My Future Endeavor !!

            Since everybody is assigned to talk about his/her future career desires, I will be writing about how I feel about the industry in my home country, what challenges it faces and how am I planning to contribute to the Saudi industry’s desirable maturity as a potential workforce element whose eager to make some aviation dreams come true. Doubtlessly, as long as aviation in any given nation remains a “high risk” industry, the need for this industry to remain “highly regulated” gets bigger day by day. For almost a decade now, I have found that without the establishment of a solid platform or ground to stand on, the industry gets weaker and less resistant to even marginal challenges. Let’s imagine the US aviation without the FAA. I can guarantee no one could even dare to debate that the industry could ever do better without having such a solid legal foundation.

            The word LEGAL leads me to start my main point of the regulatory environment or side of the Saudi aviation industry. As a “developing” country, Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 and it is considered one of the fastest growing countries in the Middle East. The Presidency of Civil Aviation (PCA, the FAA Saudi equivalent) was separated from the Saudi Royal Air Force in the very early 50’s (FAA origins go back to 1920’s) and the first civil aviation rule was issued in 1953. In 1977, PCA name was amended to the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA). The reason behind mentioning this brief history about the Saudi GACA so that we can realize how young is this legal arm compared to its peers worldwide. From this perspective, I find myself so eager to join my country’s aviation regulatory body so I can help in the Saudi industry’s rapid growth and be part of it. And as an aviation manager with a decade of technical experience, I would love to play big roles in the Saudi aviation developmental projects and apply and implement what I’ve gained of theories and keys of success into those national efforts.

            To take a close look on how my country’s aviation industry is evolving, spend some time surfing this link about the major project that is taking place in my hometown Jeddah. Basically, GACA is working on renovating King Abdulaziz Int’l Airport (KAIA), a major airport that works as a gate to the two Islamic holy cities in the kingdom. An important thing that has to be pointed out here is that back in Saudi, and unlike the US, GACA owns and operates all national airfields and they’re the ones who are responsible to run, oversee and fund any operational duties concerning its own airports. In other words, when I get a decent job at GACA, projects like KAIA and others are await for professionals like me with a specialized management degree. So, yes I truly look forward to join GACA if possible and I believe they are waiting for me just like I’m waiting for them to say WELCOME. It is also reasonable to have alternatives in case it doesn’t go like I want it to go. So I am also considering contacting my last employer, Saudi Arabian Airlines. I still think that they are in a deep need for flight operations managers with a number of years in the technical services. I’m just gonna wait until I go back and see how it goes and hopefully everything is gonna look as cool as my years of education here at Eastern.

To conclude, the Saudi aviation expertise is still in need for a recently educated and updated generation to help in maximizing its efficiency ruling aviation activities. My country sent me abroad to earn a higher college degree as a full scholarship recipient and I want to go back and pay the favor back to my country. And from a wider point of view, I can say now that I have learned a lot and I can’t wait to apply what I have in mind and hand.

What else about AUTOMATION?

            In Friday September 9^th 2011, I wrote down handful thoughts about what did I think about AUTOMATION in aviation. I also mentioned two main points discussing that. One was about how industry’s professionals agree on the necessity, reliability and efficiency of the technology advancements in any cockpit. The other point was pilots’ training and qualification programs and how they contribute to human performance’s overall excellence. And at the end, I talked about system safety theory and private sector efforts towards making skies safer and minimizing errors. So, here I am today. And I will be highlighting additional points along with providing some updated facts regarding this topic.

            I would begin first by emphasizing that aviation automation has become a major part of a movement in the in industry in which works to improve crew performance as well as to control flying risks. So, automation is, at the end, a tool that is supposed to provide pilots with MORE comfort, better performance, safety and FEWER problems. As a result, automation has also become a winning card for aviation firms to play with to stay competitive with each other as a very important business factor that could help determining any aviation business success. Now from a technical point of view, we know that any new technology needs a period of adaptation to successfully eliminate its problems and allow its users to adopt. Sometimes, this period could take several years like what happened when jets replaced propeller airplanes or when glass cockpits replaced classic ones. Harmonization between any new technology and human is the solution here, and without it, achieving optimum levels of safe and efficient flight operations becomes harder. That’s why the “adaptation period” I talked about previously is essential to introduce any new system. Otherwise “bad field experiences’ will eventually be the teacher! And that’s what sadly happens when we ignore the study of human reaction to new systems.

              Automation has suffered many problems for decades. One of which is the poor design in respect to pilot natural needs and mind-processing. In other words, instruments are “almost” designed without taking into consideration the psychological factors of human brains and how they function. Another problem is that automation helps increasing crew’s “poor situation awareness”. For instance, Flight Management Systems (FMS) or Flight Management Computers (FMC) make pilots lose their awareness of the passing of flight time and subsequently they lose their awareness of the flight path. Also, the lack of cooperation between cockpit technologies and the outside environment resulted in creating an aging impact on the required integration between all flight “agents”. But this ignorance has come to an end when both; regulatory bodies and private sectors have realized that projects such as System Safety in aviation (SS), NextGen and Crew Resource Management (CRM) are the tools for such an integration to take effect in the industry.

We live in a world of technology, that’s why automation is improving and keep changing and evolving every single day. A very basic autopilot for example, was first developed in 1912. However, although autopilots have hugely evolved since then, ICAO didn’t start enforcing utilizing autopilots and autoland equipment in +4 hours flights until the 1980’s when human factors including fatigue in aviation arose as a big argument regarding various accidents and incidents. Nowadays however, and according to a recent Concordia University Research, autopilots will soon become not only helpful in assisting pilots flying aircraft and minimizing their fatigue, but also will help making the industry more environmentally friendly. The research Professor Dr. Luis Rodrigues says: “More than 75% of commercial flight time worldwide is performed on autopilot.” It does in deed sound dangerous but this is why Dr. Rodrigues was attracted to study utilizing aviation automation in other purposes like environmental.

            Concordia’s research is an updated info about our topic. However, in terms of the over-dependence, I can see that this issue will remain a hot topic for years to come. Because simply, human error is still #1 cause behind aviation disasters. And as long as human error is in the picture, automation has something to do with human behavior in the cockpit especially during crucial phases like takeoff and landing. I also believe that deviation from procedural instructions by pilots and mechanics is a big factor too. I had experienced many incidents during my years in the maintenance field of the industry where over-dependence on automation came in a form of deviation from procedures. So, it is not only the automation itself as a technology that makes tragedies in aviation. I would suggest again that in order for the industry to minimize automation problems, aviation professionals must always adhere to rules and regulations, enhance and implement more situation awareness, and reinforce manual skills in both carrier and type-rating training programs. I can assure that the problem is not exaggerated. Even though with automation, performance has been improved and safety is remarkable. And the fact remains the same forever; better safety is always desirable.

Tony Tyler

As long as airlines keep doing well, so does the whole aviation industry. This is true if we just take a second imagining the globe without a single airline operation! What is the benefit of having aviation industry without air transportation services?? GA, corporate aviation, and even military operations are all sectors of aviation that the industry could “survive” without only if it has good airline operations. And when I say airline operations, of course I mean 125 and 135 passengers and cargo. Therefore, in April 1945, the global community realized the importance of founding an international organization in which “represents, leads and serves the global airline industry with a main aim of providing air travelers with safe and secure transportation experiences.” (IATA mission) and that’s for those who don’t know what was the International Air Transport Association founded for.

The reason I’m mentioning IATA above is that its CEO, Tony Tyler, is my guest to present in tonight’s blog. Mr. Tyler is IATA’s sixth Director General and Chief Executive Officer. He accepted the role to lead IATA on July 2011 (pretty recent) and gave a nice speech at that night. To understand how IATA’s CEO could really influence the industry, we should first absorb some fundamental functions of IATA such are, but not limited to, the following:
-Defining standard airlines rules and regulations
-Setting prices for international airfare
-Regulating shipping of dangerous goods
-Accreditation of worldwide travel agencies
-Maintaining industry’s data basis
-Publishing of standards and requirements documentations …. And much more.

For sure, an individual like Mr. Tyler would potentially influence the industry without a doubt for years to come as he will be responsible for critical decisions and approvals of IATA’s new rules and regulations. And as a proof, please have a quick look on what Mr. Tyler thinks about the EU’s ETS issue in this very recent piece of news, a very important topic we talked about in our class weeks ago.

            Mr. Tyler’s potential achievements as a ‘big” executive are not the only things that attracted me writing about him.  His past success with several aviation leading example companies is a key in Mr. Tyler’s personality as a man of influence in the industry. He started in 1977 as a small employee at Swire & Sons in Hong Kong, a very large corporation that performs lots of commercial activities. Mr. Tyler then gradually worked his way up in the company and he joined Cathay Pacific Airline in 1978, another leading international airlines that operates under S&S wing. Eventually in 1996, he became the airline’s director of corporate development followed being the airline’s chief operating officer in 2005 and finally got elected to be Cathay’s CEO in 2007 until he lifted his position to pursue his new job at IATA in mid 2010. Mr. Tyler’s long career in Cathay’s was highly appreciated by the company’s both; stockholders and customers. During his tenure at Cathay, the company acquired Dragon Air, another legacy flag carrier of Hong Kong. Also, Cathay Pacific celebrated its 60^th anniversary while enjoying its great position as the world’s third largest airlines (in terms of market capitalization) and just before he lift Cathay in 2010, the company became the world’s largest cargo airline along with a main cargo hub at HK Int’l Airport as the world’s busiest airport cargo facility.

            When it comes to background, Mr. Tyler is British and he graduated from Oxford University in England as a jurisprudent and then earned a degree in aircraft engineering. A very interesting and strong knowledge that enabled Mr. Tyler to gain S&S trust. Add to that then, a very successful career in Cathay Pacific did its job attracting IATA to bring him in to lead the organization in its seventh decade. Well, I am not sure if you can 100% agree with me if Mr. Tony Tyler was/is an influential to the industry, at least in the Far East. However, I believe we can also wait to see till he really comes up with differential achievements as a CEO of the world’s largest international trade group with over 230 airlines that belong to 150 country members.

China's Aviation.. Facts & Figures

              Let’s be honest here. With no doubt, China has the world’s fastest growing economy and that simply means; China is competing!

When we talk about China, we have to keep in our minds that China has gained a reasonable experience in making military aircraft for the 4 last decades. Commercially, in 1990, Airbus opened its first office in Beijing, China with less than 30 employees. In Sep 28^th 2008, the first Airbus final assembly line to operate outside Europe was officially opened in Tianjin, China. Nowadays, China is producing over half of Airbus in-service worldwide fleet’s parts and has a 34% market share of the whole Airbus market!! Add to that, Chinese government officially launched China Commercial Aircraft, the plan in which enables China to manufacture large passenger airplanes designed and built in China and expected to be rolling off a huge assembly line by 2020 (8 yrs from now)! All of that and more in terms of aircraft manufacturing and corporate aviation seems a kind of well-deserved topic to talk about in here. However, I will address in the following some facts and figures about China’s airlines industry, its potential impact on the US, and how it’s going to affect job opportunities of both; flight and management positions.

              Two decades ago, China was a “developing” country with respect to airline environment and its related industries. In late 2010, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced that Jan-2011 is the deadline for any new airline that wants to operate within the Chinese skies with foreign manufactured aircraft. After that, all “newly recognized” airlines should have all its fleet built from local factories. This means two things; first, how ready are the Chinese manufacturers to supply new airlines, either regional or legacy, with varieties of aircraft needs. Second and most important, how fast is the airline industry growing in this country. According to CAAC, the airline industry is expected to expand to 4,000 aircraft by 2025. The significance here is not by the number of aircraft. It is by the big difference between this expected fleet and how it was if we know that China’s fleet was only 500 aircraft in 2000!!

            China’s airline industry is rapidly growing and expanding. This is proven by the fact of approving airline operations for brand new carrier every year. While in the US, an airline “merge” is recorded every 4 to 5 years period of time and more flights are being operated by contracting regionals. Which assures that the US industry is shrinking!! Of course, China’s population is a major determinant in this unbalanced situation. But what we are observing here is that China is becoming the next qualified aviation competitor to the existing US and European players. In fact, I’m not quite sure how China’s airline industry is going to impact the US’s but I can summarize such an impact by saying that as long as the Chinese industry is flourishing, it’s going to schedule more flights to strategic destinations and airports. Also, competitiveness fundamentals tell us that the bigger you expand, the larger segment of customers you could please, the bigger the market you capture, gain trust and eventually make profits. In my point of view, to defeat the upcoming Chinese magnificence, the whole US industry with all its parties, including the regulatory bodies, should catch the opportunity to win the strategic alliances with the Chinese before Europe and the rest of the world get it with them. Only by doing this, the US could limit the Chinese potential success and have it comes complementary along with very strong aviation ties established only to favor the American aviation industry and its future needs.

            In terms of jobs, we are already experiencing lots of international carriers being interested in American aviators either pilots for well-established carriers or managers and professionals to assist fresh industries. As a support for Ms. Wall’s example of Cathay Pacific Airlines, a Hong Kong based air carrier, the company is hiring hundreds of aviators to occupy very important vacancies for the company just in the markets of US and Canada. The American aviation market is one of the biggest markets and China is well considering pleasing this particular segment of customers. Like I said above, a very smart way to win the expanding Chinese airline industry by our side is by signing several agreements with China in order to guarantee the shared benefits and good results of the Chinese existence in the global aviation arena.

A "Corporate Aviation" from Saudi

            The corporate section in the aviation industry is one of the major players that characterizes the industry and gives it the priority position it enjoys among all other means of the transportation world. In fact, one of the most important reasons that stand behind the excellence of businesses’ universe nowadays is the aviation industry and how it provides the private sectors with fundamental needs of transportation.

            Corporate aviation is a well-selected topic by Ms. Wall because as strong as she believes in the importance of this segment of the industry, as truly as I think the same way about it. It’s been proven that aviation as a transportation system for the public is not complete or “efficient” unless we take into consideration the primary role the corporate segment does to the overall success of the business world. Let’s just imagine a big firm like GM or Microsoft without specialized divisions of their own to fly their executives, VIP’s or even their own freight sometimes. Corporate aviation is not only important as a division inside a particular firm. It is also critically important as an external party that assist a nation's economic wheel to go around by providing transportation services on a business-to-business basis. Lots of examples could easily prove that without a corporate aviation, a bunch of firms couldn’t be existent or more specifically successful in the real world. One more thing before I move to talk about a specific corporate, is that corporate aviation segment has a significant value in absorbing the huge amounts of fresh graduates from educational institutions in a way that no other segment in the industry can do the same reaction. Number of graduates does increase year by year and only corporate aviation can effectively receive, develop and prepare future aviation leaders to "real world" professions. other segments such as airlines and public sector are not as sufficient as corporate aviation in doing such a great job. 

            The aviation department that I selected for you in the following handful paragraphs is one of the leading corporates of its kind in the Middle East region. ARABASCO is a well established “business-traveler” company based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (my hometown) that provides aviation services to business communities inside and outside the country. ARABASCO basically has 4 charter categories with total of 12 aircraft in its both; 125 & 135 operations. These planes are: 737’s (4) - BBJ’s (2) - Falcon 900B’s (3) and Howker 900XP’s (3). A very good friend of mine currently works as a technician at ARABASCO. I phone called him and he provided me with lots of information about the company and its operations. Besides, it’s a very successful company so its facts and figures could be found easily online or in daily news papers.

            ARABASCO flies top business VIP’s from Saudi to domestic and int’l destinations. A very big client for ARABASCO is the Saudi National Commercial Bank (NCB) with an average of 4 special flights weekly for their officials. In addition to banks, top health care providers such as King Faisal Specialized Hospital and Research Center (KFSHRC) are also considered valued customers to ARABASCO since the aviation industry especially the corporate section is still developing in the region. Although Saudi government has a considerable royal fleet for the royal family and top government officials, sometimes it makes “big” contracts with ARABASCO to transport several ministers and ambassadors. One of the unique services that ARABASCO provides for the businesses is it provides fleet management services for firms' aircraft and ground support equipment. The Middle East is a quite rich part of the world which really lacks good fleet and operational management services for its massive and wealthy business environment. 

            ARABASCO, on its website, has posted several job vacancies. Unfortunately, although there are applications forms to fill out for multiple positions, flight positions were not offered but others like mechanics and ground personnel were generously available. One of the posted positions was an “aircraft inspector” with heavy technical description and requirements. As an ex-maintenance, ARABASCO would’ve been a great place for me to join. However, I already started my way up to gain an upper educational level with no U-turn path and I hope that my good friend could work his way through too in a very good company like ARABASCO. Now, from a benefits’ standpoint, my friend told me that ARABASCO has a well-prepared salary system and high rated competitive allowances benefits. His current salary range (as a mid-level technician) has a minimum of $5,800 and a maximum of $6,700 (monthly). So how about a management position or a flight crew one?? He further confirmed that ARABASCO employees are considered the highly paid professionals in the country right now among the other corporate aviation sectors according to a local aviation magazine. Also, it has one of the best job assessment programs that achieved the ISO certificate in the country and got recognized by the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), the regulatory body of the industry in Saudi Arabia.

            Last but not least, ARABASCO remains one of the best employers, at least for me, that I could join when I finish and go back home with an aviation degree like this. It is a leading aviation corporate that has walked in steady steps towards excellence of business aviation in the region since 1988.

When the space becomes a tourist destination!

           
              As introductory information, NASA was founded in 1958 as a response to the Soviet Union’s launch of the first artificial satellite the previous year (“what does NASA do?” NASA website). However, since then, it’s really contributed to a major part the whole world’s modern awareness and understanding of space and the solar system. So, overtime, especially after the end of the cold war in 1991, NASA has shifted some of its objectives from being mainly military competitive to become more environmental and scientific resulting lately in building the International Space Station (ISS) among with Russia, Japan, Canada and the EU. With accomplishing more than 130 successful flight missions, NASA declared that space-shuttle STS-135 (launched in July, 2011) was going to be the final mission of its space shuttle program. After that, NASA decided to allow commercial companies to work their way running space flights to ISS in order for the agency to focus its attention to the next future steps.

            NASA’s intention to let companies provide cargo and crew space flights leads me actually to a very important topic in my discussion since business got into the picture here. It is well known that business firms exist in order to collect profits. So, as they are invited to do so up there, space tourism becomes the hot topic then. The desire to travel in space is not recent and curiosity about travel to space has been ultimate for many “potential” costumers. In April 2001, the wealthy businessman Dennis Tito became the world’s first space tourist when he joined the Soyuz Mission to the ISS. And since then Space Adventure has taken 7 tourists on 8 trips to the ISS. Personally, I can see that space travel and especially tourism will become phenomenal in the next 25 yrs because all what it takes is “brave hearts and big bucks”!! However, there might be technical, environmental and medical considerations that could let space tourism down such as limited capacity of hosting travelers, probable and unexpected damages to the natural environment resulted from frequent flights in short periods of time and vision impacts.

            Commercially travelling to space and exploring the outside solar system is not the only possible dream that can easily come true! Using the space as a transport medium is what keeps all international space agencies quite busy for now and many years to come. We could imagine how using space to transport from point A to point B “on Earth” will impact all of the industry’s aspects in the future even the military ones.

When it comes to jobs and careers, in my point of view, either way, if commercially succeeds, is going to help this fresh spectrum of the industry to grow and thus facilitate more different vacancies. For sure, this business will defiantly require lots of human resources, either administrative (aviation managers) or operational (pilots and technicians) manpower. All of the above is what I call SPACE ECONOMY. Space economy in my opinion, is the complete set of elements that makes the future of space transportation, as an industry by its own, the dream that seems to come true very soon and hopefully it will bring with it an exceptional and rich experience for all industry’s parties too, not only travelers !!

What A Scheme !!

Aircraft emissions have over the last decade been a big challenge to the environmental researchers. They (aircraft emissions) are believed to be more dangerous to the environment than those from other means of transportation.  For instance, an aircraft can produce carbon dioxide emissions eight times more than that of a train. Also, consequential effect of aircraft carbon dioxide emissions on global warming is increased by two to four times more than other industries because aircraft leave condensation trails at high altitudes. Because of this and more, the world’s leaders have realized the importance of unifying all climate and environmental global efforts to minimize the danger and its unpredictable impacts on earth.

In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change “UNFCCC” was adopted as the first attempt to obtain international agreement to address climate change in the world. In 1994, 192 countries ratified the agreement and it came into force. The scheme started as information-sharing framework between all agreed countries which should be followed by setting up national programs to reduce environmental risks, study and be prepared for climate changes. As a result, a third UNFCCC conference was held in 1997 and adopted the Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto is another enforcing agreement that assigns actual duties to developed countries and requires monitoring and reporting responsibilities to the developing ones. Finally in 2005, Kyoto came into full legal enforcement. Although aviation-related emissions only account for 2% of the global CO2 emissions, this percentage will continue to go up in the future because of the future air traffic expectations. That’s why Europe has responded to it by establishing the Emissions Trading Scheme that legally mandates all air carriers that use European airports to obey specific rules governing climate control and emissions reduction resulted from air transportation.

Explanation on how ETS works will takes hundreds of words. However, the best way to describe it is by trying to really understand what the EU says about it: “The EST is a flexible, market-based, cap-and-trade system founded on a cost-effective theory: as demand for the right to release emissions increases, the price attached to that right will continue to soar so that the purchasers of the right will find it much more financially attractive to invest in reducing emissions rather than to continue to purchase the right to release.” (www.edie.net). So, it is clear that ETS is a smart way to force carriers implement serious improvements to their aircraft operations in order to protect global climate rather than keep polluting the environment for decades to come. This sounds reasonable to me so far but listen to this; companies are required to purchase emissions’ “allowances” in order to operate. Add to it, by the end of each year, companies should “surrender” allowances equal to those amounts of emissions released. If not equal, they can buy remaining allowances from companies who released less emissions and have surplus of “permissions”. I think EU had no choice to do so but they really impressed me when they said they gonna contribute to 64% of the costs for 2012. At least they show care regarding airlines’ pockets for the first year of enforcement.

What is worth mentioning here is that although the US is a world’s example in environmental caring nation, however, it still disagrees to join the global arena especially the EU ETS. The US was never consent on all of this and was solely playing (and still does) with a complete isolation from the rest of the world. This leads me to point out that I couldn’t find a trusted source about the origins of the existing conflict between the US and the EU about it. But obviously, it has a lot to do with money and politics. What I sure know is that the US has many ways to deal with the new situation and we will see in 2012. Plus, the US can basically do the same thing with foreign carriers generally and Europeans particularly. The results of forcing US carriers to participate are also gonna be unexpected. If the US as a nation wants to catch up with other nations’ environmental achievements, sooner or later it’s gonna adjust itself within the global framework just like any “green” ideas before. Even if the government prohibits carriers to participate, which I don’t understand why if so, it’s not gonna last forever. There will be someday to think about our nature or at least our pockets!!

Allocating money required to participate in such a scheme or at least create a national one is not easy. As I mentioned earlier, treating foreign carriers the same way is a possibility to launch a program like that and national carriers have always been a success partner in such times. Another interesting way to prepare for a perfect integration in this issue is to encourage municipal climate authorities to participate in the scheme. The reason why they should get involved is that according to the AustralianDepartment of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, 10 US States already have “operating” Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiatives (RGGI) and 7 States are currently working on developing a new initiative called the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) along with 4 Canadian States. Infrastructures for such a huge cooperation between government, air carriers and these authorities are already existed and should be soon utilized for everybody’s favor. This integration, if happens, will ease the cost impact and unify all efforts taking place here and there into a one national, smooth and beneficial piece of scheme for better American environment, economy and aviation industry.