Safety and Technology Trends

Passenger Sues JetBlue Over Toilet Time Reuters reports that a New York man has sued JetBlue for $2 million, saying he was denied a seat on a flight and was instead told to "hang out" in the plane's bathroom. The cash would compensate for "extreme humiliation." When the passenger arrived...

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Passenger Sues JetBlue Over Toilet Time

Reuters reports that a New York man has sued JetBlue for $2 million, saying he was denied a seat on a flight and was instead told to "hang out" in the plane's bathroom. The cash would compensate for "extreme humiliation." When the passenger arrived to check in for a JetBlue flight from San Diego to New York in February he was told the flight was full, according to the lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court. But he was allowed to board after a JetBlue flight attendant agreed to give up her seat and travel in an airline employee "jump seat." However 90 minutes into the flight, the pilot told the passenger that the flight attendant was uncomfortable and he would have to give up his seat and "hang out" in the bathroom for the remainder of the flight, the lawsuit said.

At one point, the airplane experienced turbulence and the displaced passenger sat on the toilet seat without a seat belt, causing him "tremendous fear," the lawsuit claims.

JetBlue was not immediately available for comment.

Global Traffic Continues to Slow

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) says global scheduled international traffic for March, compared to the same month in the previous year, increased 5.8% with load factors at 77.7%. But March passenger growth was skewed by the Easter holiday, which was in April last year. Adjusting for this distortion, real traffic growth in March was only four percent. The slowdown in the demand growth continues the sharp downward trend which began in December 2007 as the impact of the US credit crunch began to be felt in the airline industry. International passenger load factors were equally skewed. When adjusted to take into account artificially high utilization over the Easter period, the March load factor was actually 76.1%. While still high, this is 1.7 percentage points lower than the 77.8% recorded for the same month in 2007. This fall indicated that the slowing of demand occurred faster than airlines could cut capacity.

Vancouver Intl Keeps Eye on FOD

Vancouver International Airport (YVR) will later this year deploy new cameras developed by QinetiQ to enhance its Tarsier runway debris detection system. The system, which uses millimeter wave radar as its primary sensor, has been operational at YVR for more than a year, providing the airport with 24-hour automated runway debris detection.

FOD, or Foreign Object Debris, can be as small and seemingly innocuous as a broken wheel from a suitcase, a bolt or a discarded plastic bag, but can damage aircraft and, in extreme circumstances lead to aircraft failure. Four radars scan the airport's north and south parallel runways, locating objects that could be drawn into engines or damage aircraft systems. A display unit in Vancouver Airport's Operations Center provides the Airport Authority's operations team with an around-the-clock runway picture. YVR's decision to purchase the camera enhancement to Tarsier will improve airport efficiency by allowing the remote visual verification of detected debris to ensure that airport assets are better deployed. The cameras will be cued automatically, allowing the operations team to get "eyes on" with debris as soon as the system alarms. The high specification, fully automatic cameras will operate at night as well as during the day and will allow imaging anywhere on the runway. The cameras are due to be installed at Vancouver later this year.

Future Safety Risks Identified

A new report by the Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority(CASA) has identified trends expected to influence Australian aviation safety over the next three to five years. The trends relate to unprecedented global demand for aviation services, manufacturing and technological developments, increased security and greater environmental awareness.

Issues identified in the report will feed into industry/CASA working groups and will contribute to the development of Australia's National Aviation Policy or White paper, which was announced in April 2008. CASA CEO Bruce Byron says that identifying future trends will help the Australian Government, CASA and the aviation industry mitigate potential risks to safety. "It is no longer acceptable to rely solely on incident or accident data in an attempt to predict future risks to aviation safety," he believes. A range of representatives and organizations contributed to the report and were asked to consider the greatest safety risks the aviation industry will need to address over the coming three to five years. "Participants were asked to look beyond organizational level issues and instead consider matters of a 'whole of industry' nature, focusing on the priority area of passenger-carrying operations," said Byron. The most consistently identified broad trends were global demand for aviation services, environmental change awareness and initiatives, aircraft, systems and technology and international instability and security.