|
Thing is, air travel is infrastructure. You can dress it up in the trappings of capitalism, and you can bail it out every 10 years, but it isn't any different than a national highway system. You can sorta-privatize public money and pay a lot of executives a lot of money, but it is still taxpayer money for infrastructure at the end.
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2011 20:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 01:39 |
|
|
BonzoESC posted:What choices do businesses in highly-competitive low-margin industries have? Don't take big risks, competitors take your business. Take big risks, sometimes 9/11 happens or gas prices go up. It's really quite simple - capitalism is creative destruction. If we remove the 'destruction' from it, we're simply susidizing people who can't balance their business. There is no legitimate reason AA couldn't be wound down. Keeping it around means that all the other airlines are still going to be in exactly the same horrible financial shape they've always been. They're just going to get a fresh competitor back who can charge less because they walked away from contracts without punishment. Remember, in Chapter 11 the company itself really doesn't get punished (outside their credit rating, which is essentially meaningless if they get to keep their existing credit to buy new planes). It's only the poor saps with stock who lose out. There needs to be more accountability in upper management to the shareholders, plain and simple. Run a company bankrupt? You're out of a job! Enough with this rant. How much lake would I really need to land and takeoff a loaded beaver or turbine otter? I'm thinking about buying some remote lakefront property and would need to get there by air.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2011 21:17
|
|
|
Anyone have any experience with Iberia? I am thinking of going to Madrid in late April. It will unfortunately be aboard a scarebus 345 but it seems the airline itself is relatively safe.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 00:45
|
|
|
Epic Fail Guy posted:It will unfortunately be aboard a scarebus 345 What's wrong with them?
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 00:53
|
|
|
Advent Horizon posted:There needs to be more accountability in upper management to the shareholders, plain and simple. Run a company bankrupt? You're out of a job! Make rich people...responsible for their actions?! You, sir, are a communist Advent Horizon posted:There is no legitimate reason AA couldn't be wound down. Keeping it around means that all the other airlines are still going to be in exactly the same horrible financial shape they've always been. They're just going to get a fresh competitor back who can charge less because they walked away from contracts without punishment. I don't think bankruptcy laws themselves are the problem. I think it has to do with the American government keeping all the airlines in business after 9/11, instead of letting capitalism weed out the weaker ones. OK, question: in a bankruptcy like this, presumably the people who lent the money to buy the new fleet are going to get paid, right? Otherwise, wouldn't these investors say "No dice, I'm a keepin' the planes?"
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 00:56
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:Make rich people...responsible for their actions?! You, sir, are a communist Bankruptcy protects you from creditors(So they'd keep the money for the planes if it had already been paid to them). No clue how CH 11 bankruptcy works though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 00:58
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:I was reading some essay by Warren Buffet and I do remember him saying every* airline has eventually declared bankrupcy at least once as an example how an entire industry can have pretty poor returns, or in this case, no returns. "If someone had taken the initiative to shoot down the first flight of the Wright Brothers, that person would have rendered a great service to the financial community."
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 01:04
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:OK, question: in a bankruptcy like this, presumably the people who lent the money to buy the new fleet are going to get paid, right? Otherwise, wouldn't these investors say "No dice, I'm a keepin' the planes?" The shareholders are wiped out and the company is divided up amongst the (largest, usually) creditors. Basically the company will be owned by the banks who lent them the money to buy the planes, and they couldn't give a rat's rear end about anything else as long as they get their payments. Thats why labor tennds to eat it the most in these kinds of situations.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 01:16
|
|
|
dissss posted:What's wrong with them? They come from this company: 
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 02:39
|
|
|
Epic Fail Guy posted:Anyone have any experience with Iberia? I am thinking of going to Madrid in late April. I happened to be flying through the new terminal in Madrid the day after opened; was this massive massive open building and virtually empty. All the chairs for the gates had been delivered (the kind where rows of seats are bolted together), but none had been set up- they were just piled up in each gate area. If you wanted to sit down, you had to drag a row of chairs out of the pile. So, there were just these random haphazard arrangements of chairs near some the active gates but piled up in all the others (the terminal was still mostly unused). The workers didn't give a gently caress; they didn't help anyone, and just let them sit like that. Was a bizarre experience... Mostly, though, the terminal just seemed really poorly laid out with lots of wasted space. The super-thin displays they use throughout the new terminal were pretty neat, though. grover fucked around with this message at 11:48 on Dec 1, 2011 |
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 02:40
|
|
|
Epic Fail Guy posted:They come from this company: There's nothing wrong with Airbuses; they're demonstrably no more or less dangerous than any other aircraft flying today. Anyone trying to tell you otherwise is a semi-closeted nationalistic moron.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 03:34
|
|
|
MrChips posted:There's nothing wrong with Airbuses; they're demonstrably no more or less dangerous than any other aircraft flying today. Anyone trying to tell you otherwise is a semi-closeted nationalistic moron. I think they're uglier than the Boeings they tend to be knockoffs of, but other than that they're fine.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 03:38
|
|
|
MrChips posted:There's nothing wrong with Airbuses; they're demonstrably no more or less dangerous than any other aircraft flying today. Anyone trying to tell you otherwise is a semi-closeted nationalistic moron. It's a personal preference. In depth: Airbus flight control systems remove control from the pilots, by design, and only uses flight control inputs to influence one of several "control laws". Each of these "laws" has its own motives, and they are not necessarily pitch + power. This frightens me more than you could ever imagine. Boeing's interpretation of FBW is much more straightforward, and while it doesn't have the fancy features like autotrim, I would rather give more power to the guys with epaulets than millions of lines of computer code.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 04:21
|
|
|
I also think T-tails are rubbish.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 04:21
|
|
|
Look at actual safety recordsEpic Fail Guy posted:I also think T-tails are rubbish. What airbus has a T-tail?
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 04:36
|
|
|
Epic Fail Guy posted:They come from this company: you mean 
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 04:48
|
|
|
They both build nearly identical empty tubes meant for packing cattle in to. You can have a god awful Boeing passenger experience just as quickly as a god awful Airbus experience. I flew in a nearly brand new 777-200ER from LAX to Chicago and it was like a goddamn greyhound bus inside thanks to the lovely interior United bought.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 04:56
|
|
|
Epic Fail Guy posted:It's a personal preference. That's neither particularly true nor particularly convincing, if you ask me. Without going into some very technical details, suffice it to say that both Boeing and Airbus' flight controls act almost exactly the same to one another. The only differences are that an Airbus has somewhat more automatic functions in its normal mode compared to a Boeing aircraft, Airbus aircraft use somewhat different (but not all that different to Boeing, and also not inappropriate) flight envelope protection, and a different (but no less appropriate) philosophy to pilot feedback. I know a number of pilots who have flown Boeing and Airbus FBW aircraft, and despite what your average Airliners.net sperglord will try to tell you, their preferences are decidedly even, and vary more based on performance and other aspects than on the minute details of how the FBW controls work.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 05:08
|
|
|
I know pilots who prefer flying E-3s to Airbuses. [/random anecdote]
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 11:44
|
|
|
Advent Horizon posted:
With a good STOL wing and a powerful engine, not much water at all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8c2gxlw0MU The Zenith CH701 in the video and its newer LSA-spec version, the 750, can't carry the weight you might need if you're considering a turbine Otter, but I really like them. Great performance for very little money. Also, an old chestnut with regards to aviation business: The best way to make yourself a small fortune in aviation is to start with a big one.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 13:48
|
|
|
Epic Fail Guy posted:Ahahaha like 6 days after I buy tickets for St. Maarten AMR files bankruptcy this owns so hard
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 15:24
|
|
|
Epic Fail Guy posted:I also think T-tails are rubbish. Now you're just crazy. T-tails are things of beauty.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 15:48
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:I was reading some essay by Warren Buffet and I do remember him saying every* airline has eventually declared bankrupcy at least once as an example how an entire industry can have pretty poor returns, or in this case, no returns. Not having been through chapter 11 means you're at a disadvantage because you haven't been able to dump your employee/retiree obligations - i.e. gently caress over your staff as badly as everyone else. This has been an unacknowledged (by debtors!) driver behind chapter 11 in many industries with "legacy issues" relating to collective bargaining, final-salary pensions, retiree health care. For example, mining, heavy industry and the airlines. The reason it's unacknowledged (aside from the lousy PR) is that the relevant Bankruptcy Code provisions require modifications to these sorts of rights to be measures of last resort. In a chapter 11, shareholders get paid last, but depending on the stock price those shares weren't worth anything anyway. And once the company becomes insolvent, even if the balance sheet really is good, they have no value outside of an insolvency proceeding because the assets can't practically be realised without one. The people who get dicked the most in the short term in a chapter 11 tend to be unsecured trade creditors (or employees, but this depends on how much each employee is actually owed and how employable they are). Senior secured creditors - usually a bank or syndicate of banks with these big companies - tend to get dicked the least because they not only have priority, but they tend to be the best informed creditors (if their employees are doing their jobs) and they have the ability to seriously impede or scupper a chapter 11 they disapprove of. A board of directors does not want to have a fight with the bank/s unless it's absolutely unavoidable. The company will probably be paying the bank's legal fees, for one thing. In terms of the value of having Chapter 11 available, and more specifically coupling this with the principle of a debtor-in-possession, where the debtor's management continues to make decisions without the say-so of a Chapter 11 trustee (this is not actually in the code), this is something that has been debated way above most goons' payscales without any firm conclusions having been arrived at. Congress and many insolvency professionals would argue that that point of chapter 11 is to preserve going-concern value, and therefore to maximise the value to creditors while at the same time providing the best possible outcome for trade creditors and employees (because they are most likely to be able to recoup their losses in future if the company survives as a coherent unit that can buy stuff and employ the same people). On the other hand, people have argued (per Advent Horizon) that the effect tends to be to keep dysfunctional and uncompetitive businesses afloat, and that the cost of obtaining chapter 11 protection (because the debtor has to justify anything of substance that it does in front of the bankruptcy court, as well as ultimately getting creditor approval) is uneconomical. Attempts have been made to support both sides with lies, damned lies and statistics - for example, showing that companies that go through a chapter 11 tend to go bankrupt again or otherwise perform poorly - but to the best of my knowledge there is no clearly acknowledged answer. Even if this is the case, for example, does this represent a worse outcome for all stakeholders? It is worth noting that, setting aside the macro-level concerns about the effect of preserving crappy businesses, many of the complaints you will hear about chapter 11 actually have little or nothing to do with the Bankruptcy Code at all. Although there are priorities for payment in bankruptcy, the relative status of lease creditors (lessors), various classes of secured creditors, unsecured creditors, employees and shareholders don't fundamentally alter the position outside of bankruptcy. And in fact, the whole point of having organised statutory insolvency proceedings is to make insolvency fairer on the least powerful creditors and between similarly-situated creditors. If AA was simply torn apart by lawsuits and ceased to trade, lessors would take their property, secured creditors would take most or all of what's left, unsecured creditors would take what they could get out of the courts (meaning a tiny number of creditors would get paid in full and most get nothing) and employees and shareholders would get bupkis. The statutory process and the protections to a company which is the subject of bankruptcy petition means that this doesn't happen, and instead you have an organised process where like creditors get equal treatment (mostly) and lower-status creditors have some ability to ensure that higher-priority creditors and shareholders are not taking what they're not entitled to. Equally, the law outside of bankruptcy allows creditors to protect themselves by doing stuff like taking (and registering) security, leasing rather than selling poo poo, insurance, LOCs or other forms of third-party "security", or just using good credit control (for regular employees, this means getting a new job before you get poo poo-canned). The chapter 11 and chapter 7 process essentially recognises this. So when Joe the Plumber or Jane the Employee complains that they got dicked in a chapter 11, they would have been dicked anyway without it, and probably worse. Basically, the root of the problem is that an insolvent company can't pay everyone (the clue is in the name), and that's a problem that you can't lay at the feet of a bankruptcy judge or the debtor's lawyers/CRO/turnaround management team. It's also worth noting that Chapter 11 debtors cannot simply continue to trade on an insolvent basis once they're in bankruptcy. Pre-bankruptcy debt can't be pursued, but if the business can't pay its bills thereafter, it's going to be liquidated with a quickness and there are going to be tears before bedtime for management and any professionals working for the debtor. In terms of what happens to the planes, I don't know a lot about AA or how they're financed, but my understanding is that planes are typically held in very very loving complicated lease type arrangements involving special purpose entities, which are designed to make the aircraft bankruptcy remote and tax efficient. So probably no-one "lent" AA money in a literal sense to buy its aircraft. There are probably several large ring binders of paper, fifty different companies, letters of credit, insurers, a big accountancy practice and several boutique law firms you need to go through to find out who owns the planes, if anyone owns them at all. They basically inhabit a sort of legal event horizon where although they may be flying around quite happily as far as the crew and passengers are concerned, to an outside observer they are both owned by everyone and owned by no-one...forever.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 16:34
|
|
|
Bugsmasher posted:Now you're just crazy. T-tails are things of beauty. They're pretty but deep stall is nasty. (yeah I know like every T-tailed aircraft in existence these days has antistall measures)
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 19:17
|
|
|
Aviation Week posted:Just hours into its court-protected reorganization, AMR Corp. has started overhauling its fleet and, as expected, its MD-80s are the primary target. The gently caress? They haven't operated Fokker 100s in 7 years, and they were leased and still sitting around?
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 19:26
|
|
|
Is there a thread in BFC relating to bankruptcy (Chapter 11) and such specifically? Don't want to derail too much on finance, but if I understand correctly (great post Saga!) Chapter 11 Bankruptcy - Get out of jail "free" for corporations? - "We owed you money? Welp, too bad, suck it shitlords!" - "Pensions/Benefits? Went down with the ship, suck it shitlords!" - "Credit rating trashed? Good thing that was for our old corporate entity! Suck it shitlords!" - Get collectors off their back long enough while in protection to reorganize and stop bleeding money everywhere Or is there actually some accountability and this isn't just a reset button for a company? Also, it's giant companies like ILFC (ex-AIG I think? Udvar-Hazy's baby) that actually wrote the check to Boeing and "own" the physical aircraft, correct? The whole industry just seems ridiculous to me, infrastructure-as-industry just seems broken in its very nature to me.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 19:30
|
|
|
slidebite posted:When are you going? We've got 3 weeks starting in Mid-January. We're flying Westjet. First week of Feb! About the time Vermont becomes absolutely uninhabitable.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 19:40
|
|
|
Also I don't know where to post this sort of stuff? But NASA is going to make a big announcement monday of a Kepler finding. http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/nov/HQ_M11-243_Kepler.html SETI dude on the panel, a little strange. Maybe they found an earth sized planet in the Goldilocks zone.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 20:06
|
|
|
Saga posted:In terms of what happens to the planes, I don't know a lot about AA or how they're financed, but my understanding is that planes are typically held in very very loving complicated lease type arrangements involving special purpose entities, which are designed to make the aircraft bankruptcy remote and tax efficient. Thanks for the through reply. I kinda suspected that the "owners" of the planes were protected thanks to shenanigans. I also suspected AA's main backers who financed this purchase were probably all on board with the bankruptcy, and were not exposed to any real risk. It's good to see it laid out in some detail.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 20:17
|
|
|
Epic Fail Guy posted:First week of Feb! About the time Vermont becomes absolutely uninhabitable. Just be missing you. I think we get back the 29th or something like that. Staying at that hotel with that famous beach at the foot of the runway at Princess Juliana for a few days. Other than that, we've got family in Saba so we'll be there for the majority of the time.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 20:21
|
|
|
slidebite posted:Just be missing you. I think we get back the 29th or something like that. Staying at that hotel with that famous beach at the foot of the runway at Princess Juliana for a few days. Other than that, we've got family in Saba so we'll be there for the majority of the time. Cavaserati or w/e? I think I priced that but it was 'spensive. I'm staying elsewhere, but will be making a stop to Maho beach for a little jetwash.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 21:23
|
|
|
Just weighed the 7000th 737 which is getting delivered to Air Dubai. Similarly, if not heard yet there's a tentative agreement for the 737 MAX to remain and be built in Renton. It's a complicated matter, though, so who knows.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 21:33
|
|
|
Something you don't see every day, a Lockheed Constitution. The double-decker follow-on to the Constellation. Built two, sold them to the Navy, and that was it. One ended up as a billboard in Nevada for a while, then scrapped. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2011 00:28
|
|
|
Slo-Tek posted:Something you don't see every day, a Lockheed Constitution. The double-decker follow-on to the Constellation. That's pretty  , what modern airliner would it be close too in size?
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2011 01:08
|
|
|
It's about as long as a Boeing 757-200.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2011 01:13
|
|
|
Epic Fail Guy posted:
Every flight control system removes control from the pilots, by design. If you don't think there are FCS on Boeing commercial aircraft that do things for the pilots you are very, very, very wrong. You think the pilot is controlling every aspect of what the engines do on an aircraft with a FADEC? What do you think the 'FA' stands for in that system's name? It's true that Airbus institutionally designs FCS that don't allow the pilots to do some things that Boeing trusts them to do, but the entire *point* of modern FCS is to have the computers do things for the pilots. If you were flying an MH-47G during aerial refueling operations, you'd consider the DAFCS on the newer ones a good thing, especially in bad weather.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2011 01:27
|
|
|
Epic Fail Guy posted:Cavaserati or w/e? I think I priced that but it was 'spensive. I'm staying elsewhere, but will be making a stop to Maho beach for a little jetwash.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2011 01:50
|
|
|
Cygni posted:Also I don't know where to post this sort of stuff? But NASA is going to make a big announcement monday of a Kepler finding. Of the 1200-odd planets Kepler found as of the last big announcement (Feb 2011), 800 were earth-sized and 54 are goldilocks planets. These findings are really driving drake equation estimates up; virtually every star they look at has planets, and an astonishing amount have earth-sized planets and goldilocks planets. grover fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Dec 2, 2011 |
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2011 02:03
|
|
|
Slo-Tek posted:Something you don't see every day, a Lockheed Constitution. The double-decker follow-on to the Constellation. At a glance my eyes caught the front of it and my brain said "C-5" then I saw propellers and my brain said "WTF" and shut the hell up.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2011 02:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 01:39 |
|
|
Cygni posted:They both build nearly identical empty tubes meant for packing cattle in to. You can have a god awful Boeing passenger experience just as quickly as a god awful Airbus experience. True dat. I'm in row 46 of a 757-300 and want to die right now. Would rather be in one of my a320s.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2011 03:00
|
|