolidation-inevitable--or-essential-217004