Attended AEP Dinner

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Moin
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Attended AEP Dinner

Post by Moin »

I just got back from the dinner of the Aircraft Engineers of Pakistan held at the CAA Club at the airport. It was the 50th anniversary dinner and a friend of mine took me there who knew some of the people in the association.

I was introduced to about 5 or 6 people, all current and retired engineers and had about an hour long conversation with them. What was amusing was their fascination with info I was armed with about PIA and aviation in general. They were all very keen to see my a/c model collection and I've also promised to give them a few of my 'extras' to put on display in their office. I asked them about the following and received the answers to what they knew which I reproduce below:

1. No decision has yet been taken by management as to the Section 41 modification on the 743's. They acknowledged the fact that it was needed, failing which some of the a/c would need to be grounded. They said the modification would cost several million $ and management is still debating whether its worth it or not to carry out the job. Major work on PIA's 747's having been done by Garuda. As it is the 743's are extremely problematic a/c, especially their engines. They were complaining about the number of inflight shutdowns, flameouts etc, how they are underpowered and how each engine has to go to HKG for maintenance and is routed through LHR to bring it back to KHI. BGG is the best a/c in the 743 fleet but basically the 743 acquisition was a bad idea.

2. The 74M's would likely be used upto 2010 as they're the only a/c which give cargo revenue. One of them told me that AF only had 2 of its own people here in KHI and they would send a 74F and when he asked the AF personnel as to how did they manage loading and unloading a 74F in such a timely manner, the AF personnel told them that 'we just grab 30 to 40 of your PIA guys who are happy to do the job'. He said the revenue earned from cargo is in millions and PIA previously was making very good money on the cargo sector but now due to no dedicated freighters in the fleet, is losing out alot from that. I suggested to them the idea of acquiring 2 to 3 used A310F's from companies like FedEx followed by aggresive marketing of their cargo services which he acknowledged as a good idea. I also put forward the idea of 3 to 4 used 744 Combi's to eventually replace the 74M's and how PIA should never be without the 747 in its fleet to which they said that PIA will always look favourably towards the 747 which is still the pride of the fleet. The fleet planning department is constantly evaluating these new a/c and the 744 has come up as a very favourable replacement to the current 747 fleet.

3. The AB4's are all sold off to 3 different airlines, one of them being MNG.

4. The 737's will most probably be 'reskinned', a procedure by which the outer skin of the a/c will be replaced and for which they have just recieved certification. Kind of like plastic surgery. At the same time Boeing has offered the 737NG's being the 700/800/900 so both options are being looked at. With this certification they will now also be able to serve other airlines in the region which operate 737's.

5. ATR42 deal is confirmed and the 72's are seriously being looked at as well.

6. Another 772ER is coming on a 10 year lease with the option to purchase it at the end of the term.

7. The 777LR purchase was not a very good idea as nonstop flights to the USA are highly unlikely.

8. The livery is being changed.

9. No 747 will be donated to the PAF museum.

10. The ANA 742 has not been purchased by PIA. Its registration is AP-BIC and is owned by Air Universal.

11. Lastly they said that theres this guy here in KHI who makes large sized a/c models and they commissioned him to make 12 models each about 4 feet long which they presented to the Boeing team when they were here in KHI as they were so impressed by the quality of the models they saw of PIA's 747, 777, AB4, 310, 737, 707 and F27 models which PIA have on display in their offices. This same guy has also made all the fighter models on display in showcases at the PAF museum. A 4 foot long 747 model was also presented to the PIA Planetarium which they have still kept in storage with no plans to display it and they plan to take it back from them and give it to me. I said I'd very much like to see some of these models first and they said they would introduce me to this guy who makes them. He can make you any a/c in any airline upto 10 feet long at a price under Rs.10,000. He uses no tools and has no factory and does everything himself by hand. I plan very soon on metting this guy and will update everyone on what I saw.

So that was the gist of what we spoke about but its not the end. As this associations office is within walking distance from my house, I have an open invitation to visit them anytime and I plan to very soon as I have a few a/c models of my own which I promised to give them.
Moin Abbasi
Moin
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Post by Moin »

BTW, as far as the new livery goes, I was told it was something 'flowery'. Now that leaves us to draw our own conclusions.

As far as a/c models go, today 2 more were added to my fleet. The Dragon Wings 1/400 Thai A340-600 and the 1/400 Saudia delivery colors 747-168.
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Adnan Anwar
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Post by Adnan Anwar »

Moin,

Interesting to read everything you wrote. I did not know much about 743 engine troubles, I am assuming the RR engines are not so great for the 743's in general.

Did anyone talked about 747-800, if PIA instead of orderig more 777-200LR's whould look into 747-800 to replace the 747-300, maybe.

Keep us updated on the modeling guy, if you could I would like to hear more.

Thanks so much!

ADNAN
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atmalik
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Post by atmalik »

interesting convo. Moin. thnx for sharing. I seriously hope the PIA big wigs will wake up soon and realize what needs to be done as far as the fleet replacement goes in a timely manner and all and use proper judgement. Secondly the 737 "reskinning" process, has any airline done that before and is it worth spending money on. After all those aircrafts are almost about 20 years old anyways? wouldnt it be beter to replace them with newer more efficient ac's?
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Post by kamalla »

Moin wrote:BTW, as far as the new livery goes, I was told it was something 'flowery'. Now that leaves us to draw our own conclusions.
Well, I for one can't wait to see what they've got in store for us. I think it would be nice if they could go back to the Pashmina and rather then just keeping it to the tail.... incorporate into the rest of the fuselage somehow to make it a little nicer. Either way, I guess we'll find out soon enough!
Moin
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Post by Moin »

I'll definately keep you guys updated.

These were a very nice group of people who's sole interest was to see PIA rise to become one of the worlds best carriers and regain some of its lost glory.

They are very happy about the induction of new a/c into the fleet and can hardly wait for the old clunkers to go, yet they regret that PIA did not preserve its classic a/c as museum pieces like the Dakota, Super Connie, Viscount etc.

Further, they said that most of PIA's decisions and actions were politically motivated and as a result, the airline's and these people's hands were tied. They had to put up and shut up and had no real say in the decision making process which to say the least was controlled by 'the ones in Islamabad'. They do however now acknoledge that things are looking up now and are much better than before.

As this was a social gathering, I didn't really get much of an opportunity to have a proper discussion with them, which will be done when I visit their office, being so conveniently close to my house.

As far as the models go, I'll definately keep you updated. I just need to see the quality of this guys work first. It would have to be as good as the models airlines have on display in their travel agencies. Anything less that that I'm not interested in. This guy apparently has a book on every single a/c type in the world which contains details as to its dimensions, pictures from all angles etc and he makes them exactly to scale and what he does is that he makes a photocopy of the pictures of the a/c from all angles in the exact same size as the model he's producing and he normally takes about a week to make one model.
Moin Abbasi
F.K
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Post by F.K »

no one knows better about the fate of the 743 fleet in pia then its flight engineers whose fagend carreers can only reach fruition if they re kept beyond 2011 which is part of pias fleet plan on paper.
surprising how highly utilized the entire 743 fleet is,just look in to the number of hours they do monthly and everything should be clear. in the past pia engineers would request the cockpit crew to accept these planes with lingering snags because time constraints on account of a madly busy schedule would make timely correction impossible hence translating in to greater self induced problems. the 743 has had the least number of emergencys and recorded malfunctions in the fleet ,minor snags require immidiete correction which was side stepped causing greater problems that have only come about in the recent past. the cargo news is half baked but it is being said that pia has in principal decided to buy one or 2 dedicated 747 freighters on dry lease for a period of 5 -7 years. pia only acquired these 743s two years back after spending a mintage on their lease,acquisition and other related formalities, and will only recover a small portion of that sum if they re sold . plus right now they re generating the biggest slice in pias revenvue. section 41 has already been carried out on 4 of the 6 743s. which pia engineers did u talk to once again??
dint u ask them about the condition of the 6 new 310s, cus they ve been most problematic as i ve been told. infact the older 737s have been doing far better then them in terms of performance, so their replacement right now is totally untenable.
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B777240ER
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Re: Attended AEP Dinner

Post by B777240ER »

Moin wrote: 7. The 777LR purchase was not a very good idea as nonstop flights to the USA are highly unlikely.
Any reason why?
PK777
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Post by PK777 »

Moin wrote: As far as the models go, I'll definately keep you updated.
Excellent info Moin!!

Do you know, if they knew who gave Gemini Jets the licence to produce the Boeing 777-200ER model in 1/400 scale in the new livery in 2002/3? Hope they give Gemini Jets permission to do some more especially the B772LR and B773ER
Moin
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Post by Moin »

In reply to FK, none of the 743's have had the Section 41 modification done to them. At least that is what I was told. Management has yet to decide on that. I was also told by another source that the 743's are the most troublesome a/c PIA has right now. At least as far as the powerplant is concerned.

We didn't discuss the A310's.

Permission for nonstop flights to the US may not be granted owing to the security issue and this was told to me by 2 different sources as well.

I'm assuming the airline gave GJ the license to produce those models, the same way they gave Schabak the license to make them.
Moin Abbasi
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Post by Boeing 787 »

Telling you the truth, the 77L is an excellent purchase in order to compete with EK on its non-stop newyork route. In reality engineers love those aircrafts ONLY whose maintainance is less tricky
T.Rehman