Alaska Airlines freighters are back in the air
On Monday a spokesman for Alaska Airlines reported that the three grounded 737-700 freighters that serve the Bush Alaska hubs are now back in the air. The aircraft had been grounded because of an issue with the bulkhead, which prevents freight from moving forward toward the cockpit in an extreme deceleration.
Two years ago Alaska stopped flying the 737 combi aircraft which could accommodate both passengers and freight. The airplanes had a large cargo door forward and could be configured for all freight and no passengers, all passengers and no freight, and combinations in between. To handle the freight going to hubs such as Nome, Kotzebue, Bethel and Utqiagvik, Alaska Airlines had IAI, Israeli Aerospace Industries, convert three 737-700 passenger planes for freight only. The freighters were keeping up with the deliveries until Alaska Airlines received notification of the bulkhead problem last week. “Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the company that retrofitted our freighters, notified us there is an issue with one of the bulkheads in our 737-700 freighter aircraft,” Alaska Airlines spokesman
Tim Thompson said. “The notification centers around the integrity of the bulkhead, known as the ‘9g rigid barrier wall,’ located between the top deck cargo area and the flight deck. This barrier prevents freight from moving forward towards the flight deck in the event of sudden deceleration of the aircraft.” The issue is about crew safety in the event of an unusually abrupt deceleration.
“We’re waiting on FAA approval that has been proposed by IAI. We’re going to know shortly whether we can get those freighters back in service,” he said.
While waiting for the issue to be resolved Alaska Air began flying freight in the belly of three passenger aircraft, 737-800s and a 900, to help alleviate the buildup of freight in the Anchorage warehouse. The company issued an embargo stating they would accept no more freight until the warehouse was cleared of the backlog. With the peak of the Christmas rush at hand the timing couldn’t have been worse. “We’ve been able to move nearly half of what we have on the warehouse floor,” said Thompson on Friday. “We hope to get the rest out soon. The timing is difficult and perishable is taking priority.”
A call to Israeli Aerospace Industries brought company Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Aviation Group to the phone. Yosi Melamed is an engineer who is directly involved with fixing the problem. “First of all we don’t really know if we have a problem or we don’t have a problem,” he said. “It’s about 80 percent sure that we don’t have any problem. Because we are very conservative and the issue of safety is important to us, we suspected that something was wrong in the production manufacturing process. So we went to the edge and took a decision to go the severe way and that’s the reason we issued what we issued. During this time we are performing some tests, which until now, are showing a very positive result. More and more operators are flying the aircraft on a volume basis. So actually on a volume basis the limits are zero. So those are the facts right now.”
Asked if the freighters belonging to Alaska Airlines would have to return to Israel for the retrofit Melamed had a ready answer. “In any case the aircraft is not coming back to Israel. If there will be a repair, and I’m emphasizing the if, it will be done in one day. If there’s an issue and we find a solution it could be done in one or one and a half days.”
Melamed said the element of risk was for practical purpose zero, but that they were being very conservative. “If you had a heavy landing with a heavy load and the main gear for some reason collapsed and the nose is touching the ground,” was how he described the scenario where the cargo might shift forward.
At Nome’s AC Store manager Mike McNally said “At this point in time, our logistics team has found other ways to get merchandise to the store.” McNally said there are other carriers, other options.