Ghana bans a Delta Boeing 767 (yes, just one) | Hacker News Reader

Ghana bans a Delta Boeing 767 (yes, just one)

onemileatatime.com

340 pointsmcenedella144 comments

Banning Delta altogether seems disproportionate. Banning all 767s would be silly. Telling Delta they can’t fly this one particular plane to Accra seems to me like a perfectly reasonable response to a run of incidents involving that plane within a short period of time.

Honestly, the only thing that surprises me about this is that other aviation authorities haven’t followed suit.

Ghana has a particularly sensitive outlook on these things. They threatened to ban BA from flying there for having the temerity to place Accra flights out of Gatwick rather than Heathrow. (https://viewfromthewing.com/ghana-threatens-to-effectively-b...)

It is worth noting that the airframe in question has flown perfectly fine subsequent to the ban.

Wow. I kinda have to respect their position in OP but I don't understand this at all. How can the originating airport matter that much?

Gatwick is considered less prestigious than Heathrow in certain circles.

Getting to Heathrow from London is faster, easier and cheaper.

Depends what part of London you’re in. For me Gatwick is the faster, cheaper, easier airport. It’s also the airport with the fastest security and passport control I’ve ever been through.

I also challenge the idea that Heathrow is ever cheaper to get to than Gatwick. The Thames Link service to Gatwick is far cheaper than the Heathrow express, much faster and more pleasant than the Piccadilly line, only the Lizzie line makes Heathrow as cheap and easy to get to by train as Gatwick.

I can definitely say that Gatwick is the 100% better airport for international transfers. From that angle, the only thing Heathrow has going for it is that there are many more options. From every other aspect, Gatwick is way better and Heathrow is horrific.

Doesn’t it depend where in London? For example I’d rather ride the Gatwick Express from Victoria for 30 minutes than sit on the tube from Kings Cross to Heathrow for an hour. And outside of London, from Cambridge for example, there is non-stop train service available to Gatwick but not to Heathrow.

It’s too bad Norwegian shuttered their long haul service between Gatwick and NYC/BOS. It was affordable, comfortable and convenient, so of course it went bankrupt. Now the best options are out of Heathrow (my favorite is now British Air, as long as AA isn’t operating the flight…).

But starting in November you can reach Heathrow from Central London in 30 minutes.

Check out Norse, basically the same flights as Norwegian had.

This is great, exact same model and everything. I hope they come back to my city (Austin), it was insane what they did for price competition in the area (generally sliced the cost to get to Europe in half) and generally had better quality of service. My favorite part was being able to order food and beverages a-la-carte from the IFE console. It's so much more efficient for both the customers and the staff to do it that way.

It’s about connecting flights. More flights go to Heathrow from more places. Changing airport is anathema to most sane people so not being able to easily connect to there means it’s less likely people will come. This impacts business in many ways. Several countries and places have had a similar reaction for example the “save our slots” campaign of the Irish mid west community for flights from Shannon to Heathrow.

This. Prestige is part of it, but considering that ACC has only a couple of North American routes and a handful of European routes, a flight to Heathrow is a huge win: it brings one-stop connectivity to most of the world. By contrast, a flight to Gatwick means a deeply unappealing cross-London transfer to make those connections.

On the other hand, Gatwick isn't exactly a back water. I've flown to Toronto and the Seychelles via Gatwick before. We live between the two so it often comes down to flight times rather than airport.

Indeed, it has many routes, but it tends to skew towards leisure destinations. Also, Heathrow has the vast majority of the premium demand, so, for example, airlines that have aircraft with a First[0] cabin will schedule those aircraft to Heathrow and not Gatwick. It might seem strange to be discussing premium demand in the context of connections from Accra, but the toy-spitting that happened when BA tried to move the flights to Gatwick was coming from high-ranking politicians — who are certainly not flying in economy.

[0] International First, not what is called First in the US.

> Changing airport is anathema to most sane people

It's not just about time or inconvenience. Nationals of Ghana can transit the UK airside (at the same airport) without needing a UK visa in most cases, but changing airports means they are more likely to need a UK visa (there are fewer exemptions).

Americans don't realize that a lot of other airports around the world let you connect to other international flights without having to pass through immigration and customs. The USA is really backwards in that respect.

...Which is amusingly because the US is less strict at immigration/customs than most other countries. Since it lacks any exit controls, there's no need to segregate the international departures section of the airport, which has the side effect of meaning you have to enter the US to get to your connecting flight.

The unreasonableness of that particular politically-motivated action does not alter the fact that there is an objective concern here.

The decision to allow the use of twin-engined airliners on trans-oceanic routes (ETOPS) was predicated on strict reliability rules which dictate rigorous maintenance practices (for example, it once was, if it is not still, mandated that the same maintenance crew could not work on both engines of a given airliner, to minimize the risk of a misunderstanding or mistake compromising both engines.) This is a case of paying attention to details at the granularity of individual airplanes, and in that spirit, an unusual frequency of problems with one particular airplane warrants investigation.

The history of aviation is littered with the crashes of airplanes brought down by problems that seemed to have gone away - see the De Haviland Comet, for example.

There is no evidence for an objective concern though. Ghana is not in a better position to know anything about the safety of this airframe than the FAA or Delta themselves, and Ghana has a long history of politically-motivated actions in aviation.

Before you start talking about ETOPS approval, maintenance practices and crashes, it would make sense to have some shred of evidence for a safety concern on this particular airframe rather than just a couple of air returns due to minor issues — the kinds of returns that happen daily all over the world, to new and old frames. Two air returns in a week on the same frame is rare but not unheard-of, and it's notable that one of the air returns was following maintenance action in Ghana that apparently didn't solve the issue.

I feel it needs to be pointed out that almost all, if not all, countries have a long history of using access to their aviation industries/airspace/airports/etc as a political tool - so Ghana is far from being alone in that sense and I don’t think it adds much to either argument

It doesn’t have to be about a safety concern, just about their citizens being inconvenienced over and over.

I agree. But the comment I was replying to suggested it was a safety concern.

> There is no evidence for an objective concern though.

You mean other than this particular Boeing objectively failing to reach its destination due to multiple consecutive failures?

As I said, multiple turn-backs for the same frame inside a week are rare but not unheard of. Given the reason for the turn-backs, I don't agree that this is evidence of an objective safety concern. Components are expected to fail in service, and do fail on all airlines and all aircraft types. The overall system design preserves safety despite these component failures. A fuel imbalance isn't an imminent danger to the aircraft or its occupants.

Would you be happy to board this plane knowing that it had these issues?

  Would you be happy to board this plane knowing that it had these issues?

… had what issues?

Well, I wouldn't be too happy to board it when they had a pilot shortage, since I wouldn't be going anywhere.

With the fuel imbalance though? Sure. It would be quite inconvenient to spend two hours in flight only to end up back where I started, but if you're suggesting there was some imminent danger to the passengers, you're mistaken. Aircraft are tested and certified to fly with significant fuel imbalance; the turn-back is out of caution since it could get worse over the course of a long flight.

This incident would be nothing more than a boring tech log entry if there wasn't an influencer and some upset politicians involved.

So the actual pilots (presumably western aircrew) decide, twice, enroute, that it's unsafe to continue a transatlantic flight with this airframe, and you want to argue that this airframe is safe for said type of flights, warranting "nothing more than a boring tech log entry". I'm curious about why you would take such a contrarian, nay, even callous, stance?

> I'm curious about why you would take such a contrarian, nay, even callous, stance?

It might be because of actual experience in the aviation industry, rather than just experience reading articles about aviation incidents that amp up safety issues because that's what the public loves to read.

If you want to ground all aircraft which have returned to their departure point twice, you will be grounding every single aircraft older than a few years. So what exactly are you trying to say?

Do you actually have aviation industry experience?

A commercial airframe with trip-aborting issues on multiple flights within a short timeframe implies severe maintenance process issues or design issues, or both. Gains in commercial flight safety are written in blood. JT610 is one case in point.

Like I said, callous.

Arguably, after what we've learned about the FAA after the 737-Max crashes, FAA approval should be considered a red flag instead of sufficient proof of safety, especially when it come to Boeing airframes.

Europe has banned airlines, especially African airlines, and individual aircraft pretty regularly for safety concerns [1]. America tends to ban entire countries. It is only fair for African countries to follow the similar guidelines, especially when there are problem aircraft.

[1] https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-themes/eu-air-safet...

So just to understand this correctly, you're saying that a type that the FAA certified in 1982, and a specific aircraft of that type that has flown safely for about the last 25 years, should be viewed with a red flag because of the 737 MAX debacle?

This airframe has been banned to make a point about Delta scheduling their older frames on JFK-ACC. Delta probably does it because it's a low-yielding route, and making a big public stink (with safety overtones designed to scare uninformed readers) is one of the few ways Ghana can try to convince Delta to ignore the economics. Making a stink like this worked with BA, so maybe it will work with Delta too.

> Europe has banned airlines, especially African airlines, and individual aircraft pretty regularly for safety concerns [1]. America tends to ban entire countries. It is only fair for African countries to follow the similar guidelines, especially when there are problem aircraft.

To be clear, this has nothing to do with safety. If EASA or FAA banned an airline or a country because of a fuel imbalance there would be no airlines left.

From what I’ve read, the Ghanaian regulators have demanded that that specific aircraft not be flown within their jurisdiction because they don’t like the recurring issue with the fuel imbalance (…and advised that Delta flies newer planes because Ghanaians don’t like the old ones)

The FAA/EASA not being concerned by it (from what we know), doesn’t mean that there isn’t a possible safety issue to investigate.

It’s also easy to have politics and safety i.e. regulation mix in ways that aren’t so black and white. Consider the time it took for the 737 Max to be recertified in the rest of the world vs the US. Do you think that was all safety? Or some combination of safety and politics?

So no, I don’t think it’s possible to categorically state that it has nothing to do with safety.

A fuel imbalance happening twice is not a "recurring issue". It's a problem that wasn't fixed correctly. It may or may not concern you, depending on your level of knowledge about aviation, to know that when it comes to relatively minor issues like this, this kind of thing actually happens all the time — the maintenance engineer will carry out a documented series of steps to test the system, find that everything tests OK, and release the aircraft back to service. Meanwhile some intermittent fault is still present, that didn't show up during the test, and it happens again on the next flight or a few flights later. Eventually the tech log entries give enough clues to identify the problem or it happens during a test, and the issue is solved. No sane regulator would ban an aircraft for this kind of situation — a version of it happens daily worldwide, including on whatever your own favourite airline is.

Yeah, we’re gonna have to agree to disagree.

Do I personally think that the 2x fuel imbalance is a problem? Nope, I’d happily get on that plane

Could this situation become a safety issue? Yes it could.

Is it possible that there’s more to this situation than safety? Yeah, probably. Maybe they want shiny new planes on the route. But also, the passengers are paying customers with consumer rights - these are being enforced

Are the Ghanaian authorities not a sane regulator? I’ve got no reason to believe they aren’t being proper regulators. There is a possible safety issue that’s well within their mandate.

What happens when you’re dealing with regulators is if you’ve got a good relationship with them, then all the optional stuff (and some of the mandatory stuff) is optional. If not, then you’re gonna have to check every single box and then some. See Boeing in the US vs Europe.

Call it politics, call it whatever but it is what it is

Given how important fuel balance is to trimming the aircraft, I would not board an aircraft that has a history of problems with this.

> See Boeing in the US vs Europe. Call it politics, call it whatever but it is what it is

What you call "good relationship", I call corruption and murder. If Ghanan authorities are fighting against that, more power to them.

  I would not board an aircraft that has a history of problems with this.

Which aircraft would that be? The article describes one (yes, just one) instance of a fuel imbalance leading the crew to return to the departure airport. The reasons for the other diversions are not articulated.

FWIW your EU list shows restricted airlines not individual frames. At the end there are two airlines (Iran Air and Air Koryo) where subsets of their fleets are restricted (whole types not individual frames). With Iran Air it's likely that the restricted types are ones where sanctions make maintenance or safety compliance impossible. With Air Koryo the EU banned a bunch of unpopular Russian and Soviet types that are either way too noisy, incapable of meeting current safety standards, or are unsupported by the Russians.

Agree. Politically a government is responsible for giving its citizens a sense of security… maybe more so than actual security. Ghana and the US were both doing that in this scenario. Whether the fear is 100% reasonable or not is ultimately irrelevant. “We fixed it, no worries, go back to being productive.”

Then of course there’s the reality of them abusing fear of security to steer the herd, but I don’t want to wander down that rabbit hole.

> There is no evidence for an objective concern though [...] and Ghana has a long history of politically-motivated actions in aviation.

Doesn't even have to be about safety, but respect. Transatlantic flights that turn back is a huge inconvenience, and adds probably a day of lost time for passengers in total. Perhaps the Ghanians(?) suspect they get a problematic aircraft because of racism or that they are not considered as important as a typical business shuttle to Zurich or London? It may seem weird to westerners, but smaller countries don't always have more "sophisticated" political tools like diplomatic backdoor channels.

Delta would probably argue that they schedule their older frames on this route because of lower yield [0]. And you're right — political toy-spitting is one way to try to influence the decision away from the pure economics of the route. It worked with BA, it might work with Delta too.

[0] Older frames aren't necessarily less reliable — these issues could have happened to a brand new frame — and if maintained properly they are certainly not less safe. But they can be more economical in some ways (they're probably paid off), and higher-yielding destinations will reject the older frames since competitors run new aircraft on the same routes. There's not much competition on JFK-ACC.

> Ghanians?

Good that you called for possible correction here. It's "Ghanaians", not "Ghanians". Being Ghanaian myself, the spelling is one way I can tell if an article about Ghana has done its homework and is more likely to be accurate.

>Ghana is not in a better position to know anything about the safety of this airframe than the FAA

After the 737-MAX fiasco - which proved FAA ignores flaws for political reasons - they might be.

This isn't another Comet or MAX. The 767-300 was introduced 36 years ago and this example is 25 years old. If your running theory is that Delta's got an ETOPS maintenance program that's up to snuff for their own planes and other airlines, but somehow one plane is magically slipping through the cracks… well I call bullshit. If there were legitimate concerns the Ghanaian government would have raised them with the FAA or EASA. It's far more likely that Ghana wants a more prestigious plane than an old ratty 767 and this is the most pressure they could apply without raising the interest of foreign regulatory body.

  The history of aviation is littered with the crashes of airplanes brought down by problems that seemed to have gone away - see the De Haviland Comet, for example.

So what's the actual safety concern? The only specific issue called out was a fuel imbalance. You don't want to fly a long, ETOPS flight like that but it's almost certainly not an emergency. What were the other mechanical issues?

Airplanes can fly with all sorts of things missing or inoperative, and they do so every day. Safety issues are certainly one reason an airplane might return to the gate, but on a longer flight comfort and economic issues tend to become more important than they otherwise would. Autopilot acting up? You can fly the plane just fine, but not in the more precise RVSM corridors. Toilet clogged? Not a problem on a shorter flight, but on a long, full flight it might be easier to turn around (especially if Delta has a maintenance presence there). Bad weather at the destination?

With nothing but hand waving it feels a lot more like the sort of "safety concern" Al Baker would raise a stink about than an actual issue.

There don’t have to be known safety concerns. At a certain point they can decide that their citizens have been inconvenienced enough by issues with that specific plane.

IOW despite all the hand wringing on HN banning a single plane is a political issue not a safety one.

Edit: Another comment mentioned "an issue with the brakes" as the cause of a two hour delay. That's a great example of something that sounds scary but doesn't actually pose a safety risk. Something like an autobrake or anti-skid fault would not create a safety problem at departure or during flight – the problem comes from the increased (visibility, runway length, runway condition) requirements. Those increased requirements in turn increase the chance of a costly diversion. It was likely just cheaper to front load a solution at ACC.

Or, you know, the sky is falling and Ghana has blown the whistle on a major lapse in safety culture at Delta. /s

> It is worth noting that the airframe in question has flown perfectly fine subsequent to the ban.

Yeah, but at the same time these indicate a more serious issue with the SN

Sounds like "AA syndrome", where they dispatch these old planes on tight routes then wonder why the reliability is crap

If these were other times I'd be sure the airline and Boeing would come up with a mitigation plan for those things but now I'm not so sure

I stand with Ghana on this, the least the Brits could do is own up to their colonial past and not push former colonies aside as long as they’re not bringing in the money anymore (because I guess that’s the main reason behind that airport move).

Heathrow and Gatwick are private, British Airways is private, so its got nothing to do with the Government. The decision by BA was probably made for economic reasons, the Heathrow slots could probably have been used for more profitable flights. If the demand was there another airline could have used their slots for flights to Ghana from Heathrow. Problem solved for people wanting to fly to Ghana from Heathrow. Sounds like a fit of pique from the Ghanaian government to me.

it sounds like you're agreeing: the move was made by the brits because the former colony wasn't bringing in enough money anymore

It wasn't made by "the brits". It was made by a private company called BA. Do you understand that people are individuals?

Is this going to be said whenever a British company has a dispute in another country?

As long as Russian companies cannot fly into EU (and I guess British) aerial space, never mind landing on the airports located there, any such discussion of “you see, this is a private matter only, there’s nothing the Government could have done about it even if it so wished” is besides the point.

They could have just instructed the Heathrow operators “assign X slots for companies A, B, C and that is that”, the same way they’re telling aviation companies “you cannot fly to Moscow, and that is that”, it is all about political will at the top.

Russian companies are being sanctioned because their tax money pays for the war in Ukraine.

What an idiotic way of approaching aviation economics.

Heathrow's owned by a Spanish company called Ferovial....

Could you explain just how you are standing 'with Ghana on this'?

As an aside: I'm pretty damn sure that if something wasn't 'bringing in the money anymore', that Ghana would immediately fuck it off right out the window. As would anyone/anything else.

And just how should the Brits own up to their colonial past?

A fucking parade? Or, perhaps fix roads that ambulances STILL can't get down?

I always find it hilarious how HNers think governments are stupid.

It’s entirely reasonable to prefer Heathrow over Gatwick, nobody wants to switch airports, apply for transfer visas, worry about connections, etc.

A specific airplane that has had multiple issues is definitely less reliable than one that hasn’t. Sounds like common sense to me.

Between 2010 and 2013, I used to fly to Ghana most summers. Delta would use old aircraft on this route. Inflight entertainment was the screen hanging in the middle of the aisle. Watching a movie on the flight was a challenge. You had to bring your own entertainment to pass the time.

Eventually I stopped using that route and took KLM instead. KLM to Schiphol and to Accra. KLM was in a world of it's own. Similar planes irrespective of whether I was in the US or flying to Ghana. Personal inflight entertainment. The service was way better.

  Delta would use old aircraft on this route

Delta uses old aircraft on most of their routes. That's been their MO for a while. Delta was the launch customer for the DC-9 in 1965 and retired the type in 2014. COVID accelerated the retirement of the derivatives (MD-80/90), but they're still flying the 717 (a.k.a. MD-95).

The last time I flew SFO-JFK I was on a Delta 767-400 and yeah Delta hasn't updated the interiors on those. Compared to other airlines that typically run a premium (single aisle) product on that route the extra aisle and the 2-3-2 seating are pretty competitive unless you're jonesing for crappy seat back entertainment.

They have 127 Boeing 757s, a plane that stopped being made two decades ago with still no clear successor.

As does Icelandair.

I think Airbus is trying to position the A321-XLR as replacment of the 757

I wonder if this is a general phenomenon with Delta's codeshare partners: I flew on a KLM 747-400 that looked like it came right out of the 1990s a couple of years ago. I think they've retired it since, but it was very surprising to step onto.

KLM have fairly new aircraft, on average.

The 747-400 was retired not long after you flew it, I think KLM was the last airline flying passenger flights on the type and they retired it in early 2020. In general if it's getting retired soon (or primarily being used on not-so-profitable routes) it's unlikely to get any interior updates. In fact United's 747s were pretty ratty by the end (not that United is known for having nice interiors).

Lufthansa is still flying the 747-400 with passengers today (and other 747 models).

They’re also still flying the A380 and A340.

And the first class on both of those planes is amazing.

I don’t know about most of their routes but likely most of their long hauls.

Only 20% of their fleet today are 757s and 767s (and they are the largest operator for both), but they are also the largest operator for the Bombardier/Airbus A220 — my favorite short haul plane, which is an engineering marvel and a new design.

A lot of the MDs were from the Northwest Airlines days which they merged with. I used to fly NWA and the cabins were never inspiring but the points never expired and were among the best in the industry.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_fleet

This is a strength of theirs. They have a very strong maintenance program called TechOps

Delta actually retired its DC-9s in 1993. Then it merged with Northwest Airlines in 2008 which reintroduced the DC-9 to the Delta brand, and those aircraft hung on until 2014.

I used to live at a place where the airport was serviced exclusively by the MD-80. That is possibly the worst aircraft I've ever experienced. The noise, the vibration, is just awful. You can't even hear the flight attendant ask if you would like something to drink.

Delta kept that plane around in passenger service far, far too long. It should have been banned from the skies long ago.

I rejoiced when I found out the MD-80 was retired due to reduced demand from COVID. Apparently some South American carriers still use it for passenger service, so I guess I'll just have to wait a few more decades before I can be fully safe from having to experience that misery.

Is the single aisle a 4-4 then?

3-3 in back probably 1-1 and 2-2 up front. American, United, and (maybe?) JetBlue use narrow bodies (757, A321) with a more premium seating configuration on SFO/LAX-JFK routes. Delta does not. True to form Delta puts pretty much anything they can find on that route (including the 767-400).

A lot of new aircraft don't even even have back seat entertainment anymore. Just movies that stream over wifi to your phone or tablet.

I think there are 'old aircraft' and old aircraft. A 767 is an example of the former, whereas a Caravelle would be an example of the latter. Aircraft undergo stringent inspections every x hours, have to comply with Airworthiness Directives (ADs), and even more stringent standards and practices as far as maintenance goes. That's even truer for commercial airliners. So the chronological age of a plane is usually not a great indicator of its true state.

For example, I prefer flying on a 757 to a 737, even a new one, despite the fact that 757s are no longer produced: they have fantastic performance, and a well-maintained 757 is a very good plane to fly in, despite its age. Ditto for the 767. It's a beautiful twin-aisle plane, and I recently flew on one from Atlanta, and loved the comfortable ride. In fact, I was overjoyed to discover that I'd get another opportunity to fly on a 767, having flown on one to Hawaii (Hawaiian used to operate 767s also) some years ago. I would prefer flying on an (older) 767 to even a 757. If the airline does maintenance properly and has a good safety record, then it's actually better to fly a older airplane because it is likely to be more comfortable, powerful, and safer.

I kind of agree with Ghana here. Gotta maintain your planes. It's sad that a foreign country has to be the one making Delta do routine pmc.

More importantly, this is an easy way for Ghana to say "get another damn plane on this route".

They aren't making them take care of the plane though. Delta is just routing the plane to go to European countries now instead. Delta dgaf

This plane is now flying LAX, JFK, Edinburgh, and Lisboa.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N195DN/history

As it did before. During the past three months only 10 (or about 6%) of its 170 flights have involved Ghana, either as source or destination. It's mostly been flying in US/EU.

Source: that URL, with an old free membership.

Here's a news article from Ghana regarding the whole thing, including photos of the official letter to Delta from their aviation authority, etc:

https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Delta-Air...

They are making them take care of the plane, at least to the limits of their authority. It's not like they have much say about what a US-based airline does outside of their borders.

Makes sense for Ghana, there's likely far fewer direct flights to NYC than from, say, Paris, and transfers would add many hours as they're probably through Europe. Disruptions on this flight would have an outsized impact on diplomats and business execs.

Ghana has no reason to care about flights from the US to Europe, and also no power to regulate them. Just like the FAA presumably doesn’t get involved with flights between Ghana and other African countries.

They are telling Delta to do their homework better or they'll keep getting inconvenienced.

Strongly agree with Ghana. Seems like a reasonable way to stick up for yourself.

If you want to be more sure you're on a safe flight, fly over Ghana.

I love it! Pretty funny story as no one was hurt and there was no material damage. This is also a great example of why your code will inevitably end up with a bunch of if-else blocks if it is popular and used for a long enough time XD. I would like to see how this is coded into Delta's flight logistics software.

Also if the plane gets retired, does that clause stay there?

If it's anything like other codebases I've seen, yes.

Yes. Registration numbers can be reused. Even if Delta retires the plane, they are forbidden from flying a future plane with that registration to Accra (barring a presumedly easy appeal), so the code must stay.

That seems the opposite of the intended effect. If the buyer is able to buy that plane change the registration (lease it back to Delta even ! )and fly the same plane to Accura.

Changing Tail numbers are fairly rare in the industry, given the overhead required, the typical reason it happens when for Tax reasons registration is moved to another country ( numbers have a country prefix), but it is possible .

Authorities aren't computers blindly evaluating code. If Delta tried to sell and then lease the plane I'm pretty sure that the authorities would not just catch on, but find a way to substantially penalize Delta to discourage anyone from trying such a stunt again. Meanwhile it's substantially less work from Delta's point of view to not do that (even before considering the regulators response), so it's not something that's really worth worrying about.

It's reasonable for regulators to assume that people aren't going to intentionally fuck with them, when the incentive to fuck with them is practically non-existent...

Sure regulators and authorities are not evaluating regulations like that, but the entity being subject to that regulation frequently challenge such interpretations of regulations and win in court all the time.

While the spirit of a law or regulation is important in evaluating a case[1], even the smallest of technicalities are fought over in lawsuits and can determine the outcome of a dispute like this. There are many examples like the famous case that was determined by the Oxford comma to all the cases that decide what EPA, OSHA, CDC, or SEC can and cannot do decided by technicality or literal interpretation

So it would be kind of important to have that kind of loophole removed.

[1] Texualist proponents and federalist society judges have a strong opinion (when it comes to constitution) that add to my point on that but that is different can of worms I don't want to use as basis of an argument

Would have been better to ban the plane’s manufacturer serial number.

Presumably the same registration number wouldn't be necessarily re-used for a 767, and the ban is on the 767 with that registration, not on a hypothetical 777 with the same registration.

> I would like to see how this is coded into Delta's flight logistics software.

By cancelling the service to Accra, probably.

I don't know what level of misunderstanding it takes to think this.

Misunderstanding the airline industry, or the country, or how airports operate, or what really.

I think there's a certain contingent that reacts to any regulation with "fine, then I'll take my ball and go home". Country has safety requirements, they deny any service to that country as retribution.

The real world has more shades of grey. Delta can probably put a note in their scheduling system to make sure the airliner in question doesn't go to that country. They also know how much money they lose if they take their ball and go home, and probably wouldn't even be flying the route if it was completely unprofitable. (There are probably partners that rely on the service, and maintaining a good relationship with business partners is important too in a less financially-obvious way.)

I mean I'm Ghanaian and DL156 is the only non-stop flight from the US to Ghana, and only one of two to the entire region afaik (the other being EWR to LOS)

Just going based on how long it's run, the prices myself and family have paid for tickets relative to destinations a similar distance away, observed usage of capacity on each flight, and the fact it has literally no competition, they wouldn't up and cancel it short of some sort of safety threat to their staff or business. Definitely not because a problem airliner gets noted.

Would you like to contribute your knowledge to the conversation then?

It seems like it would be a knee-jerk overreaction to be, but Delta obviously has a lot of management issues and a shortsighted knee-jerk decision from them (or most giant corporations) would not surprise me.

Delta had at one point been developing Accra into a hub for their other destinations in western Africa but not sure they're still going in that direction with the way the transportation world has changed in the past few years. Either way, they probably do have a good bit of investment in facilities there.

Well I'm Ghanaian, my parents flew back into the US on DL 157 just yesterday. DL 156 is the same flight that's taken me home since I was a kid.

And I guess even without the personal context, just common sense tells me that setting up a direct tranatlantic route and then keeping it going for as many years as they have should still communicate the profitability there, and that being told their plane with obvious safety issues isn't welcome isn't why they'd cancel the flight.

I guess to me it's just feels like a very US thing to think this. Like if you picture Ghana as some tiny African country it's obvious: you probably imagine it's just a small line item on Delta's balance sheet, duh big corporation doesn't care about your feels and will take their ball home...

But that's the only direct flight from the US to Ghana, direct flights from the US to West Africa are not common (afaik there's only one to Ghana and one to Nigeria) and they pretty much get to name their prices on the flight and keep demand (and knowing how much it costs me to visit home they very much do take advantage of that).

… Wait, why would they do that? They presumably make money on the route, or they wouldn’t run it (it’s not like it’s one of those routes you have to have even if it’s loss-making), and they have lots of 767s; they can just shift the Forbidden 767 elsewhere. Are you suggesting they’d scrap it out of _spite_? Not how enormous companies work in general.

Same reason we drop customers in SaaS , sometimes the custom ops effort is not worth the distraction and changing the software a) takes time and b) can be quite expensive and create new bugs.

If the software does not support Anti-Affinity basically it is going to be someone's job to make sure it doesn't get routed to this route and manually override when it does and avoid an Aviation regulatory incident imagine the headache if Ghana refused entry or refused that plane to board passengers if by mistake it land in Accura, and the PR circus around it.

The ROI on the route may not be not simply worth it. On the other hand Delta probably also do not want negative PR around scrapping the route immediately even if they wanted to. Routes rarely get scrapped overnight there are existing commercial agreements, government requirements, regulatory notices, operational change in ground support and so on to be planned and executed, even if they want to do that, it will take sometime to actually do it.

As I mentioned elsewhere, airlines have to do a good bit of special-casing anyway, largely for weird airports. If the Wong Sort of A318 lands in LCY, say, it may not be able to take off again (and in any case it would probably be a major regulatory incident).

There’s also a human in the loop who should catch scheduling software mistakes; it’s part of the pilot’s job to confirm that all is well before taking off.

Ope. DAL156 just took off from NYC to Accara. It’s also a 767.

another if-else block? I'm thinking another database table of banned plane-route combinations, if they don't already have it.

Ideally, sure, but the article makes it seems like a rare ocurrence. And if their plane maintenance is any indication, I'm not sure their application architecture would be following such best practices.

  And if their plane maintenance is any indication

Delta runs one of the premier maintenance outfits (Delta TechOps) globally. About a quarter of their TechOps business is for outside airlines. So sure if that's any indication their application architecture is probably pretty decent (it's not).

This was an ETOPS flight, yeah? Those come with higher standards for crew training, maintenance, and minimum equipment per the FAA. I wouldn't worry until/unless the FAA starts making noise about revoking Delta's ETOPS certification (which would hurt their ability to fly a bunch of routes and their ability to perform maintenance for e.g. Hawaiian).

This specific thing is a rare occurrence, but “only certain special variant planes can land at this weird airport” (for instance, LCY requires a specific 318 variant) is more common; I’d assume their software can handle all sorts of weird rules.

Seems reasonable that they have some sort of rules engine that tracks this type of thing. A country banning a particular aircraft might be rare but differing environmental and noise laws around the world probably means there are quite a few restrictions on which aircraft can go to which destinations beyond the major reasons like runway size and gate facilities.

> Seems reasonable that they have some sort of rules engine that tracks this type of thing.

Such a rules engine is required for day-to-day ops management of a heterogeneous fleet (e.g. "list nearest airplanes to airport X that can fly non-stop for Y nautical miles to airport Z". Or "create flight plans ensuring that each airplane is certified in both departure & arrival countries"). I doubt hard-coding would be required, as such a system is likely flexible

Affinity / Anti-Affinity would be more robust solution and can also support other needs perhaps ?

Clearly we need a micro service, we know that relational databases are not up to this task of telling us facts about related data.

> no one was hurt

Check out https://youtu.be/7PQTMx7TZ9A, quite a few folks went through some emotional trauma over this one, unfortunately.

I get that it was traumatic, but I don't think we should begin comparing the trauma and distress of a bad plane ride for someone with a fear of flying to the trauma and distress of a plane crash.

by 'hurt' the earlier parent was pretty obviously (at least for me) referring to the chance at an outright failure and crash resulting in injury or loss of life.

not that a bad experience and the resulting psychological trauma doesn't constitute 'hurt'; but it's a kind of hurt that one stands a chance to recover from .

Emotional trauma because your plane has to turn around? Give me a break

A YouTube discussion between passengers on each of the flights turned around and a professional pilot:

https://youtu.be/7PQTMx7TZ9A

Great to see this follow up. I saw the original critique from 74 gear and didn't realize they did this.

Thanks, saw that youtube kerfuffle a few days ago and wodered if this was related. Looks like it is.

Seems like a perfect storm of max length ETOPS flight combined with a seriously aged airframe, resulting in a vastly increased margin of safety needed to complete the flight. If you plot JFK -> ACC on Google Earth, you can see the flightpath perfectly threads the needle between Bermuda and the Azores, creating what is probably the longest overwater route with no diversions possible from the east coast.

The 767's are really only profitable on these "long fat" routes anymore, and I suspect this will probably be the start of Delta retiring them for 787s or A350s.

Aircraft is in the air right now: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a17b16&lat=54.936&lon=-...

Back to back turnback: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a17b16&lat=42.330&lon=-... https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a17b16&lat=42.330&lon=-...

It should be note that even if all these malfunctions were minor and non-hazardous having a plane divert multiple multiple times would still cause an administrative nightmare

This isn't about safety and doesn't need to be for it to be perfectly reasonable reaction. There are 2 daily flights from the US to Ghana; this one from JFK and a United flight from Dulles. In comparison, there are more than 15 flights daily from just JFK to Heathrow. Repeatedly losing a couple hundred passengers, mostly business travelers and wealthier Ghanaian nationals is a BFD. Unreliable service inconveniences their more connected citizens, and greatly increases the costs of doing business in Ghana. Ghana needs this to be a reliable connection, and this is them telling Delta to get their act together.

They did exactly fine. African countries are no “lesser countries” when security is concerned. I hope we see it more often, if airlines don’t keep up the standards.

Based on a bunch of comments and replies, it seems like many people might have missed this (or just going off the headline) they’ve banned a 767 of a specific registration number. Plenty of 767s flying there. As I write this a different Delta (DAL 156) has just departed JFK heading to Accara.

So yeah, them banning that one plane is not some clever political ploy to have newer planes fly to their country lol…

Heh, I flew Delta from SFO to ATL a few weeks ago and ended up diverting to ABQ. It's my first diversion in a commercial jet in nearly 50 years of flying. At the time I thought it was a fluke, but now it's looking like more of a pattern.

>ended up diverting to ABQ

Bugs Bunny?

I knew I should have taken that left toin at Albukoikee!

> “With immediate effect, Delta Air Lines is being advised not to dispatch the B767-332 with registration number N195DN for flights to Accra.”

That doesn’t sound like it’s banned to me; more like they’re just pressuring Delta to use a different aircraft.

No, re-read it. "Advised" as in being told. Ghana has told Delta explicitly to not dispatch N195DN to Accra.

If you don't like sovrignity, don't leave your country. Ghana should do what it thinks it needs to to protect it's airspace and citizens on the ground.

Looks like Ghana aviation authorities are doing a great job!

It's a shame the executives running Delta aren't hit with crippling fines. The ability of individuals to hide behind the mask of a corporation is perhaps the worst thing about modern capitalism.

Why hit Delta with crippling fines? Has there been loss of life? Or anything close to it?

Sounds like the pilots returned to NYC out of caution. Modern aviation safety at work.

>>Has there been loss of life?

Not YET

>>Or anything close to it?

Depends on what the problems were.

Smart organizations don't track accidents and deaths (e.g., factories with the big "N Days Since a Time Lost Accident" sign out front), they track anythign resembling a close call, and I've even seen signs tracking that.

this is no different than tracking storage or memory failures so that you can pull the unit BEFORE it fails, because an increase in rate of minor incidents PREDICTS the failure.

In the case of civil aviation, when it gets to the point of loss of life or anything close to it, you are likely talking hundreds of lives. Smart people who are not sociopaths care about preventing that sort of failure. Evidently the execs at Delta do not, just as the execs at Boeing did not, and had to kill hundreds of people in two crashes to pull the 737-max off the flightlines.

Yes, this was a smart move by Ghana, and yes we do need personal liability for setting up a system that devalues people's lives in pursuit of profit (and no, that does not mean that every remote possibility of harm could send someone to jail, but systemic negligence of safety should have real consequences not just corporate fines. At the very least, if corporations are supposed to be like people, we need the corporate death penalty - significant crimes and the corp goes to the chopping block, assets individually auctioned off).

Do you honestly think Delta isn't tracking its aircraft performance? Perhaps in even more detail than a factory with a big sign!

The reason the aircraft returned to base (at great expense to Delta) on multiple occasions is because they are extremely cautious.

  Not YET

Do you even know what the problems were or how the dispatch reliability of N195DN compares to Delta's other 767-300s? There are any number of non-safety-related reasons a plane might return to the gate, especially on a long haul flight e.g. problems with the toilets.

Take a deep breath. Nothing with N195DN was a close call.

Take a step back, and reread this with the knowledge that Delta would not have let the plane take off if they thought this was actually fixed.

A redirect and return like these costs them an absolute fortune in fuel, employee pay, and hotels/rebooks for all of the passengers. It doesn’t even make sense for a sociopathic exec to do what you’re saying, because it’s not a path to making more money.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like to see proof of negligence before imposing punishments.

My wife and I flew the ACC to JFK flight in early Aug booked via Air France (I believe it was AF8702) and the flight was delayed by 2hrs due to an issue with the brakes that was discovered at the very last moment and that needed to be fixed while we were minutes from taxi and take off.

This left us and our fellow passengers couped up on the runway for that whole period. I’ll check but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was this very plane.

I also flew on a plane that had an issue. It was an airbus and with a completely different airline but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was this very plane.

Booked via Air France does not mean flying on an Air France plane. In this case it's in fact the same Delta flight.

I checked and the only flight I can find in early-ish August that used the plane mentioned in the article was on Aug 13 [0]. But it seems the flights out of ACC are very consistently delayed.

[0] https://www.planemapper.com/flights/DL157

Reply on news.ycombinator.com