Aer Lingus Fleet/ Routes Discussion Pt 2 (ALL possible routes included)

Looks like the privilege style be finished operating the Chicago flight tomorrow but being replaced by a smartlynx malta to operate from monday

Aer Lingus required several wet leases through last summer to operate their schedule, and there was no industrial action/ work to rule etc. Also were several ACMIs on the ramp as early as April this year.

XLR is EASA certified as if today on the LEAP model… good news for Iberia.

The XLR approval from EASA is for only 97 tonnes maximum weight, which is the exact same weight as a 321 NEO LR. It sounds like they have problems with that centre tank that the FAA have reservations about.

FAA approval in this instance is seperate to EASA. They have requested additional testing for the centre tank on the aircraft that has had to be modified from original design.

EI lounge only, not the DAA lounge.

Yeah the check-in desks look like a particularly amateurish job. There's no baggage belt, just a scales so the staff have to drag your bag from the scales onto a trolley and manually bring it around to a belt.

The extra 4 ton is required when all fuel capacity is loaded, and that includes an optional and removable fuel tank in the front cargo hold - the rear tanks of the LR now gone and replaced with the new integrated tank.

The EASA approval will allow Iberia to get moving and flight testing when they get the frame - in a few months, with only limited restriction - and without that front tank - if not forthcoming before handover.

FAA approval is needed to enter US airspace, but as you said, it should be forthcoming. The solutions devised by Airbus to solute the earlier (but oddly post design and production) concerns regarding the RCT have been developed with and approved by (to my knowledge) the FAA. They include a stronger, different material, and reprofiled (with moulded belly skids) underbelly fairing, stronger landing gear, fire retardant/perforation resistant wrapped RCT etc.

The FAA requested further evidence (I believe that's the best term) that said design/strengthening etc. will work. I assume this can only be done mathematically (through modelling) unless the FAA require a destructive test - which I haven't heard anything about aka crashing a fuel laden tank onto a hard surface. It may be that the tank fire retardant and Kevlar material needs to have some evidentiary functional testing to show it meets whatever AB say it does i.e. holds flames back for X minutes, and stops high velocity projectiles from perforating the material etc. Again, whatever this is, is known by AB and in progress if not done, awaiting paperwork... Again, to my knowledge... It's all a bit detail-short... In the public.

Regarding the 97T approval... Flightglobal yesterday:

EASA confirms to FlightGlobal that this is the current certified figure.

“However, Airbus intends to soon bring it up to 101t through a specific major change,” says the regulator.

“This will, for instance, allow the installation of an optional forward auxiliary centre tank that is supposed to be certified in the near future.”

Airbus states that it is working on required customer configurations for the aircraft.

I've been reading a lot of 'analysis' on the FAAs RCT conditions but a lot of it seems to be more spiel of previous concerns than new ones.

There are production models produced and in production so it would be odd if they went ahead with that with an unapproved design. Anywho... I know no more than what I've said. We'll know in a few months.

QED

True but not for initial manufacturer certification of an aircraft.

You concluded there was a problem with the RCT which there isn't.

Those FAA requirements are not new. It was the the late publication of them recently that made some online commentators to incorrectly assume they were new requirements.

The RCT testing is all done and already approved by EASA, FAA approval is expected to follow shortly.

My guess is that because a new landing gear was developed for 101T compared to 97T that for whatever reason this did not have enough time to get approved. This will follow on in the next few months.

British Airways have just announced that they’ll be going all Boeing. Streamlining 787 variants and 777-8 and 777-9.

350’s probably to Iberia. Just shows you can’t rule anything out with IAG.