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Yes, I know. That video shows a landing there around Dec. 15th. The "Baltia Update" video shows a different landing at Willow Run in early August just prior to the air show sponsored by Baltia. In both cases the plane was coming in from Oscoda, MI.
Transparency? If we were allowed open up an egg to examine every detail of how the chick inside is developing, it would kill the chick. That process has to be hidden inside the egg until it hatches. After the rooster hatches, then we can expect to be able to observe everything it does.
Interesting oil price history chart. However, it doesn't seem to be adjusted for inflation. If adjusted for inflation, then perhaps current oil price is even less than in the Great Depression.
Baltia Update video on Youtube...
Note posting above about C4 "heavy" check completion recently:
NEWS: Baltia Air Lines B747 Heavy Check Completed
Any service items of this type (from years ago) would have been required to be fixed in order to pass the C4 check.
Correction: Mr. Thal in video still photo.
I see that Mr. Thal actually does appear in a still photo at the end of the video, though barely recognizable. The still photo shows most of the Baltia staff in red shirts standing on the ramp in front of the 747. Mr. Thal is wearing dark glasses and is the second person to the right of Mr. Dmitrowski near the center of the photo. Also shown in the photo is the 747 captain who served as copilot in the flight simulator demo. In the still he is the second person from the right end of the group - the tall dark haired fellow with a big smile.
The flight simulator video had to be shot as a demo instead of during actual training because motion simulation had to be turned off in the simulator. This is because camera and lighting equipment was mounted in the cockpit that flight motion simulation could have sent flying around in the cockpit doing serious damage or injury. Also, doing this type of video in actual training would be disruptive to the training and so couldn't be allowed for that reason as well. Thus, we shot video of a demonstration of flight simulator training using actual 747 pilots and with simulator motion turned off. However, in the video, there is an illusion of motion from the simulated action seen through the cockpit windshield.
The flight simulator demo was shot during the same time frame that actual flight simulator training was being performed, in the same simulator we showed in the video.
In the final cut, this sequence will be identified as a DEMONSTRATION of flight simulator training, for clarity.
You are incorrect. Mr. Thal does not appear anywhere in the video you mentioned. In the video, both the pilot and the copilot seen are licensed and rated 747 captains. The rated 747 captain shown as copilot is significantly less than 60 years of age and his name is not Russell Thal.
I know because I am the producer and director of the video and also served as cameraman for the flight simulator demonstration sequence.
The video was temporarily pulled to make editing refinements in a final cut, and is expected to be reposted when finished.
Nevertheless, how can anyone accept 110 passengers per day as the true potential daily travel between LED and JFK (with combined city populations of about 13 million) when the daily passengers per day between SEA and FAI (combined city populations of only about 670 thousand) is several times that number? Comparisons with other city pairs with combined populations of under a million, and much less motivation for travel between them than LED-JFK also are currently at several times the daily passenger count projection of 110. IMHO, that low number for traffic potential just isn't remotely credible between LED and JFK with their combined populations of 13 million.
I am skeptical of the claim that the current 40,000 annual passenger air traffic between LED and JFK represents the potential air traffic if nonstop service is offered between these very large cities. This number does not take into account the substantial traffic that now takes the Sapsan high speed train from St. Pete to Moscow and then flies nonstop from there to NYC via Delta or Aeroflot. Many people find this rail-air 1-stop option much more convenient at about the same cost than most of the air-air 1-stop options, and these people aren't included in the 40,000 figure.
Another cause for skepticism about the 40,000 annual travelers -- about 110 per day -- is a comparison with current traffic between much smaller city pairs. For example, Seattle (pop 634 thousand) and Fairbanks, AK (pop 32 thousand) are served by 3 daily Alaska Airlines nonstop round trip flights with 166 seats available on each plane. That's about 500 seats available per day on just Alaska's nonstop flights. There are a multitude of daily one-stop flights available from Alaska Air and other airlines between Seattle and and the tiny city of Fairbanks, so that the total daily air traffic on this route is well over 1000.
Considering all of the commercial and cultural interactions between St. Pete (pop. 5 million) and NYC (pop over 8 million), the potential daily air traffic between the two has got to be several times the daily traffic between Seattle and tiny Fairbanks. Certainly many times more than "110 per day".
So, I expect that Baltia will easily be able to achieve its traffic projections, as submitted to the DOT long ago and available for DD on Regulations.gov .
Have you filed a complaint? In not, why not? - since you seem convinced that a complaint should be lodged. If yes, what happened?
"Anyone have any thoughts?"
In the USA, the world's largest economy, not a single new part 121 SCHEDULED airline has been certified by the FAA since Virgin America in 2007. We know of at least 3 that have been in "processing" for years: Baltia, California Pacific, and the new People Express. Others were reported in the NY Times in an article a few months ago.
Does this fact tell us something about the FAA and its new system for certifying airlines? Does it tell us that Baltia has been stuck in the same bureaucratic mess as the other applicants - over which it has had no control?
I left out one word - "scheduled" - which I later corrected.
Re: Dynamic Airways - as I pointed out earlier, responding to someone else's post - is NOT a SCHEDULED airline under part 121. Nonscheds are subject to a much lower bar in attaining certification, not at all comparable to the full SAI wringer that an aspiring sched airline has to go through now.
Other new airlines in the process for some time now to gain cert as scheduled part 121 carriers: California Pacific Airlines, the new People Express (based in Atlanta, I think), and a few others. One article I read said there were 7 in process, but I don't remember where I saw that - maybe the New York Times a couple months ago.
FACT: the FAA has not granted a single wholly new part 121 airline certification since adopting the SAI system of evaluating manuals over 3 years ago, though several airline applicants have been in processing nationwide for quite a while. Before the SAI system, certification typically took just 6-9 months. Now it takes years. So Baltia is not alone in its frustration.
The engines were probably removed in response to a recent airworthiness directive to all airlines with 747-200 aircraft requiring that engine pylons be inspected prior to 2/13. This inspection requires removal of the engines.
Pipa, thanks for the pointer. That photo of the plane in the hangar just showing the tail end highlighting the rooster was probably chosen for the Facebook page to complement the photo next to it showing the rooster at the Baltia JFK office entryway.
That pix was taken on 9/13/11 in the painting hangar at Victorville, CA, as was the following photo showing the engines, with the plane in the same place....
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/8/dsc00644iv.jpg/
More photos in this Victorville series can be seen at the topmost sticky above.
Wrong. The main photo shown on Baltia's facebook page shows the entire plane from a right rear perspective, with the engines clearly in view. This photo was taken at Victorville, CA when the plane was there to be painted. Here is a link to the Baltia Facebook page so you can see for yourself...
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Baltia-Airlines/313465905337682
"TRANSAERO OFFERS NON STOP FLIGHTS..."
Old news. Please note the date on that announcement: October 20, 2010.
No snag now with the manuals.
Somebody obviously hasn't been paying attention. Months ago it was pointed out that the plane would NOT be brought to JFK until AFTER crew training was completed. And crew training can't even start until manuals approval. The plane isn't needed at JFK until the crew is scheduled to perform the evacuation demo. Bringing it earlier would just saddle Baltia with huge JFK daily storage fees prior to proving flights - what would be the sense of that? It costs nothing to store it in Oscoda, MI.
So anyone watching Flightaware now is wasting their time. The plane isn't coming to JFK until several weeks after manuals approval.
"checked the resumes of all of the directors and executive officers" - No you didn't.
What about the Exec. VP? What about the Director of Flight Ops? What about the Dir of Maintenance? Etc., Etc., Etc.
To meet FAA Part 119 requirements, all of the executives controlling airline operations have to be experienced airline executives and have to be approved by the FAA, and all have been.
Taken as a group, these executives at Baltia bring hundreds of years of actual airline experience to the table. The FAA wouldn't have it any other way.
Your numbers come from the INCOME STATEMENT, which includes a lot of non-cash charges according to accounting rules. To get a more meaningful picture of monthly cash expenses, you need to look at the CASH FLOW report, which shows monthly cash outflows to be a mere fraction of what INCOME STATEMENT accounting shows for expenses. And it shows a significant reduction in negative cash flow in 2012 as compared to the same 6 months of 2011.
The Cash Flow statement is also available from the "Edgar" of the SEC Baltia report found at...
http://google.brand.edgar-online.com/DisplayFiling.aspx?TabIndex=2&FilingID=8784111&companyid=30563&ppu=%252fdefault.aspx%253fcompanyid%253d30563
CASH FLOW is the key here, as in most companies.
Baltia's 747 has flown less than half the number of cycles flown by the Aloha 737 when it had its metal fatigue failure. And the Aloha accident prompted new aircraft inspection procedures that now use far better technology than was available then in order to micro-inspect aircraft skin for tell-tale fatigue cracks long before they become dangerous.
According to FAA airframe standards, after its FAA approved heavy C-check last year, with proper maintenance, N706BL has many thousands of cycles and many years of service safely available.
Both of the Boeing 747s flown as "Air Force One" are 747-200 aircraft. Still flown today, and flown across the Atlantic. 22 years old, and apparently planned to be flown as the Presidential Aircraft well into the future.
Bank account numbers on submitted documents are considered confidential information not relevant to the substance of the document and can be blacked out.
"...$1,035,502.00 IN DEBT..."
Yes, and according to the link you provided, it is long term debt involving no significant short term pressure, and as at 3/31/12 Baltia had over $2 million in assets BEFORE the huge reallocation of the cost of FAA certification as an asset, which will occur upon completion of certification.
So what's the problem?
Thanks for link to REAL short interest in BLTA. This chart seems to show a curious pattern of short interest in relation to stock price movement and clusters of negative comments on this board, IMHO. Could they actually be related?
Short interest at that link is only for stocks trading on NASDAQ, which BLTA does not. So if that link is what you are relying on for saying "no open short interest for Baltia," you are not correct.
The fundamentals of Baltia changed significantly for the better when it received the FAA letter detailing the few changes needed in ALL of the manuals to gain manuals approval. This letter removes the guesswork from the manuals approval process. That is why Baltia has been able to raise additional capital funding without incurring additional debt so that the money in the bank is now in 6 figures. This makes the repeated posting of "$39,847" in the bank as of March 31 both obsolete and meaningless.
Barry has additional funding waiting in the wings that will come to Baltia upon manuals approval and that will provide the 7 figures needed to complete certification and get Baltia well into operations.
Compared to other airlines' multi-million dollar certification process - i.e. JetBlue, Virgin America, etc. - Baltia's cost of certification looks reasonable. Especially so due to Baltia's decisions a) to start flying with just one aircraft, b) to start with an inexpensive used aircraft, newly overhauled to FAA specs, and c) to fly with a 747 that has far more cargo capacity for sale than any of the long-range 2-engined aircraft.
It is because the true fundamentals inherent in the Baltia business plan are so strong that Baltia is able to raise whatever additional dollars of capital investment it needs to complete certification and begin scheduled flight operations.
"...still 4-6 weeks away from approval (your estimated time frame)"
We need to be clear that this "approval" is only the approval of the manuals, NOT the FAA's final approval of the air carrier certificate, which Baltia must have before it can sell tickets and fly passengers. Manuals approval, referred to above, enables Baltia to go through the "first gate" of the certificate approval process. So when talking about this first and most difficult approval, we should be careful to call it "manuals approval."
Certificate approval has been estimated to be achievable in 2 to 4 months AFTER manuals approval, involving the unambiguous steps (in relation to manuals approval) of crew hiring (some interviewing already done), training, proving flights, emergency evacuation demo with the 747, table top exercise (a simulation done at the office of handling various emergencies), etc.
I mention this so that newcomers to this board won't have the mistaken impression that as soon as Baltia gets manuals approval it will be able to start operations - not so. Nobody is served (except those who want to push the stock price down) by our having inaccurate expectations.
"Baltia has done nothing from an investment standpoint."
Not true.
According to accounting rules, once Baltia receives its FAA certification, the cost of going through the certification process can be booked as an asset (several million dollars), plus the cost of buying and overhauling N706BL is then also fully bookable as an asset (several million dollars).
Those are indeed investments - but according to accounting rules, they only become fully bookable as assets when FAA certification is achieved. So after certification, I will not be surprised to see a dramatic favorable recasting of expenses to assets on the balance sheet.
Photos of current interior are included in the "stickie" above regarding video and photos of N706BL
That's very good! Based on my own past experience with government bureaucracies, the timing is perfect for this poke from a different senator.
"Where's our videographer?"
Been on vacation in Italy. Just got back, and getting back in the loop.
The way this type of agency works, the action comes first and the letter comes later after the outcome is known.
"...a written, not oral, response..."
There's a third type of response. And it's the best kind: Action.
"...I want to make sure the DOT is aware of that."
Why?
How would your best interests be served by doing that?
I think the best press release for Baltia will be one about the results of all this effort - the approval of the manuals - when that happens. My guess is that Baltia's letter and Schumer's letter together will push that along quickly now. So Baltia should have something concrete and very positive to say soon. And when that happens, in my opinion FWIW, that would be a positive for the stock price.
Thanks for the article, but it obviously has no practical effect on Baltia. N706BL has only 18,000 cycles, and this article and others tie the age limit to cycles flown, and none of these articles has mentioned a limit below 35,000 cycles.
Also this article mentions that the manufacturers and FAA will spend five years developing the rules on this. That takes us to 2015 - plenty of time for Baltia to get started with inexpensive, well maintained, and relatively low cycle 747-200s, build a revenue stream, and then upgrade to new aircraft.
So, not a problem.
I received a letter from Senator Schumer in which he told me he had written to the DOT asking them to look into the delays with the FAA certification of Baltia and to report their findings back to him.
In other cases I'm aware of, a senatorial inquiry like this has gotten the FAA to quickly move forward to a favorable decision. I expect the same here.