By John McDermott
The AirlineGeeks Podcast Episode 25: Milk Runs and New Aircraft
Thank you for reading the AirlineGeeks Podcast Recap. This article gives a brief look at last week’s episode of our news podcast. For our full analysis of each of these stories, you can listen to The AirlineGeeks Podcast on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Overcast or through our distributor, Anchor.
Our first discussion is of Alaska Airlines’ famous “Milk Run” services. The flights run out of select Alaska Airlines hubs and stops in different remote communities to help bring in supplies and people to the hard-to-reach towns. These Milk Run services can be vital to making sure remote places have basic necessities for survival, and they can also stimulate tourist economies by making towns easier to reach. We take a look at just how important Alaska Airlines’ services to be, and we also take a brief look at other similar services across the United States.
Next, we move to a recent developments that Air India’s employees are considering a bid to buy the struggling airline. The move would see employees each contribute 100,000 rupees (~USD $1335), though it’s currently unclear if all 11,000 employees would need to buy in to the plan or if the current group of just over 200 employees would be sufficient. We consider the implications of such a move, as well as some similarities with other airlines around the world and the other bid possibilities for Air India’s privatization.
Last, we move to Ireland, where famed low-cost-carrier Ryanair has placed an order for an additional 75 Boeing 737 MAX planes, bringing their total order for the MAX – or, as Ryanair has dubbed it, the 737-8200 – to 200 aircraft. We discuss what this order, and Ryanair’s persistent renaming, means for the 737 MAX program. We consider where these new planes may be used within Ryanair Group’s fleet.
This isn’t the first time Ryanair has placed large orders in the middle of a crisis, and we also look at the airline’s history doing so. And we finish with a brief discussion of where the MAX program is at the moment with regulators recertifying the plane and airlines slowly resuming services.
We hope you’ll listen to the podcast episode, linked above, for more in-depth analysis of each of these stories. Monitor our page on your favorite streaming service each Friday to hear the latest episode just as it’s published – at 12 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time each week. Feel free to leave a comment sharing your thoughts on this week’s episode.
Click here for last week’s recap.
John McDermott is a student at Northwestern University. He is also a student pilot with hopes of flying for the airlines. A self-proclaimed “avgeek,” John will rave about aviation at length to whoever will listen, and he is keen to call out any airplane he sees, whether or not anyone around him cares about flying at all. John previously worked as a Journalist and Editor-In-Chief at Aeronautics Online Aviation News and Media. In his spare time, John enjoys running, photography, and watching planes approach Chicago O’Hare from over Lake Michigan.
