Airlines race to get planes off graveyards!

It’s been a quiet two years for the world’s airlines - but now they’re in a race against time to get their planes back into the sky, and it isn’t an easy task.

Airlines race to get planes left in California desert flying again
Natalie Wolfe
News Ltd, Nov 3, 2021

Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, and the way it brought international travel to a standstill back in March 2020, airlines have had some of their quietest years in history.

But now travel - both international and domestic - is picking up again and people are desperate to fly.

Airlines are now in the thick of the mammoth task of bringing thousands of planes out of what’s called “deep storage” with engineers, mechanics, pilots, cleaners and everyone who is responsible for getting aircraft back in the sky again working overtime.

Massive crews and aircraft certifiers are returning to places like the Mojave Desert in California and the Asia Pacific Aircraft Storage facility at Alice Springs to get these aircraft going again.

But the travel restart isn’t without its hurdles.

Crews have faced snakes on planes, poisonous scorpions, birds nesting in engine covers and insects burrowing in exposed holes.

Airlines have especially struggled with insects making nests in pitot tubes, a tiny tube that helps planes measure airspeed and altitude.

The European Union Aviation Safety Authority discovered this issue when it noticed a surge in incorrect airspeed and altitude readings for planes that were doing their first flight after an extended period in storage.

They’re also grappling with changing tyres, which have gone flat due to the length of time planes have been sitting idle, and oiling up all the necessary parts of the aircraft.

According to figures from aviation analytics company Cirium, obtained by Traveller, more than 16,000 aircraft were taken out of service by April 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

That figure equates to more than 60 per cent of the world’s passenger aircrafts.

Cirium estimated more than 30 per cent of the world’s passenger fleet was still out of service by the end of 2020.

But travel is kicking off again - at a rate that will likely surpass pre-pandemic levels.

Now engineers are ramping up their usual inspection checks, including draining fuel tanks of water caused by condensation, checking the tyre pressures, lubricating bearings and inspecting the fuselage and wings for animal nests.

Aviation regulation authorities across the world enforce strict guidelines to ensure planes are sky-worthy.

The Federal Aviation Administration in the US, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority in Australia and the European Union Aviation Safety Authority (EASA), among others, have massive checklists for airlines to follow.

It takes airlines 300 to 1000 hours of reactivation work to get a hibernating plane the regulatory approval to fly again, according to an American Airlines engineer.

And even when that process is finished, the regulatory bodies require the plane to complete a maintenance check flight to ensure it’s safe to carry passengers.

In June, Qantas revealed that engineers taking care of some of the airline’s super jumbos, sitting in the Mojave Desert, had been tasked with using wheel whacker devices to protect planes from rattlesnakes.

Qantas manager for engineering in Los Angeles Tim Heywood said it was important the aircraft were attended to regularly.

“Aircraft like these are highly technical and you can’t just land it at the storage facility, park it and walk away,” Mr Heywood said.

The airline said the engineers tasked with maintaining its fleet of A380 super jumbos stored in California had to come up with the effective system to protect the planes and also themselves from the area’s venomous rattlesnakes.

In addition to snakes, poisonous scorpions are also concerning during the summer season in the desert.

Mr Heywood said having a team of engineers driving the two hours from LA to Victorville for regular inspections is a vital part of keeping the aircraft in top condition during their downtime.

“The area is well known for its feisty ‘rattlers’ who love to curl up around the warm rubber tyres and in the aircraft wheels and brakes,” Mr Heywood said in a statement.

“Every aircraft has its own designated ‘wheel whacker’ (a repurposed broom handle) as part of the engineering kit, complete with each aircraft’s registration written on it.

“The first thing we do before we unwrap and start any ground inspections of the landing gear in particular is to walk around the aircraft stomping our feet and tapping the wheels with a wheel whacker to wake up and scare off the snakes.

That’s about making sure no harm comes to our engineers or the snakes.

“Only then do we carefully approach each wheel and unwrap them before performing our pressure checks and visual inspections.”

Mr Heywood said that the airline’s engineers have “encountered a few rattlesnakes and also some scorpions” on site, but thankfully, the wheel whacker has so far done its job.

“It’s a unique part of looking after these aircraft while they’re in storage and it’s another sign of how strange the past year has been,” he said.