Airlines are cutting things like entertainment units, snacks and beverages in order to raise revenue and cut fuel costs, but what about those inflatable life vests? Do we need those? Air Canada’s regional airline “Jazz” doesn’t think so.
From the Nova Scotia News:
The Toronto Star reported Saturday that Jazz, Air Canada’s regional affiliate, plans to reduce fuel consumption by dropping commercial life vests from its flights, which will amount to about 25 kilograms less aboard its Dash-8 planes with 50 seats.
The move will leave passengers holding onto their seats — or at least their floating seat cushions — in the event the plane ditches and they hit the water alive.
Transport Canada regulations allow airlines to use flotation devices, a secondary option for other carriers, instead of life vests as long as the planes remain within 90 kilometres of shore. A Jazz official said a number of its East Coast routes were adjusted so the planes met that requirement, the Star reported.
One former airline CSR interviewed for the report wondered what would happen to infants and people who couldn’t grab on to their seat cushions…
“If you have an infant (and) you don’t have a (life vest), you’re hanging on to the cushion,” he said. “Are they saying, ‘Hang onto the cushion with one arm and your baby with another?’
“I mean, who comes up with these things?”
What do you think?
Airline ditches life vests to save on fuel [NSN](Thanks, Aaron !)
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@Secret Agent Man: What about that flight in the 80′s out of Washington D.C. that crashed into the Potomac? There were survivors there.
I used to work for a small firm that made parts for commercial and military aircraft and weight was a huge issue. I’ve always wondered why airlines painted their fleet. Multiple coats of heavy paint seem more frivolous than life vests.
@plural_of_moose: Jazz flies to Houston. That January crash may happen into the Gulf of Mexico. Of course, we don’t know if this even applies to their US flights.
@Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity: Wouldn’t you rather wear the vest and therefore have two hands free to hold the baby on the flotation cushion?
@WEGGLES90: Uh… Vancouver Island to the mainland?
@Atlantys: Vancouver Island is like a mile wide – I don’t think staying afloat for a long time is a big concern there.
The fact of the matter is that the inflatable life vests aren’t a big deal if you’re not flying over the ocean. Most transcontinential airlines don’t keep them around, but that’s not the story here. Air Canada decides to do away with something that’s only marginally useful on small airplanes and they get hammered for it as though they’re all evil.
If you end up ditching anywhere near a coastline, they’ll have rescue teams out there in a blink, and the seat cushion still floats just fine.
@Secret Agent Man: There have been cases where aircraft have slid off the runway into water. I don’t recall which airport it was, but I seem to recall one bitterly cold winter day a commercial aircraft slid off the end of the runway into a river.
There’s your water landing. Fortunately, with the ice cold water, you’ll die of hypothermia before you drown. Or your muscles will seize up and you won’t be able to hang on to your seat cushion and you’ll drown.
But like that Swiss Air flight whose allegedly Muslim pilot and copilot sent the aircraft into a nosedive into the North Atlantic, you hit the water at high speed, you’re dead. Fugedaboudit! Only in the “Airplane” movies of the 1970s did people survive water landings.
@S-the-K: There was an episode of AirWolf where a plane crashed in the water and survived underwater w/a minor leak until the end of the episode when they were saved.
What if it becomes a BYOLV policy? You’d have to pay for the extra weight of course, unless it was your personal item.
@Colage: The rescue teams don’t, unfortunately, always come in a blink, as the National Airlines crash and others make clear. It can take awhile before people know what happened, where to go, and who to send. For USAir 5050, the ATC saw that the plane was going to go off the runway and activated the crash alarm before the crash even happened, and it still took 10 minutes to activate boats. You can certainly drown in 10 minutes. For what it’s worth, some passengers on flight 5050 who attempted to use the flotation cushions said they didn’t actually work.
I’m not arguing that vests have to be carried–there’s no evidence they’d have reduced mortality on 5050, for instance–just pointing out how these things have gone.
@floraposte: Sorry, that was Air Florida, not National, in the Potomac. Fading memory.
@plural_of_moose: Very true. Reminds me of the Air Florida Flight 90 crash into the Potomac in 1982. There were 79 passengers and crew and only five survived. Only one drowned; the rest died from the crash injuries or from hypothermia.
Let’s get rid of the plane altogether…which will eliminate all the weight.
How much does the co-pilot weight? What do we need all these goddamn seats for anyways? Get rid of the damn passengers, they weigh far too much!
“In the unlikely event of a water landing… Does this sound suspiciously like CRASHING INTO THE OCEAN?”
RIP Carlin.
@Quilt: And all those fancy knobs, lights, and dials. They can’t possibly need them all. Like flaps? Why do we need such a big control for the back door on old fashioned pajamas. And rudders. Those belong in boats, not planes, so get rid of em.
People, people, this is Air Canada Jazz – they don’t fly they just taxi from airport to airport.
Canada is more than just Vancouver and Ontario. For example, from here in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Jazz flies to Boston, New York, DC, etc. All of which are over the Atlantic Ocean.
Canadian Law states that vests are needed for any flights which venture more than 90 KM from shore – so to get around the law Air Canada is modifying it’s routes to within 90km to be able to legally drop the vests.
Which begs 2 questions:
What is the difference between 90KM and 91KM out at sea that dictates whether I need to be wearing a vest with emergency flasher device, or clinging to a floating rectangle?
If dumping the vests saves fuel, how does modifying the routes affect mileage?
Note that the way you use the flotation cushion is you wrap your arms around it and clasp your hands: unless you have three arms, you’d have a hard time holding onto a baby, small child, or infirm or injured adult. Whereas with a vest, your arms are free.
True, survivable water landings don’t happen often, but safety devices exist to increase our chances in the event of the unlikely. The argument is presumably that there isn’t enough potential for lives saved to justify the expense in this case, but one has to wonder, if the vests aren’t really necessary, how did they make the calculation that they WERE sufficiently necessary to be worth buying and putting on planes in the first place?
I think it’s a great idea, as long as the planes aren’t really flying over water. My answers to two common statements:
1. This can’t possibly save much money.
On a Boeing 777, it costs about $0.15 to transport one pound for about 3.5 hours (above and beyond the cost of flying an empty plane). Assuming a smaller plane and a slightly lower average flight time, let’s estimate about ten cents per pound per trip. Let’s also assume they can eliminate 100 pounds on each plane, a total savings of $10 per flight. Now, multiply that by the number of flights per day (750 average), and 365, and you get a total savings of about $2.7M per year. In reality, this is probably a high estimate, but since you’re talking about savings in the millions of dollars, it makes a lot of sense. Not to mention that if they can increase profit margins even slightly, employees get a better profit sharing deal, which results in happier employees, and potentially more sales. Think of what they can save by not providing a few pounds of snacks.
2. Why is the 90km number so magical?
My best guess is that this is the distance a plane under control could glide on water toward land, or get pretty dang close. Assuming it’s an emergency landing and the pilot has decent control, he might be able to glide the plane this far (or most of the distance). It would take a Boeing 757 about 5 minutes to glide this difference at cruising speed, which is probably still too much to ask for, but it at least gets the crash in good location of quick coast guard response.
This is a regional airline with very few overwater hops. Not sure why them getting rid of life vests is an issue. If anything, it seems to make perfect sense.
@Tmoney02: Let’s not start a fight, and calling another user out of shape is pretty likely to start one. Cool it.
Why is the 90km number so magical?
In 1983 a Boeing 767 operated by Air Canada ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet due to a metric conversion error. Unable to reach Winnipeg the pilot (a former glider pilot) diverted to an abandoned airstrip at Gimli and was able to stretch out the glide to a safe landing.
The pilot achieved a 12:1 glide ratio (5,000 ft drop in 10 nautical miles).
So… at 90km (48 nautical miles) out a plane could theoretically glide without power from 24,000 feet to reach land. Having an airport in range is another matter but possible given a typical cruising altitude of 30-40,000 ft.
More on the “Gimli Glider”: [en.wikipedia.org]
Another Canadian glider (what’s with these guys?) was an Air Transat Airbus330 that ran out fuel over the Atlantic and was able to reach the Azores with a descent rate of about 2000 ft/minute (forward airspeed unknown). [en.wikipedia.org]
Oooh, I smell a new retail product coming on. As soon as AA, USair, et al hear about this, there’ll be a flood of “used but not used” life jackets available on the secondary market.
A good entrepreneur can pick them up for a song then maybe resell them as “flight experienced!!”, via shops at the airports … right beside the flight insurance machines.
/kidding … I think.
25 kilograms is about 55 pounds. Two people each bringing an extra suitcase on board negates that miniscule weight savings. What’s next, weighing the passengers and charging them extra based on their weight?
It’s not just weight. Life vests are expensive, have a shelf life, and have to be regularly checked, maintained and certified.
I still want a life vest. Even if Jazz flights are within the 160 nautical
mile limit for no vests, that’s a long swim. It’s a couple kilos per chair,
just get over it. I’d rather pay a few dollars more and have enough fuel
and safety equipment.
Someone came up with this idea in the Accounting department. They don’t travel.
@Secret Agent Man: I believe there were survivors back in the 80′s when a plane hit the 14th street bridge in Washington DC. I think it was Flight 91.
For longer flights Air Canada Jazz uses their CRJ regional jets, for the shorter flights they use their Dash 8′s. I don’t see this as a problem. As much I love the Dash 8′s, trust me, you wouldn’t want to be on a Dash 8 for more than 2 hours
The Dash 8 would probably make an excellent glider anyway, the wings have a high aspect ratio – similar shape to the wings on a glider.
For people asking about the 90km distance welcome to the wonderful world of CARS, Canadian Air Regulations.
@B:
Good luck getting a Dash 8 up to 30000ft anyway =)
My user name approves of the Gimli Glider talk
The funny part is the note in the wikipedia entry that said how many passengers were killed after being trapped in the plane because they inflated their life vests before exiting.
Jazz DOES fly over major water (try getting to/from YVR, YYZ, or YHZ without it). I highly doubt, though, that they do it to a distance of 100 nm, or anywhere outside the vicinity of the above hubs.
Even if they did, in 35 years, Air canada has had one incident of ANY kind involving the aircraft Jazz would use. A pilot overcorrected and there was a bumpy landing. No fatalities. I’m hardly concerned if they leave out equipment that they historically have never needed, that would be of use only in a ridiculously rare circumstance (aircraft incidents almost NEVER happen except on approach or takeoff), and only where there are already SAR teams, Coast Guard, and military support available.
If they were smart, like United, they wouldn’t just discontinue life vests: they’d start selling them.
@Tmoney02: All I’ll say is 5.7% bodyfat, not ideal, but by no means excessive. I never mentioned communisim. If it was communist then we’d all get on the plane and the short skinny people would balance out the taller heaver people alla from each man’s ability to everyman’s need…
OMG that’s how it is now, sniffle, I not a communist, sniffle.
Still, you think customers at the airport are ornery now, try and get every female on the plane to get on a scale and get weighed. Tears, anger, drama, it’ll all be there.
“But, but, it’s just water gain from my period”
Ya see, men have enough to deal with, we dont need angry spouses going on crash diets because they have to weigh in for a flight next week.
Good on ‘em. As skankingmike said, if the plane crashes, you’re best off to use a corpse as a floatation device since not many people will survive the impact anyhow.
While they’re at it, I think they should ditch all sorts of other unnecessary crap as well:
- emergency slides which double as life rafts
- the $8 blanket and pillow packages
- those often-fondled-but-never-read safety pamphlets
- the complimentary “headphones”
- footrests for business class travellers (they can use the backs of the economy-class passengers)
- cans of Molson Canadian beer