With the worldwide fleet of Boeing Co. (BA) 787s grounded
due to battery fires, Air India Ltd. pilot Anjum Chabra turned to rap to lament
his fate.
Enlarge image
A cameraman films an Air India Ltd. Boeing Co. 787
Dreamliner at the India Aviation 2012 conference at Begumpet Airport in
Hyderabad. Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg
.
“Ain’t no flight for me here so ain’t no Singapore, ain’t
no casino for me so there’s no money no more,” he sang in a video he posted on
YouTube. “What kind of pilot am I, who sits at home most of the time never gets
to fly.”
Watch: The Air India Rap video on YouTube. Warning:
Contains strong language.
His plight is shared by Dreamliner pilots across the
industry since the planes were grounded on Jan. 16. Pilots, who spend weeks
training for new aircraft, usually don’t fly more than one type of plane at the
same time to reduce the risk of mistakes in different cockpits. With no end in sight
for the planes to resume service, they are passing their time practicing in
flight simulators and speaking to students.
“When you don’t know when the aircraft will be ready to
fly again, you don’t want to cross that bridge of putting them on to another
aircraft,” said Peter Harbison, executive chairman at the Sydney-based CAPA
Centre for Aviation. “There will be an array of issues in putting them on other
planes.”
Experts are still investigating the cause of a
lithium-ion battery fire on a Japan Airlines Co.-operated Dreamliner in Boston
in January, and an emergency landing by a 787 plane flown by All Nippon Airways
Co. later that month. The incidents led to their global grounding, the first
time in 34 years that an entire airplane model has been pulled from service.
Permanent Solution
Boeing last month submitted a permanent solution for the
battery problem to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to get the plane
back in service. The proposal will require extensive testing even if approved
before regulators end the plane’s grounding, the U.S.’s top aviation official
said.
Dreamliner pilots at All Nippon Airways Co. (9202), the
biggest operator of 787s, have been visiting school children to talk about
their jobs since their planes have been grounded.
They went to Den-En Chofu University near Tokyo last
month where they talked to 120 children, mostly six, seven and eight-
year-olds. Pilots have also been taking training lessons and using the flight
simulators in their free time, said Megumi Tezuka, an airline spokeswoman.
ANA, whose 17 787s make up about 7 percent of its fleet,
has canceled 3,601 flights through the end of May, affecting 167,820
passengers. It has about 200 pilots qualified to fly the Dreamliner, said
Tezuka. The Tokyo-based carrier said in January the grounding of the fleet cut
sales by 1.4 billion yen ($15 million) that month.
Huge Problem
All Nippon shares rose 1.1 percent to 193 yen in Tokyo
trading today, extending the gains this year to 6.6 percent. Boeing climbed less
than 0.1 percent to $78.71 at 10:33 a.m. in New York.
JAL has 130 certified pilots who are observing flights on
other planes and doing drills to maintain their skills, said Jian Yang, a
spokesman with the carrier. The company, which has seven 787s in its fleet,
isn’t training any new pilots, he said. Last month, the airline said the flight
cancellations would cut sales by 1.1 billion yen in revenue through the end of
March.
Air India pilot Chabra also complained about money in the
song. An Air India spokesman confirmed Chabra was a pilot with the state-run
company. He couldn’t be reached for comments.
United Continental Holdings Inc. (UAL) has about 125
pilots that have completed training for the planes, Christen David, a
spokeswoman for the Chicago-based carrier, said in an e-mail. Some of the
carrier’s 787 pilots are able to return to the planes they were flying earlier
if they were still “current” on those airplanes, said Jay Pierce, chairman of
the Continental chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association.
No Spare Planes
It’s a “huge problem for the airlines that have already
taken delivery of those aircraft,” said International Air Transport
Association’s Chief Executive Officer Tony Tyler. “Until the problem has been
resolved we won’t see those aircraft operated.”
The airlines most likely don’t have enough spare planes
for the 787 pilots to fly even if they were retrained for other models, said
CAPA’s Harbison.
“The pilots are surplus to needs at the moment,” he said.
“The gaps have been filled so they aren’t needed.”
Pilots spend two to three months learning to fly 787s,
depending on what planes they flew beforehand, ANA’s Tezuka said. The airline
isn’t considering having the pilots fly other aircraft as it expects the
grounding won’t be long-term, she said.
Pay Cut
ANA pilots’ salaries are being cut by about 20 percent,
compared with when they were flying, as they lose night time and long distance
travel allowances, said Toshikazu Nagasawa, a director at the Air Line Pilots’
Association of Japan, which has about 4,500 pilots as members. JAL pilots are
losing about 30 percent, as they have a different payment structure, he said.
Last week, Japan’s transport ministry said that pilots
who are required to take yearly flight tests on their airplanes will not lose
their 787 licenses if they can’t be checked due to the grounding of the
Dreamliner.
“We are doing all we can to help determine the cause of
the problem,” Japanese Transport Minister Akihiro Ohta told reporters in Tokyo
last week.
Even after the 787s resume service, Chabra’s return to
the cockpit is not guaranteed.
India’s Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said in an
interview he asked the airline’s chairman to take action against the pilot.
