I am blessed to be able to access such a marvelous site.
I have two questions:-
1. Are aircraft such as the A310, B737-300 and B777 still profitable today? I would like you to explain a bit especially with reference to PIA and Air India. What about the profitability of the A330 and A340-300/500/600?
2. I have read in the news that both PIA and Air India are suffering from a millions of dollars in losses along with many other airlines in the region. After losing so much, why are these airlines still around? Why don’t they go bankrupt? It is as if they are making profits but they don’t seem to meet the goals they have set.
Over the years, I've really learned so much from your site. Thank you for all you do to help us "wanna be" pilots learn things in an entertaining way.
I was going through your website the other night and read about the hiring requirements at airliners like Qantas, Cathay Pacific, and Malaysia Airlines (so-called "international airlines"). I noticed that each required a candidate to take an "aptitude test" of sorts. On the other hand, I noticed that airliners that are based here in the United States don’t have any such requirement -- even at 'legacy' airlines like American Airlines or Delta. I was wondering: Why?
In your estimate, what is the reason that international airliners have aptitude pilot testing, whereas US airliners don't?
Your website is so wonderful. May I ask what a microburst is?
Thank you for your reply.
Abigail
Hi Abigail,
A microburst is very different from a tornado in that it is much localized in nature. It arises from a column of sinking air and producing divergent and straight line winds at the surface of the earth. On the other hand, the sinking air from the tornadoes is generally convergent.
There are two types of microburst: wet and dry microburst. They go through three stages in their life cycle: the outburst, downburst, and cushion stages. The scale and suddenness of a microburst makes it a great danger to aircraft due to the low-level wind shear caused by its gust front, with several fatal crashes attributed to the phenomenon over the past several decades.
Could you explain, why you can not fly RVSM (reduced vertical separation minimums) with ADR2 or ADR1 inoperative on the Airbus A320? But ADR3 does not affect RVSM. Are they not similar?
