747 @ Schipol

Here's the 747 that kindly and without breaking sweat transported me the 5500 miles from Amsterdam to LA on Tuesday, sitting in the snow at Schipol prior to the journey.

Without doubt the most beautiful airliner ever, this shot was an attempt to somehow capture the grace and massiveness of it.

The evolution of a Ryanair fare

Thinking about a flight in Europe? Why not choose Ryanair, the self-appointed "low-fares airline"?

Now the thing is, Ryanair was cheap - you could get genuinely rock-bottom fares, reasonable service (well, it was good enough!), it ran to time, check-in bags were free, and so on. Well things have changed - and with the airline industry in turmoil, and Ryanair cutting routes and grounding planes this year, it does somehow seem that they are pushing passengers to squeeze the last bit of margin out that they can, and see how far they can go before they strangle the golden goose.

I decided to have a look for a return flight from Dublin to Edinburgh recently, and see how it stacked up.

So first step - give lots of notice - so I chose October, a clear 3 months away. Secondly, shop around for a cheap day, and a cheap fare. And I got them - going out on a Friday, and back on a Sunday no less!

So what is the fare? €9.99 each way. €19.98 total - beautiful!

Well... not quite. You see, I forgot that that does not include "taxes and fees". It turns out that "Taxes and Fees" amount to €33.37 on the way out, and €30.65 on the way back! Hold on - that means my €19.98 fare is now €84?

If only.

Here's the breakdown of the extra taxes and fees for both directions:

And nicely summarised:

Ok, I see the Taxes/Fees (whatever they are - I'll come back to that). But €94? Where did the extra €10 come from?

That would be the Ryanair web check in scam. A bit of history needed here...

On Ryanair flights originally you checked in at an airport checkin desk, like a normal flying human. Then, they brought in the amazing web check in, so that you could print your own boarding pass, thus not needing to check in at the desk at all. Major staff cost-saving for Ryanair! So, to thank the passenger for checking in online and saving the airline money, they gave you a saving (or rather they penalised the normal check in passenger), by making it free to check in online, but introducing a charge for a normal desk check in.

Well, fair enough - a bit mean, but you have the choice. Well not any more - they have just done away with the check in desks altogether. So the vast majority of passengers now have to check in online. Ok, but online check in is free so that's not so bad, right? Wrong - because now that you have no choice, Ryanair charge you €5 per-flight to check in online.

So having saved the staff costs (that means reduced hours or lost jobs to me and you) involved in a check in desk, and bribed you to help them do so by incentivising you to do online check in, Ryanair are now going to stick it to you by charging you €5 per flight, per person, for the privilege of printing your own boarding pass. Brilliant.

While we're on this little scam, here's another thing - the ticket price is €9.99. If I have to online check in, and I have to pay the €5 for my own time and effort in doing it, why is the €5 check in fee not built in to the ticket price? This is the last straw for me with Ryanair - the stage where deliberate opacity becomes outright deception. The €5 is a known, predictable cost, and effectively a non-tax, non-optional part of my ticket price - so it should be built in to the ticket price, so I can see immediately what I'm actually paying.

Next, you'll notice in the above summary of charges image, that there's a little blue link next to the "Taxes/Fees" line item, so that you can get details [sic] on what the taxes and fees are. Me being the curious sort, I clicked on it - and here is the genius explanation of the taxes and fees that go to make up the €33.37 on the outbound flight:


So, for those that are curious about how the €33.37 Taxes and Fees break down, this should forever answer all your questions. €27.38 of that "Taxes and Fees" total is... Tax and Fees. I'm not sure it could be more of a deliberate non-explanation if it tried. Either Ryanair have mislabeled the window, and €27.38 is pure tax - OR they are deliberately or otherwise concealing the fees details from the customer.

As for the €5.99 "Insurance/Wheelchair Levy/Aviation Insurance", I have a couple questions - firstly, why are two types of Insurance listed, and secondly, if this is a constant cost, why is it not included in the basic ticket price?

Anyway, with my €19.98 ticket running at €94, it's time to get this thing booked before I choose "Priority Boarding" or something stupid.

So - it's on to baggage and Insurance (hold on - haven't I been charged for two types of insurance already?). Anyway:
Trying to keep costs down, I decide to check in no bag, and take no travel insurance. (Incidentally, a single check in bag would be €10 each way, catapulting my ticket to €114). As for the travel insurance, it no longer selects travel insurance by default, but it does make you select from a drop down list, with "No Travel Insurance Required" buried in the middle. Maybe ok for younger types like me, but the no-insurance option should really be the default - for an older person trying to book a flight, what are the chances of them inadvertently purchasing and paying for travel insurance they don't need?

Ok, so we are done - time to check out. The checkout section is ready to go, showing our €94 total:


So I choose to pay by Visa...


And it's suddenly €104. Another extra €10. And the explanation for this, would be what exactly?

Oh - it's a handling fee. One of those handling fees that only applies to a Visa transaction (although there are lower fees for bank debit cards etc). The thing that I cannot figure out, is this: if it's a charge for going through Visa, then how come this charge is applied once for every person, for every flight? For instance, if I buy a return for two people, I'm charged four Visa handling charges!

Are Ryanair so inefficient that they process my card two separate times to get the payment for a return flight? (I checked my statement, no they are not - they are simply charge you two Visa handling fees, for one Visa transaction)

Anyway, flight booked, and I can only be glad that I started out with the cheap €9.99 fare.

Because even with no check-in bags, online check-in only, no travel insurance, and no priority boarding, a €19.98 ticket is equal to a €104 charge when you fly with Ryanair the "Low Fares [sic] Airline"

Live ATC Radar

Ok, so it's not the actual radar image the ATC guys get, but it's still pretty cool.

You can watch live radar of JFK airport traffic (as in flying traffic) in New York here...

Here's a JFK example - you can see the arrivals (blue planes) getting routed out over the Atlantic to circle and lose height, then coming back in to Kennedy "in trail".

Green aircraft are the departures. Anything else, isn't a JFK related aircraft (but most of those are for the adjacent La Guardia or Jersey airports)


LAX (Los Angeles) is also available, here...

Here's an LAX screenshot - lots of parallel-runway departures out over Santa Monica bay in green, and a great illustration of the routes they come in on for the parallel landing runways. Most flights from the East and South end up coming in over the East of the city, and getting lined up for one of the southerly two runways. Aircraft from the North and West (which means most flights from Europe) come in over Malibu and Santa Monica, and fly a U-turn just past LA city centre, to line up for the northerly runway.

So if live JFK and LAX radar doesn't satisfy your plane geek factor, why not hook up your audio with the accompanying ATC transmissions?

LAX tower is here, and JFK tower is here.

Air France 447

The disaster involving Air France flight 447 is a very odd one. A widebody airliner, running a regular scheduled oceanic flight, suddenly dissapears with no distress calls. A debris field has been found, so it seems certain that the aircraft is destroyed - whether this happened prior to or after contact with the water is to be determined.

I've been sifting the web - there are a million theories out there, but here's a super-condensed version of what seems to be known, and the most reasonable conjectures out there.

Firstly - what seems to be known (with UTC times).

A couple of notes - aircraft fly 'routes' in the sky that are marked with 'waypoints' at specific locations. Over the ocean, there is no radar coverage (it only extends a certain distance from land due to the horizon). So normal procedure is to radio in to Air Traffic Control as you pass a waypoint, advise them of where you are, and advise them of your estimated time at the next waypoint. These reports from aircraft allow ATC to track aircraft they cannot see, and to keep adequate separation between aircraft over the ocean.

The waypoint TASIL mentioned below is the halfway waypoint between South America and Africa. At this point, the flight would be 'handed over' from Atlantico ATC (CINDACTAIII - covering the South American side) to Dakar ATC (covering the African side). HF radio communications over the ocean can be a bit tricky, and other pilots have indicated problems in establishing communications when transitioning from Atlantico to Dakar, so just because no radio transmissions were received, does not mean that none were made.

22:03 (19:03 local) The Aircraft (An Airbus A330) left Rio de Janeiro, heading for Paris Charles de Gaulle

01:33 Flight reports to Atlantic Area Control as it overflew the INTOL waypoint, indicating it expects to arrive at the TASIL waypoing at 02:20

01:48 AF447 leaves the radar of CINDACTAIII at Fernando de Noronha, as expected. The aircraft is flying at 35,000 feet, and 453 knots as it leaves radar coverage.

02:20 The aircraft fails to report at waypoint TASIL. Atlantico ATC raise the alarm, and inform Dakar ATC also.

05:33 No further radio or radar contacts from the aircraft. A search is initiated by the Brazilian authorities.

The above, seems to be fact. What follows is less solid - but it seems to me the "most useful" info and the "most likely" scenarios that I can glean from the torrent of information, theory, supposition, and wild-eyed conspiracy flying around.

According to the Aviation Herald, "sources within Air France" suggest that the aircraft emitted a stream of ACARS messages, starting at 02:10 and ending at 02:14. (ACARS is a system for transmission of simple, short messages between the aircraft and ground, which can also be automatic). The unconfirmed sequence of ACARS messages is alleged to be:

02:10 Autopilot had disengaged, fly by wire system had changed to Alternate Law
02:11-02:13 A flurry of messages issued indicating faults with both ADIRU and ISIS systems
02:13 PRIM 1 and SEC 1 faults indicated
02:14 An advisory is issued regarding "cabin vertical speed".

The final ACARS report on "cabin vertical speed" pretty much speaks for itself. The most interesting one is the first one - the deselection of Autopilot, and the selection of "Alternatve Law" for the flight control system. Normally on the A330 (and other Airbuses), the flight is controlled by the pilot, via flight control computers (two of which - PRIM 1 and SEC 1 - started to get cranky at 02:13). Normally there are quite a few protections built in to these computers - they stop you getting the aircraft in too wierd positions, basically.

In "Alternate Law" mode, a lot of the protections are removed - you can stall the aircraft, you can put it in to extreme banks left or right, and you can fly at extreme angles of attack.

What is interesting is, under what circumstances would Alternate Law be engaged? It would seem that it's caused by "multiple failures of redundant systems". One other site suggested that Alternate Law can also be engaged if the aircraft gets in an attitude that is abnormal (i.e. pointed way up or way down, or banked left or right to an extreme degree).

So IF Alternate Law was in fact one of the first problematic ACARS transmissions, it could be supposed that the aircraft was in a highly unusual position *before* the other failures (ADIRU, ISIS, PRIM 1, SEC 1) started.

What could have gotten the plane in a highly unusual position? There's a fantastic weather analysis by Tim Vasquez here (it's a must-read if you are curious about this disaster) which for me comes the closest so far to putting a finger on a likely start to the problems. The plane had to fly through the ITCZ, and the thunderstorms there are not your average animal.

If you combine Vasquez's moving animation of the expected aircraft track, together with the times of the error messages, it does start to look more likely that extreme weather may have been where this problem started.

People are also pointing to the possibility of a dual engine flamout. On another forum, a pilot alleges that the aircraft had CF6 engines, and that they have a history of rollbacks (uncommanded reductions in power), including ones caused by super-cooled water droplets in the vicinity of thunderstorms.

Could it have been a double-engine failure?

Others are pointing out the possibility of a rudder failure, which Airbus may have had a couple of in the past, particularly when extreme rudder deflections are called for from the flight deck. Mabye. In response to extreme weather?

Finally - as of writing it seems to be a debris field of up to 35 miles in length. If that's the case, it strongly suggests the aircraft broke up in the air, not upon impact with the water. That's an interesting investigative point, and also it might provide some small solace to the families of those involved. If the aircraft broke up in the air, it would (together with the very quick flurry of ACARS error messages) point to something going wrong very very quickly.

One thing is for sure - I don't like 2-engined aircraft flying ETOPS long haul flights, no matter how reliable modern engines are. And I definitely don't like fly-by-wire either. Not only is the computer modifying what the pilot is trying to get the aircraft to do, but if for example the pilots were still concious and attempting to control the plane in the 02:10 - 02:14 timeframe, then not only were they trying to cope with extreme weather, and a huge aircraft getting out of control in the dark, but their systems were bombarding them with error messages - Alternate Law engaged, ADIRU faults, ISIS faults, PRIM 1 fault, SEC 1 fault - all this at the same time as trying to figure out what way up they were (it was dark) and how they could rescue the plane.

The area where the debris has been found is several thousand feet deep, and the locating transmitters on the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder only function for 30 days. Let's hope they can find the two boxes before that time is up, and a bit more light can be shed on what happened in the last few minutes of the flight, and doing everything possible to prevent a repeat.

Extreme Crosswinds

Ever been in a plane and thought you had a rough landing? A few bumps from wind are ok - the real fun comes when the wind is blowing sideways across the runway - the hated crosswind. Instead of pointing the plane directly at the runway, you have to cant the nose sideways into the crosswind, and allow the aircraft to effectively crab diagonally forward.

And then the fun part being that as you hit the runway, you have to twist the plane back in line with the runway, so that as the wheels grip, you don't run off sideways due to your diagonal approach. Of course, nothing is more fun than an extreme crosswind landing!

Here's a Korean Airlines 747, which having survived the insane approach to the old Kai-Tak airport at Hong Kong, comes out of the final big turn and then manages to mess up his approach horrifically in quite a light crosswind. This should really have resulted in a go-around, and the pilots insistence in sticking it on the runway only just comes off.

Here's an example of someone getting it very, very wrong in a much smaller Airbus, trying to set down in Hamburg, in a much more extreme crosswind situation.

Having nearly decorated the airfield with the plane, the pilot ultimately does well to perform a go-around and manage to get it back in the air again in one piece.

It puts in perspective what most of us mistakenly call a "rough" landing...