How do you monitor flight prices?

[jec6613]

Oh, ok. I thought they were one in the same. But ya, Delta- nonstop.

You can blame the Tenerife crash on some of this mess, "Direct," according to the FAA and EASA now means to proceed directly to your destination airport from your current position and is used in ATC only and not for scheduling. For instance, flying out of Maryland the pilots may receive, "TERPZ then direct," as their routing, indicating to fly over the University of Maryland and then directly to the destination airport. Lots of terms that meant different things in aviation depending on context were re-written to have a single meaning, since it was determined that confusion among non-native English speakers was a major cause of that crash.

The biggest example now is that the word, "Takeoff," may only be used by ATC providing clearance to a departing aircraft and NOT by the aircraft requesting clearance or discussing taking off, in all other contexts the word, "Departure," must be used. An example exchange might be, "American One taxiing for departure to runway zero nine left," to which ATC would reply, "American One you are cleared for takeoff on runway zero nine left."

On the other hand, the OAG still uses the old term for mostly traditional reasons.

It's sometimes sad to think how many of the airline regulations that keep us safe were written in blood, but man are things safe today. Even 15 years ago, the 737MAX would not have been grounded for the two crashes that occurred since both would not have occurred had the PIC followed established procedures. And we know this because 15 years ago Airbus aircraft were fallout of the sky at an alarming rate due to pitot tube issues causing the fly by wire system to malfunction, and they weren't grounded (though Boeing has always been held to a higher standard than Airbus).

 

[SL6827]

You can blame the Tenerife crash on some of this mess, "Direct," according to the FAA and EASA now means to proceed directly to your destination airport from your current position and is used in ATC only and not for scheduling. For instance, flying out of Maryland the pilots may receive, "TERPZ then direct," as their routing, indicating to fly over the University of Maryland and then directly to the destination airport. Lots of terms that meant different things in aviation depending on context were re-written to have a single meaning, since it was determined that confusion among non-native English speakers was a major cause of that crash.

The biggest example now is that the word, "Takeoff," may only be used by ATC providing clearance to a departing aircraft and NOT by the aircraft requesting clearance or discussing taking off, in all other contexts the word, "Departure," must be used. An example exchange might be, "American One taxiing for departure to runway zero nine left," to which ATC would reply, "American One you are cleared for takeoff on runway zero nine left."

On the other hand, the OAG still uses the old term for mostly traditional reasons.

It's sometimes sad to think how many of the airline regulations that keep us safe were written in blood, but man are things safe today. Even 15 years ago, the 737MAX would not have been grounded for the two crashes that occurred since both would not have occurred had the PIC followed established procedures. And we know this because 15 years ago Airbus aircraft were fallout of the sky at an alarming rate due to pitot tube issues causing the fly by wire system to malfunction, and they weren't grounded (though Boeing has always been held to a higher standard than Airbus).

Wonder which one is actually safer? Right now the flights I need for December are listed on an Airbus.

 

[jec6613]

Wonder which one is actually safer? Right now the flights I need for December are listed on an Airbus.

Neither Airbus nor Boeing talk much about safety, but if you pull incident statistics for the last 10 years here's the breakdown:

USA: Neither/both are safer. There hasn't been a crash of a transport category passenger aircraft in over 10 years on a US carrier, and the only fatality was caused by an Engine used by both Boeing and Airbus.
UK/Most of mainland Europe, Australia, Japan: Boeing, by a slight margin.
Rest of world: Airbus, by a slight margin.

The more interesting statistic comes to pilot training and rest time. There is a strong correlation between mandated pilot training and rest periods being longer and more thorough and Boeing aircraft being safer, while with Airbus there is a much weaker correlation.

It's been postulated that the reason is the difference in cockpit control design philosophies between the manufacturers, and that while Airbus tries to hide much of what the aircraft is doing from the PIC and SIC and is basically flying a video game, to the point where on most of them only one joystick is active at a time, a Boeing aircraft even if fly by wire still moves controls as though you were physically connected by wires to the controls of the aircraft. Even the autopilot and autothrottle follow that philosophy: Airbus simply has an autothrottle position on the throttle that you move them to and the computer handles throttles, while a Boeing physically moves the throttles so that a pilot can tell at a glance what the computer is doing. That different control philosophy has other trickle down effects, such as what happens if an engine fails. In an Airbus, the computer compensates automatically and you fly the plane as normal, while in a Boeing the pilot flying must input rudder to counteract the yawing caused by mismatched thrust. Obviously, the Airbus is going to be easier to fly for many pilots in this case, but a Boeing will better expose the aircraft's degraded flight envelope to the pilot flying and allows a more trained and experience pilot better control of the aircraft.

But those are all just theories as to why it's the case, neither manufacturer would benefit from any research being done into it, so they don't.

It's very interesting reading so long as you're comfortable with the fact that the most dangerous part of flying is getting to the airport.

 

[SL6827]

Neither Airbus nor Boeing talk much about safety, but if you pull incident statistics for the last 10 years here's the breakdown:

USA: Neither/both are safer. There hasn't been a crash of a transport category passenger aircraft in over 10 years on a US carrier, and the only fatality was caused by an Engine used by both Boeing and Airbus.
UK/Most of mainland Europe, Australia, Japan: Boeing, by a slight margin.
Rest of world: Airbus, by a slight margin.

The more interesting statistic comes to pilot training and rest time. There is a strong correlation between mandated pilot training and rest periods being longer and more thorough and Boeing aircraft being safer, while with Airbus there is a much weaker correlation.

It's been postulated that the reason is the difference in cockpit control design philosophies between the manufacturers, and that while Airbus tries to hide much of what the aircraft is doing from the PIC and SIC and is basically flying a video game, to the point where on most of them only one joystick is active at a time, a Boeing aircraft even if fly by wire still moves controls as though you were physically connected by wires to the controls of the aircraft. Even the autopilot and autothrottle follow that philosophy: Airbus simply has an autothrottle position on the throttle that you move them to and the computer handles throttles, while a Boeing physically moves the throttles so that a pilot can tell at a glance what the computer is doing. That different control philosophy has other trickle down effects, such as what happens if an engine fails. In an Airbus, the computer compensates automatically and you fly the plane as normal, while in a Boeing the pilot flying must input rudder to counteract the yawing caused by mismatched thrust. Obviously, the Airbus is going to be easier to fly for many pilots in this case, but a Boeing will better expose the aircraft's degraded flight envelope to the pilot flying and allows a more trained and experience pilot better control of the aircraft.

But those are all just theories as to why it's the case, neither manufacturer would benefit from any research being done into it, so they don't.

It's very interesting reading so long as you're comfortable with the fact that the most dangerous part of flying is getting to the airport.

Very interesting read, thanks. But let me post another question. Right now I am pretty certain of the exact dates, times I want to book to fly. Right now they are both on an Airbus, which is OK. Any chance that could change to a Boeing plane or is it "usually" set in stone?

 

[jec6613]

Very interesting read, thanks. But let me post another question. Right now I am pretty certain of the exact dates, times I want to book to fly. Right now they are both on an Airbus, which is OK. Any chance that could change to a Boeing plane or is it "usually" set in stone?

It depends on the airline and route, but it's usually fixed. Southwest runs a 100% Boeing fleet, Frontier and Spirit are 100% Airbus, and the legacies run mixed fleets with primarily Boeing.

Unless there's some major equipment problem or a wholesale route change the aircraft manufacturer at least is set in stone, though they may re-gauge to a different model. Airbus and Boeing crews, both pilots and FAs, aren't interchangeable, so getting the wrong crew to the wrong place ends up being problematic for the airline, far beyond the aircraft being there - they can easily end up without a crew to bring the aircraft back if they run over hours, or without nearby engineering facilities in case something breaks. So while hubs are dual manufacturer, very few spoke airports will run both manufacturers.