Speaker 1: Gilda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. In recent months,
Speaker 2: stories of extreme turbulence have come to dominate travel headlines.
Speaker 2: A flight between Spain and Uruguay this week had to
Speaker 2: be diverted to Brazil after dozens were injured due to turbulence.
Speaker 2: In one case, in April, a man on board an
Speaker 2: Air New Zealand flight from Balley broke his leg, while
Speaker 2: in May, a violent Singapore Airlines flight saw dozens hospitalized
Speaker 2: and one passenger dive. On top of all this, we're
Speaker 2: also seeing multiple stories of domestic flights where planes have
Speaker 2: had issues landing, and local and international flights getting turned
Speaker 2: around midway through their journeys due to technical issues. So
Speaker 2: why are more flights seeing extreme turbulence? Should we be
Speaker 2: concerned by flights turning around? And what are your rights
Speaker 2: as a passenger if flights go wrong. We'll touch on
Speaker 2: that last point later, but first on the front Page,
Speaker 2: we're joined by the chief executive of Massy University's School
Speaker 2: of Aviation as Shock potal Wall. Just to start with
Speaker 2: the shock, I understand you've got over twelve thousand hours
Speaker 2: of airline jet flying experience. Is that correct?
Speaker 3: Yes, that would be correct.
Speaker 2: So you know what you're talking about when it comes
Speaker 2: to planes.
Speaker 3: I would like to think so.
Speaker 2: So a shock. When we talk about turbulence, what are
Speaker 2: we referring to exactly?
Speaker 4: Turbulence has simply put the movement of air created by
Speaker 4: atmospheric pressure. You know things called jet streams, floor around mountains, thunderstorms, etc.
Speaker 4: To give you an analogy, it's like a car is
Speaker 4: traveling at six hundred kilometers per how if it hits
Speaker 4: a bumpy st road, you will be jolted in the air.
Speaker 4: It's basically horizontal or vertical changes in wind speed, which
Speaker 4: is called wind shear that happens when the aircraft is
Speaker 4: traveling through the air, and that causes the turbulence.
Speaker 2: Why do you think extreme turbulence is becoming more of
Speaker 2: an issue now? I've seen some suggestions that climate change
Speaker 2: is to blame.
Speaker 4: Well, all I can said the stage is that is
Speaker 4: a theory that is being put forward, and the number
Speaker 4: of incidents of turbulence in recent times have been more
Speaker 4: in quick succession. Put it that way, Whether this is
Speaker 4: going to be an ongoing trend or not remains to
Speaker 4: be seen. But there is a study that you or
Speaker 4: may or may not have seen by the University of
Speaker 4: Reading where they have talked about the link between climate
Speaker 4: change and turbulence and they're forecasting that turbulence incidents are
Speaker 4: going to increase in future. They've done a study from
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy nine onwards, I believe, and they're focusing that
Speaker 4: the increase due to basically a climate change is what
Speaker 4: they're saying. There would be more incidents of turblence, But
Speaker 4: at the moment, I would say this could be a
Speaker 4: cluster because you have things like cluster of events happening
Speaker 4: random events, and that then creates a perception that there
Speaker 4: is an increase in that particular type of event.
Speaker 2: There's also been dozens of stories in recent weeks involving
Speaker 2: planes departing New Zealand and then actually having to turn
Speaker 2: around mid flight due to technical issues. What goes into
Speaker 2: that decision making to turn a flight around, Well.
Speaker 3: That entirely depends on the nature of the issue.
Speaker 4: Chelsea, because if it is an issue that would impact
Speaker 4: the progress of the flight ongoing and it's not safe,
Speaker 4: then the pilots would take a decision to come back
Speaker 4: and a lot of these decisions are also taken in
Speaker 4: conjunction with the ground because most airlines have something called
Speaker 4: an integrated Operations Control Center, and so they're constantly in touch.
Speaker 3: With the aircraft.
Speaker 4: So the nature of the problem is communicated there, and
Speaker 4: then the pilots can make a decision either to carry
Speaker 4: on or to divert to an alternative field, or to
Speaker 4: turn around and come back. So it just depends on
Speaker 4: the circumstances.
Speaker 2: And I suppose we can have solace in the fact
Speaker 2: that if a flight does have to turn around, it
Speaker 2: really does, doesn't I saw it just yesterday in Auckland
Speaker 2: to China. Flight had to turn back after seven hours
Speaker 2: of flying. Could you imagine being up in the air
Speaker 2: for fourteen hours and ending up in the same place
Speaker 2: where you left off from. But I can imagine that
Speaker 2: there would have been some serious conversations and it would
Speaker 2: have actually had to seriously turn back.
Speaker 4: Hey, absolutely correct. That kind of a decision is not
Speaker 4: made by one individual. They said, communicate the information that's
Speaker 4: available to the OPS control center, which has engineers, which
Speaker 4: has operations people, you know, the whole range of the
Speaker 4: commercial staff there, and then they make a considered decision.
Speaker 4: Something like this are not made likely. J just now passengers
Speaker 4: are not going to be very happy with that.
Speaker 1: Virgil, a flight from Queenstown to Melbourne has been diverted
Speaker 1: to in Vericago.
Speaker 5: We have just received this video of the plane with
Speaker 5: flames being seen coming from one of the engines.
Speaker 1: It started out as a seemingly normal landing in christ Church.
Speaker 1: That soon flight JQ two to five from Auckland slid
Speaker 1: off the runway.
Speaker 2: We've seen two problem flights at Invicago Airport of all places,
Speaker 2: in the past month. One Melbourne bound flight from Queenstown
Speaker 2: had to make an emergency landing after the engines seemed
Speaker 2: to catch fire, while a domestic flight had to circle
Speaker 2: the surrounding area for two hours after landing gear issues.
Speaker 2: In your experience as a pilot, how common are technical
Speaker 2: issues like this?
Speaker 4: I have a background with mathematics. You know, the probability
Speaker 4: of something happening is mathematically extremely low. There are about
Speaker 4: roughly between ninety nine thousand to one hundred thousand flights
Speaker 4: globally every day. With that volume of flights, if you
Speaker 4: have a few odd incidents happening, I don't know if
Speaker 4: they happen every day percentage or probability of the currents
Speaker 4: of such events is extremely rare.
Speaker 3: Now the one about the engine fire.
Speaker 4: You talked about engine fires are very rare, so our
Speaker 4: aircraft fires, catastrophic failures.
Speaker 3: Are extremely rare. Just a little bit.
Speaker 4: Of information for you if you're interested that for an
Speaker 4: aircraft to be certified, the risk of any catastrophic component failure,
Speaker 4: the components that are critical and that would cause a
Speaker 4: catastrophic failure, the risk of that has to be lower
Speaker 4: than one to ten to the power of nine, one
Speaker 4: upon ten to the power of nine, or ten to
Speaker 4: the power of minus nine.
Speaker 3: It has to be lower than that.
Speaker 4: So basically what you're saying is, if you throw ten
Speaker 4: dice and the chances of all of them coming up
Speaker 4: with the same number, the probable of a catastrophic failure
Speaker 4: has to be.
Speaker 3: Less than that.
Speaker 2: Does the public have a right to panic in these situations?
Speaker 2: And what would your advice be?
Speaker 3: Okay, so let's look at what can be done about it.
Speaker 4: One of the things that I always advocated keeping the
Speaker 4: seat bills on at all times when seated, even if
Speaker 4: you're sleeping. Keep the seat bilts on, perhaps loosely, but
Speaker 4: keep it on and you may see that most salelines
Speaker 4: have an announcement saying it's recommended that seat bills should
Speaker 4: be kept on. I'm not sure if any measures are
Speaker 4: going to be taken now with increasing number of turbulence
Speaker 4: incident possibilities, whether they will mandate that, because for takeoff
Speaker 4: and landing it's mandated you have to have your seat
Speaker 4: bilts on in the air during crews. Whether you have
Speaker 4: to keep it on or not as a mandatory requirement,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure, but there is conversations happening around that.
Speaker 4: But keeping it on at all times except maybe you're
Speaker 4: stretching your legs or going to toilet is most important.
Speaker 4: That's one that's really the key thing that a passenger
Speaker 4: can do when on flight to remain safe. It's no
Speaker 4: different from bearing a seat built when you're in the
Speaker 4: car driving.
Speaker 2: Earlier this year we saw several incidents involving Boeing planes.
Speaker 2: Are you concerned at all by what you're saying in
Speaker 2: regards to Boeing.
Speaker 4: Boeing has unfortunately had some issues around quality assurance, and
Speaker 4: there's investigations going on in America. Federal avis administration has
Speaker 4: started investigations. The Boeing chief executive has had to face
Speaker 4: a Senate hearing a while ago about these issues. There
Speaker 4: are thousands, hundreds of thousands of Boeing aircraft flying across
Speaker 4: the world, so I don't see any immediate serious issue
Speaker 4: because once again the aviation industry, the moment anything is
Speaker 4: identified that could be a significant risk, they've ground the
Speaker 4: entire fleet, like you might have heard about the Boeing
Speaker 4: Max issues, which happened when two Amax aircraft crashed some
Speaker 4: some years ago, and then they grounded the whole Max
Speaker 4: fleet for about two years before they could get it
Speaker 4: back up into the air. So the safety structure scaffolding
Speaker 4: around airline operations or aircraft operations is quite robust when.
Speaker 2: We talk about quality assurance issues within Boeing and that's
Speaker 2: being investigated. Is that like taking your analogy with the dice?
Speaker 2: Have they not rolled that dice ten times?
Speaker 4: I suppose not exactly, just that there were some whistleblowers
Speaker 4: who talked about them taking some shortcuts, you know, where
Speaker 4: the commercial imperative overcomes the safety impertative, so to PA speak.
Speaker 4: So I'm not quite sure. I can't speak for what
Speaker 4: kind of shortcuts, if any, because I can only read
Speaker 4: what's in the news because they talk about going having
Speaker 4: cut some corners when they were manufacturing aircraft, So that's
Speaker 4: really the issue. But I wouldn't say that it's anything
Speaker 4: around when I talked about rolling the dice, because those
Speaker 4: are what you call critical components which would cause an
Speaker 4: aircraft to crash if they were not quality issued appropertly.
Speaker 2: In terms of these events, how much of it is
Speaker 2: technological challenges and how much of it is actually in
Speaker 2: the hands of the pilot? Sully comes to mind for me.
Speaker 2: Is there a balance there?
Speaker 3: There is?
Speaker 4: Aircraft are very highly automated, So what's happening these days
Speaker 4: is the role of the pilot is changing from basic
Speaker 4: stick and rudder. If you go back fifty years, when
Speaker 4: it was all about your capability to practically handle the
Speaker 4: aircraft physically, it's changed from that into actually managing the
Speaker 4: automation to achieve a safe outcome. So, yes, the role
Speaker 4: of the pilot is changing. Automation has made it very
Speaker 4: much safer. There are there are many types of accidents
Speaker 4: that used to happen in the past that have been
Speaker 4: significantly reduced.
Speaker 3: For example, flight into terrain.
Speaker 4: We have terrain avoidance warning systems that's stopped a lot
Speaker 4: of terrain related accidents where people are descended into terrain
Speaker 4: without knowing that it was there in bad weather, for example.
Speaker 4: Then there's the what's called the traffic advisory systems that
Speaker 4: they have on aircraft where it actually tells you when
Speaker 4: there's another aircraft closing or within within a particular range.
Speaker 4: It gives you a warning. And now the automated systems
Speaker 4: will actually take over and take aways of action as needed.
Speaker 3: So there are.
Speaker 4: Various technological advancements that have made huge improvements in safety,
Speaker 4: and the pilots have to learn how to manage that
Speaker 4: automation and also trust the automation and make decisions which
Speaker 4: are based on the circumstance of the time. So yes,
Speaker 4: the role is changing, but it's a combination of both.
Speaker 4: The automation is a huge help for pilots.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 5: A shock.
Speaker 2: When we board a plane, we all expect to get
Speaker 2: to our destination in one piece, not end up in
Speaker 2: a different country or even back where we started. But
Speaker 2: what are your rights as a passenger when things do
Speaker 2: go wrong? We're joined now by Consumer and z Ed's
Speaker 2: Jessica Walker. Let's start with turbulence. Jessica, if you get
Speaker 2: injured mid flight, what can you actually do about it
Speaker 2: from a consumer point of view.
Speaker 5: So turbulence is a really interesting one and this isn't
Speaker 5: something that our members have complained to us about as yet,
Speaker 5: so we don't have advice ready to go. But you know,
Speaker 5: generally speaking, when something happens that is outside the airlines control,
Speaker 5: so something like turbulence. You know, looking at what happened
Speaker 5: with the recent extreme event, I believe it was the
Speaker 5: Singapore Airlines or it's between things poor in an Auckland flight.
Speaker 5: The airline seem to handle that really well. So that'll
Speaker 5: be your first part of call would be to go
Speaker 5: to the airline, ask for us this sense and see
Speaker 5: what they can do to help you out. We've been
Speaker 5: reading that this is something that is expected to be
Speaker 5: increasing in coming years, and so it's something that consumers
Speaker 5: do need to be aware of when they're bucking flights.
Speaker 5: I know from my experience in the office that people
Speaker 5: who are already nervous travelers, it's giving them something else
Speaker 5: to worry about. But it's really important that you have
Speaker 5: a conversation with the airline if anything like that is
Speaker 5: to happen, because that will be your best part of call.
Speaker 2: It's probably more common that your flight might end up
Speaker 2: in the wrong destination hey, or actually back where it's
Speaker 2: started in some cases, what can you do in this situation?
Speaker 2: Is that something you can take up with the airliner
Speaker 2: or get a refund, or what can you do.
Speaker 5: So again, that would be something that's clustered outside the
Speaker 5: airline's control because you know, they couldn't have foreseen that happening.
Speaker 5: Or you know, if there's an extreme weather event which
Speaker 5: results in in turbulence, then they're doing what they can
Speaker 5: to keep you safe. And so it's not, for example,
Speaker 5: like a maintenance issue with an aeroplane, which means that
Speaker 5: either your flight's delayed or canceled or you end up
Speaker 5: in the wrong city. In those circumstances, you've got really
Speaker 5: clear rights. And so in an example where there is
Speaker 5: an extreme event like turbulence and the airline has done
Speaker 5: all it can to protect you but gets you to
Speaker 5: the safest point of disembarking if you like, then the
Speaker 5: rules it would be different when.
Speaker 2: We talk about things that are in the airline's control.
Speaker 2: What kind of things are those?
Speaker 5: So that's things like maintenance. So if there's a problem
Speaker 5: with the airplane, which means it can't take off if
Speaker 5: there's something like staff sickness, which happened and awful like
Speaker 5: this time two years ago. We were calling it air
Speaker 5: Mageddon in the office, and that was because so many
Speaker 5: flights were being canceled because of staff shortages due to
Speaker 5: a COVID wave.
Speaker 1: In New Zealand. S is it's cutting its flight schedule
Speaker 1: over the next six months. There's the airline experiences the
Speaker 1: highest level and crew sicknesses, and over a decade, around
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand passengers will have your flights canceled or rescheduled,
Speaker 1: which is concerns about the rights of consumers.
Speaker 5: So all those things, the things that theoretically are within
Speaker 5: the control of the airline, things that are outside of
Speaker 5: the control of the airline are things that wouldn't really
Speaker 5: come as a surprise to you. So and the COVID
Speaker 5: restrictions were in place and flights were grounded, we knew
Speaker 5: what the rules were, and so it was no surprise
Speaker 5: to any of us that certain flights weren't taking off.
Speaker 5: Or if there is really extreme weather, you know, for example,
Speaker 5: you look at the window and it's really thick fog,
Speaker 5: then it's not going to be a surprise to you
Speaker 5: that the airline decides to cancel or delay a flight
Speaker 5: and that is for safety issues, but that is something
Speaker 5: that they couldn't have foreseen, and so in those instances
Speaker 5: we were classed as outside the airlines control, and so
Speaker 5: your rights are quite different.
Speaker 2: What are your rights when say your flight is canceled
Speaker 2: due to something within the airline's control.
Speaker 5: So if it's a domestic flight and the cancelation is
Speaker 5: for reasons within the airlines'es control, the first thing we
Speaker 5: would always urge impacted passengers to do is to find
Speaker 5: out what the reason for the cancelation or delay is,
Speaker 5: because we are hearing that this is getting better, that
Speaker 5: communications from airlines is improving, and that's something we've pushed
Speaker 5: them really hard on. But it used to be they
Speaker 5: weren't always upfront about the reason for the cancelation or delay,
Speaker 5: which put you in a really tricky situation as a
Speaker 5: consumer to know what your rights were. But if the
Speaker 5: airline is clear with you that So the example I
Speaker 5: gave before, you know a maintenance issue which means that
Speaker 5: the flight is unavailable or the planes unavailable, then in
Speaker 5: that instance you are entitled to reimbursement up to ten
Speaker 5: times the cost of the ticket or the cost of
Speaker 5: the delay, whichever is lower. So the cost of delay
Speaker 5: could be things like a new flight, perhaps accommodation if
Speaker 5: there isn't a flight available until the next day to
Speaker 5: meals so you know, you shouldn't be in a worse
Speaker 5: off position just because the flight didn't take off. See,
Speaker 5: you need to keep hold of all of your receipts
Speaker 5: and then submit those to the airline and put your
Speaker 5: claim in. You'd find that both the airlines jets down
Speaker 5: in their New Zealand would say that claims have to
Speaker 5: be reasonable. So what that means is, you know, you
Speaker 5: couldn't go and buck into a five style hotel that's
Speaker 5: five hundred dollars a night and expect to get that reimbursed.
Speaker 5: For one reason, it's because there is a cap of
Speaker 5: ten times the cost of the ticket. But also they
Speaker 5: would say that that's not really fair. However, if the
Speaker 5: only accommodation that is available is that price and it
Speaker 5: does come within the lower end of the limit, it's
Speaker 5: not your fault, is it. So I think the thing
Speaker 5: to bear in mind is that you shouldn't be out
Speaker 5: of pocket because of a delay or cancelation that is
Speaker 5: within the airlines control and.
Speaker 2: Other things you can ask for as well. You mentioned meals,
Speaker 2: but also perhaps could you get a change of clothes, toothbrush, toothpaste,
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I guess it would depend on the
Speaker 5: situation because it is all about what's reasonable. So you know,
Speaker 5: so you're traveling and your somewhere longer than you're expected
Speaker 5: to be, so it might be that you need, you know,
Speaker 5: something to sleep in and a clean pair of bundis
Speaker 5: for the next day, in a toothbrush, you know, so
Speaker 5: that they would be reasonable things that you could claim for.
Speaker 5: But you couldn't go out and buy a whole new wardrobe,
Speaker 5: so it's just about being reasonable. Otherwise the airline is
Speaker 5: likely to decline your request.
Speaker 2: Is that the same with international flights as will or
Speaker 2: is it slightly different.
Speaker 5: International flights is different because it depends who you are
Speaker 5: flying with where you're flying to and from. So for example,
Speaker 5: if you are whether European airline or departing from a
Speaker 5: European airline, you've got great protections. So it's definitely worth
Speaker 5: heading to our website or doing a Google just to
Speaker 5: see what your rights are if you are impacted by
Speaker 5: an international delay. Or cancelation, because it really is quite
Speaker 5: different for different jurisdictions. So the States have got different rules,
Speaker 5: Australia has different rules. So the advice that I'm giving
Speaker 5: now relates to domestic airlines, but most times you will
Speaker 5: have some really pretty good protections. So it really pays
Speaker 5: to not necessarily just take what the international airline is
Speaker 5: telling you as gospel. You know, from my own experience,
Speaker 5: I've had to put your hard in the past with
Speaker 5: British airways. My in laws have done the same, and
Speaker 5: it works. If you know you're rights, you are in
Speaker 5: a really powerful position.
Speaker 2: I guess a lot of people may be quite surprised
Speaker 2: on what they actually can claim.
Speaker 5: I think that's right, and that's one of the reasons
Speaker 5: that we launched a campaign a couple of years ago.
Speaker 5: We called it our Flight Rights Campaign, and that's because
Speaker 5: we were getting no end of members and people that
Speaker 5: were aware of us getting in touch to say they
Speaker 5: were surprised that the flight was delayed or canceled and
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, they're incurring all these fees. And
Speaker 5: what we found was that people didn't understand their rights
Speaker 5: because the airlines weren't being upfront and you know worst
Speaker 5: case scenario. We found that some people were actually being
Speaker 5: misled and we didn't think that was fair, and that
Speaker 5: could have been that they just weren't being told their rights,
Speaker 5: but also there were some airlines telling people that they
Speaker 5: could claim up to a set field. I think it
Speaker 5: was one hundred and fifty dollars a night for accommodation
Speaker 5: and thirty dollars for a meal. But our argument was
Speaker 5: that's not fair because that's not actually in the Civil
Speaker 5: Aviation Act, that's not written down anywhere, and so of
Speaker 5: course any reimbursement claims should be reasonable, but people shouldn't
Speaker 5: be out of pocket, and so we think it's really
Speaker 5: important that people do familiarize themselves with their rights. And
Speaker 5: as they say, we are hearing anecdotally that the moment
Speaker 5: there has been a flurry of cancelations and it does
Speaker 5: seem that Air New Zealand and this instance have been
Speaker 5: really good and upfront about the reason for the cancelation.
Speaker 5: But it's definitely worth doing a quick google head to
Speaker 5: our campaign page just to find out what your rights
Speaker 5: are so that you can make sure you're not being
Speaker 5: shortchanged if you fail to take off.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: JESSICAA.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzedherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Ethan Siles with sound engineer Paddy Fox. I'm
Speaker 2: Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for
Speaker 2: another look behind the headlines.