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 

Commercial Space Transportation

The commercial space tourism started at April 28, 2001, the first space tourist American business man Dennis Tito successfully completed his first trip to the space, he payed his own way to the international space station of a Russian spacecraft. The estimated amount of money he spent for this trip was almost about 20million dollars.(Wall, 2011)  Dennis could be consider as the pioneer of the commercial space travel,  now a day there are several companies that are currently operating commercial space tourism business. Only a few of them are currently operating, most of they are in testing and concept stage. There six company that are currently very close from launching and begin their final testing stage which include, SpaceX, Orbital Science, Blue Origin, Bigelow Aerospace, Space dev and Virgin Galactic (Fox, 2010)  The virgin Galactic claim themselves  as the first commercial space travel company, however their recent test flight was ended in a disastrous result. The recent news states that the space X companies had successfully completed their testing flight and landed successfully their falcon 9 aircraft.

According to my research, NASA and FAA will be working together to share responsibility to regulate the commercial spaceflight. In the future FAA will be issuing the license to companies which can provide safety standard for their flight launch. And NASA will be responsible for overseeing and the safety of the operation. (Chow, 2012)  According to FAA, they have an office of commercial space transportation, their responsibility include the licensing launches, permitting  launches, and licensing reentries, safety approval of activities. (FAA, 2015). FAA also published Chapter III, Parts 400 to 460, of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The regulations implement statutory requirements to help to overseeing the safety of operation.

Currently I’m still seeing commercial space travel as a concept, and it is still in the testing process. I can see it may succeed in the future but in turn of opening into general public, I still think it is a leisure experience for billionaires and only very small percentage of general public will be able to afford it. It is definitely different from commercial airlines industry, since airlines industry is providing a transportation service, which is almost mandatory for the public to get around places for different kinds of reasons. However for space travel, it is mainly of leisure and experiences, it is not necessary for general public to travel to the space.

The qualification should be controlled by FAA, which include different type of licensing. Which should be operating under 14 CFR Chapter III (FAA/AST Regulations. For the management side, the operation must be obtaining different type of licenses and approval FAA, which include experimental and launching license, and also safety approval. (FAA, 2015) For pilots, the FAA regulation 14 CFR 406.5 gives detailed explanation of operators the crews must complete all related training, the pilot must carry an FAA pilot certificate with an instrument rating, Receive vehicle and mission-specific training for each phase of flight,  and be Informed with all the risk involved with the operation and competed all emergency situation training. (FAA, 2015) 

Chow, D. (2012, June 18 ). NASA & FAA Set Rules for Private Space Flights. Retrieved from http://www.space.com/16183-commercial-human-spaceflight-nasa-faa-regulations.html

Fox, S. (2010, June 24). 6 Private Companies That Could Launch Humans Into Space. Retrieved from http://www.space.com/8541-6-private-companies-launch-humans-space.html

Licenses & Permits: Commercial Space Transportation. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/licenses_permits/media/Part_400_compilation.pdf

Office of Commercial Space Transportation. (2010, September 03). Retrieved from http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/regulations/

Wall, M. (2011, April 27). First Space Tourist Retrieved from http://www.space.com/11492-space-tourism-pioneer-dennis-tito.html

Who is able to draw the line between fair and unfair? Should the U.S carriers always be the victim?

ME3 also know as Middle Eastern 3, which is the 3 major carriers that are based in Middle Eastern areas, which are Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways and Emirate. ME3 are popular to be known as fastest growing airline, which provide luxury service for international long haul route, with their new and modern fleets. Within the Aviation industry, they are also know as “crazy buyer” of new aircraft, for example Emirates is currently operating more than 100 Boeing 777-300ER aircrafts, and 150more will be delivery to them in the future. (Boeing, 2013) Due to the great geographical location, Middle Eastern Area is growing as the hub around the world. However, one of the important that how are they covering their huge amount of operation cost? It is not hard to find out that ME3 are which they claim as indirectly receiving subsidies from the government(Boarding Area, 2015). As also claim by CEO of Etihad airway that they are currently not making profit and making profit is not their goal of operation (Boarding Area, 2015). The indirect government subsidies cover most of their operation cost, and help them to ignore the probability of their operation and expanding their net work significantly faster than other carriers without worrying about their expense, and also mention by the editor of “boarding time” ME3 are not financially motivated, their intentional is to use the airline industry to put themselves onto the world map and attract trades around the world(Boarding Area, 2015)

According to my research there are no evidence showing that the U.S carriers directly receiving government found. But as we know, aviation is a very costly industry, most of the airlines around the world are soon how receiving indirectly benefits for example fuel tax break. The editor of the “wing views” states that U.S carrier were receiving subsidies during very early stage of the operation, and they are currently might be receiving some tax break. (Leff, 2015) However, the writer claim, U.S carriers are working very closely with government subsidies carrier around the world, especially their Alliance partner, which Delta could be a example of working closely, with China Eastern which is a largely government subsidies Chinese carrier, Delta actually bough 450million worth of stock of China Eastern, which they can potentially receive benefits at expanding Shanghai and Chinese Market. (CNBC, 2015) However the benefit that an U.S carrier could able to receive from government is really tiny comparing to the amount that middle eastern carriers are currently receiving.

According to my research, the export and import bank actually supports foreign company which import U.S aircraft, the export and import bank will be providing the campiness with a lower interest rate for purchasing U.S built aircraft.(Weisman & Lipton, 2015) which can’t be able to provide to the U.S domestic company. I would say it is unfair to the U.S carrier, however this is the strategy use to promote U.S aircraft manufacturing industry, which can boost up the U.S economy. However, it's clearly that the ME3 are taking advantage of it, placing huge order of aircrafts and expend their marker without concerning the cost.

Overall in my opinion, it is clearly unfair for the U.S Companies, since the main objective of ME3 is not making profit, so that they can expand their market regardless if it's profitable. It creates threat toward carriers around the world. However, the problem is who is able to draw the line between fair and unfair? Are U.S and European governments able to do so? It is clear not as simple as battles between carriers, it is involving with trades between government. UAE government support Emirate to place a 150 orders of Boeing next generation 77X, and they currently running a almost 100 777-300er aircraft. For Airbus, they ordered 85 airbuses A380, without such a big order of A380; the A380 project might be bankrupt due to the huge delays. Over 300 U.S built aircrafts, it is huge trade between two countries, it helps to boost up U.S economic in GDP and provide huge amount of job position. So sadly even if it is extremely unfair for U.S carriers, there are very limited amount of action the both U.S and European government would do under the influence of such a big due. Sadly U.S carrier could only be the victim.

Boeing Emirates orders 150 77Xs. (n.d.). Retrieved March 07, 2016, from http://www.boeing.com/commercial/customers/emirates/emirates-announces-an-order-for-150-777xs.page

Delta to buy 3.55% China Eastern stake for $450m. (2015). Retrieved March 07, 2016, from http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/27/delta-to-buy-355-china-eastern-stake-for-450m.html

Should The Big Three Middle Eastern Airlines Be Stopped (2015). Retrieved from http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/02/08/big-three-middle-eastern-airlines-stopped/

US Airlines Have Received More Subsidies than Middle East Ones - View from the Wing. (2015). Retrieved from http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2015/04/08/us-airlines-have-received-more-subsidies-than-middle-east-ones/