[Phillip Beall]

All,

Some of you have been following my progress to return to flight status with AA.  Some of you have also asked what airplane I fly, the Airbus A320 family (319-320-321) of aircraft.  I tend to fly the smallest one (A319) or the largest one (A321NX) in the fleet because of the type of flying that I do.  The A319 is used into mountain airports, think hotrod performance for the mountains.  I thoroughly enjoy flying into places like Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Kalispell and Missoula, Montana.  The A321NX tends to be used out of DFW to fly to places like Los Angeles or Seattle.  Here are images of each (credit airteamimages.com):

A handful of people have asked questions about the cockpit configuration.  It has a side-stick controller, not the traditional control yoke.  This is the first “fly-by-wire” plane that I have ever flown.  All flight control and engine inputs are made to servos via electrical wires and computers, so that was a real change.  Here is a picture of the cockpit:

Quite different from the McDonnell Douglas MD80 that I flew for AA for 28 years in one seat or the other:

The MD80 was a fine plane, but growing out of the DC9 which was first operated by Delta in 1965, it was antiquated.  Cables and pulleys, 100% analog, a fuel guzzler compared to the newer planes; it was a beast of a plane to fly and extremely complicated with dizzying numbers of switches and by today’s standards a very poor workload design.

All of this leads me to an interesting Wall Street Journal article Demand for Airliners Soars: ‘We Cannot Make Planes Fast Enough’.  Please just click the hyperlink and it will load up a free version of the article.  Last week I asked the #3 management guy if, with the pretty even split of Boeing B737 and Airbus 320 series aircraft we have, did they have any regrets having all our eggs in one basket (Boeing) with our wide body fleet (B777 and B787) after cancelling our A350 options?  He danced a bit, saying that at the time it made sense, but he also said that if I knew someone that could get us a good deal on some they would be happy to revisit the decision.  LOL  If the B737 Max grounding had occurred in another 2-3 years after Southwest had more completely updated their fleet, they may well have been out of business due to lack of planes that were flyable.  As it was, like at AA, they only had about thirty of the planes.  So, while it was painful for both carriers, it was not a show stopper.  I point to that to illustrate that I do not believe AA should ever be wedded to just one manufacturer and one model of plane for any mission.

For any that are interested, that Wall Street Journal article is a really nice primer on the current state of the industry.  From the passenger experience perspective it is, and will likely continue to be, a real hassle at the airport.  Post-911 security screening is intrusive and the boarding process is a real pain too.  Seats are too small and tight and prices have gone up along with demand.  But, you have never had a better choice of destinations, the ride is the quietest it has ever been and the environmental controls (heating and air conditioning) has never worked better.  And last but not least – It has never been safer to fly.  Friends still don’t let friends fly carriers from third world countries or places where they have patronage copilot jobs (ask me), but flying on US carriers; I would put my family in back on any of them.  Even the lowest cost US carriers are simply the safest the industry has ever had.

Hopefully some of you will have found this interesting.  OK, back to studying. LOL

Take care,

Phillip

• This topic was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Phillip Beall. Reason: Made a singular word plural

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