KLM

[LBAYORKIE]

And now another tech Eastern Airways Embraer 190, G-CMWI at LBA.

Not sure what they are doing with the later flights this evenings to/from AMS

Now showing as departing to AMS at 00:30

 

[lbaspotter]

Now showing as departing to AMS at 00:30

What a bloody mess yet again.

It begs the question as to what’s going to operate the night stopping KLM1025 tonight and early outbound KLM1018 tomorrow morning?

 

[752]

What a bloody mess yet again.

It begs the question as to what’s going to operate the night stopping KLM1025 tonight and early outbound KLM1018 tomorrow morning?

The tech eastern will operate tomorrow morning, we have KLM PH-EZW due in at 22:50 and out again at 00:30

 

[Sherburnflyer92]

The tech eastern will operate tomorrow morning, we have KLM PH-EZW due in at 22:50 and out again at 00:30

Don't tell GALBA the freaks will be wetting the bed at a departure at that time. No doubt, head of the freak association, will already been in touch with LBA/LCC regarding such a late departure - despite aviation being a 24/7 business.

 

[LBAYORKIE]

Is it taking the pax that should have been on the 17:30 Eastern flight to AMS?

They must all have missed their connections. What do you do arriving in AMS at 02:00?

 

[Len Fish]

I could think of one or two things!

 

[LBAYORKIE]

I could think of one or two things!

Actually it will be 03:00 Dutch time. Presumably they will have been re-booked onto early morning flights, so losing a. nights sleep. Awful.

 

[lbaspotter]

Looks like Eastern are going to be missing for a bit, as Embraer 190, G-CMWI will operate this morning out bound KL1018 to Amsterdam then position to Humberside empty as EZE11P.

Meanwhile we have more KLM City Hopper own fleet booked to operate into Leeds tomorrow Tuesday

—:— 08:25 N/S / KL1018 = E190, PH-EXF
13:30-14:10 KL1019/1020 = E175, PH-EXL
17:00-17:30 KL1023/1024 = E190, PH-EZX
22:50- —:— KL1025/ NS. = E190, PH-EZS

 

[Len Fish]

It seems Eastern have absolutely no cover when things go wrong (in common I would add with other small fleet outfits). Odd that we keep being told that KLM CH have their own problems with a pilot and a possible aircraft shortage yet they can cover flights at short notice and good that they can rather than neglect the route. The whole situation however continues to be perplexing and seems set to continue unless Eastern build some resilience into their operations.

 

[pug]

It seems Eastern have absolutely no cover when things go wrong (in common I would add with other small fleet outfits). Odd that we keep being told that KLM CH have their own problems with a pilot and a possible aircraft shortage yet they can cover flights at short notice and good that they can rather than neglect the route. The whole situation however continues to be perplexing and seems set to continue unless Eastern build some resilience into their operations.

KLC do have aircraft and crews on standby just not enough to cover the operation in-house at the moment. Part of their SLA with Eastern will consider the events of technical problems and other scenarios that see Eastern being unable to fulfil. Whether there is a bonus/penalty clause included I don’t know, but having been involved in such contracts some years ago the procuring operator will always be forced to acknowledge that things often go wrong, aircraft can often be out of position and that they will have to take up the slack when this happens. If it was a pre-requisite that there was to be zero, or even very little, incidents of Eastern being unable to cover the services then simply Eastern would not have been given the contract at all. This is of course unless KLM really don’t care too much about their AMS-UK network.

It’s not nice to see, I’d honestly much prefer it to go back to full KLC cover across the network, but if they did that now I dread to think what the schedules would look like!

HUY had its second busiest April since 2009 on the route this year, so despite all the disruption it doesn’t appear to have deterred people from using the service.

 

[lbaspotter]

Well it dose look like KLM have seen the light and took the AMS-LBA route back on themselves for next few days. How long for is another question.

Maybe it’s just temporarily to give Eastern Airways some time to get there house back in order. What a carry on!

 

[Sherburnflyer92]

I mean in this instance with tech aircraft; it is similar to what happens in summer with other operators (take Jet2 for example). The airline contracting out will take it in house for businesses continuity (and good customer experience) whilst giving the airline that has been leased in the time to make sure everything is in this instance is fixed.

Penaltys? Who knows. But dont lease agreement's work on pay by flown hour?

 

[jason1-11]

And now another tech Eastern Airways Embraer 190, G-CMWI at LBA.

Not sure what they are doing with the later flights this evenings to/from AMS

It appears G-CMZI also went "tech," yesterday. EXT and MME both saw cancelations to their schedules as a consequence.

 

[pug]

I mean in this instance with tech aircraft; it is similar to what happens in summer with other operators (take Jet2 for example). The airline contracting out will take it in house for businesses continuity (and good customer experience) whilst giving the airline that has been leased in the time to make sure everything is in this instance is fixed.

Penaltys? Who knows. But dont lease agreement's work on pay by flown hour?

This one I understand is paid per sector not hours flown. If an aircraft is tech or out of position Eastern will not get paid.

Just on the side of the people who really do not like Eastern, one thing that really irritates me about it is how this contract could really make them into a solid operator now that their regional business has died a death. But for contracts like this you do need to invest and given that it’s a multi year contract you would have thought that resources would be poured into it to add resilience. On the one hand I feel bad for the staff, they see it as something of a future for the airline, but on the other those at the very top will need to embrace actually planning and not just grabbing, because it just results in people scrambling around to get through the day and not thinking what’s happening weeks and months in advance. The unreliability of the fleet obviously doesn’t help, but staff retention will be a problem once they’ve gotten over the hurdle of actually managing to find the suitably qualified people on the first place! And all people will do is use it as a stepping stone to move elsewhere and then they’re no better off.

It’s why I was hoping that a controlling share would be purchased by KLM so that they had some oversight, much like what happened with Air UK back in the 90’s. I still feel this could be an option and would provide some stability in all of the chaos.

 

[Starflyer]

The impression given to those at Eastern was that LBA no longer wanted them there (whether through unreliable payments or not) and consequently they wanted more from Eastern. The line was ‘they don’t want small aircraft at LBA any more’.

KLMs main issues aren’t the engines, they are crewing. KLC isn’t as attractive an outfit to work for as mainline - by all accounts it’s just as toxic a place to work as Eastern. People have gone to mainline or elsewhere leaving crew shortages that aren’t simple to fix.

"The people" or certainly "the person" at Eastern were under no illusions about why LBA did what it did and when. If they've chosen to present that differently within Eastern then so be it.

KLC - it's both. They couldn't crew the Embraer fleet if all of the E2s were working and I agree it is not a happy place. The bloke now running it probably has something to do with that.

 

[oldendays]

Perhaps it's time for KLM to ditch the Cityhopper division, together with its boss, and roll it into Mainline. It appears the division isn't healthy and do the passengers know the difference between the two outfits anyway? KLM is KLM!

 

[pug]

"The people" or certainly "the person" at Eastern were under no illusions about why LBA did what it did and when. If they've chosen to present that differently within Eastern then so be it.

KLC - it's both. They couldn't crew the Embraer fleet if all of the E2s were working and I agree it is not a happy place. The bloke now running it probably has something to do with that.

I still struggle for an answer to the problems though, just seems a bit unconstructive because clearly they’re in a quandary having to charter so many aircraft just to cover the network. Almost feels like KLM are managing to decline and that would be a great shame. Would also be a shame for eastern to not come out of this either, because at their core they would be a good outfit if it weren’t for the aforementioned short termism they drives it.

 

[LBAYORKIE]

"The people" or certainly "the person" at Eastern were under no illusions about why LBA did what it did and when. If they've chosen to present that differently within Eastern then so be it.

KLC - it's both. They couldn't crew the Embraer fleet if all of the E2s were working and I agree it is not a happy place. The bloke now running it probably has something to do with that.

I wonder who pays the landing fees to the airport under this KLC/Eastern agreement.

 

[lbaspotter]

I wonder who pays the landing fees to the airport under this KLC/Eastern agreement.

KLM pays the landing fees at LBA as it’s there slots that Eastern uses.

Oh and it looks like KLM City Hopper are operating the majority of LBA-AMS flights this week with Eastern returning from July 1st onwards.

 

[Finger66]

To compound these issues looks like a KLM Ground Staff strike on 28Jun with possible flight cancellations