Little Airlines, Big Ideas

            Two new airline business model concepts that are discussed in Little Airlines, Big Ideas, are by companies like La Compagnie and WOW.  La Compagnie is an airline company that had a pretty smart idea of making their international flights with airplanes that are fully 1^st Class.  They lose the amount of people that can fit on the plane but gain in revenue by not charging some $9,000 per ticket but by charging around $2,000 to $3,000. WOW Airlines is cheap for the ticket, due to them predominantly operating smaller planes.  They make sure that all of their seats are filled in the plane, which usually isn’t a problem due to the price of their tickets.  Even though WOW Airlines has very cheap tickets, they add charges for services like meals, bags, etc. 

            WOW Airlines is based out of Iceland, where they operate A320’s predominantly to Europe and a few East Coast major airports here in the U.S. LaCompagnie is based out of Paris, where they operate 757’s completely equipped for all first class seating.  They fly from Paris to New York.

            I think WOW Airlines will be more successful out of these two due to operating to almost all of Europe.  I feel that although people do love luxurious treatment of first class like La Compagnie offers, but ultimately they will go after cheaper prices and tickets to get them from point A to point B.

            I don’t think these airlines will have a huge effect on the global industry due to not many people even knowing that they exist right now.  The major legacies know that these ultra low cost carriers exist but I feel that they are fearful of them.  They honestly dwarf them and if it comes to the point where more people give a company like WOW Airlines more business it will force the legacies to match or come close to their prices.  I’d much rather fly with a company like Delta where I know maintenance, pilots, etc. is highly kept up and is a well known company verse a company like WOW Airlines or the new Baltia Airlines that all the Flight Technology people know about hanging around Eagle Flight Center.

http://www.jaunted.com/story/2014/9/14/05856/9669/travel/Flight+Review%3A+WOW+Air+to+Iceland+for+Under+$150

Space Tourism

            The Virgin Galactic Spaceship Two plummeted about 10 miles to earth on October 31^st, 2014 after it broke apart in midair.  The crash killed the co-pilot Mike Alsbury and left the captain Peter siebold severely injured but alive.  After doing some research, I found that crash seemed to result from pilot error.  The aircrafts moveable wings were set in a position close to Mach 1, which caused the airplane to break apart and fall out of the sky.

            Space tourism is an idea to commercially take people up into space and tour it.  Space tourism is right around the corner for the U.S. even though the Virgin Galactic Spaceship Two crashed.  The problem will be resolved eventually and flights into space commercially for people will be here before we know it. 

            After searching for space tourism regulations I could not find much accept that on the FAA website there are mentions of vehicle operators, safety related information, medical qualifications for crew and passengers, and life support systems.

http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/human_space_flight_reqs/

            I see space tourism being a reality for the American public in the near future, by 2020 perhaps.  I think it will completely accessible to the American public eventually, but obviously not right away.  Plenty more test flights will be done before that happens I believe. 

            Qualifications to work in the space tourism industry from a pilot’s perspective are the pilot to have a bachelor’s degree and have some experience under his belt in flying jet powered aircraft of at least 1000 hours PIC.  I believe these are bare minimums like anything else and the amount of highly qualified pilots applying will leave the standard higher than this I believe. 

Cargo

            Before the Colgan accident flight requirements for an F.O. were a Multi-Engine Commercial Pilot’s Certificate Instrument Airplane, which requires a minimum of 250 total time hours and 30 hours multi.  Companies were hiring these pilots and typing them in mostly turbo props, but some of them in jets.  After the Colgan Air accident a minimum flight time of 1500 hours total 100 night and 250 cross country came about for the F.O. requirements.  Rest rules have also came about as well that require flight crews to receive certain amounts of hours off for rest for the certain amounts of hours they were working. Rest times start when a pilot checks into their hotel room where as it use to be when the engines shut down.

           

            Cargo carriers follow the older FAR rules of their rest time starting when the engines shut down.  Their rest time is 8 hours from the time they get out of the plane and until the time they start that engines back up. I believe cargo carriers have been excluded from these changes due to them not flying passengers but boxes.  With less lives being at risk there isn’t a huge driven factor to require these new FAR rules to cargo pilots.  The public perception on this is probably un-known considering people outside of aviation only follow major passenger jet flights and I would bet 90% of non aviation folks don’t even know there are new rest rules and hiring minimums.

            I do believe cargo carriers should be included in the new rest regulations.  Flying an airplane being tired and unrested is dangerous none-the-less whether or not there is passengers or boxes on it.  However, I do not think they will be followed if they are implanted into the cargo world.  Working 3 years at an FBO and seeing all the freight dog pilots, they’re stories, etc. I can say that the rest rules they are under right now and duty hour regulations are not being followed with they way they are now.  If you give them even higher restrictions, who’s to say those won’t be followed?  The old rest rules I believed worked fine, I don’t believe it was rest that caused the Colgan accident.  It was two pilots that didn’t know what they were doing.

            If these new rules are inputted into the cargo world of flying this would raise the hiring minimums to young pilots.  They would have to wait until 1500hrs total time to be considered but right now most of them are around 1000 anyway.  I don’t think this would affect my career that much, I’ve seen plenty cargo sides of flying and don’t think I would want to do that type of flying anyway.

LINKS

http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/rulemaking/recently_published/media/2120-AJ58-FinalRule.pdf