New scenario, new world, new mission

Irish Country Living thinks that Aer Lingus pilot of 32 years Padraig King may be slightly under-selling his sense of adventure and life experience when he says: “I was born and bred in Castlebellingham in Co Louth, I never left.

“After secondary school I served my time as an electrician in PJ Carroll’s. I did that for four years. Then I went to sea on fishing trawlers which was something I just wanted to get out of my system. I then went back to the electrical game for a year or so before entering the cadetship competition in Aer Lingus in 1988 and I got a place.”

With Aer Lingus ever since, in normal times Padraig flies the trans-Atlantic routes on the A330 aircraft, which he explains is the large wide-body (two seats by the windows and four in the middle), twin-aisle, heavy jet, long range aircraft.

Although Padraig has flown pretty much flown everywhere in America, “you name it; New York, Chicago, Seattle, Miami” he had never, prior to COVID-19, flown to China. The furthest east he had flown prior to this mission was to Turkey, when he flew the European routes.

New mission

“But that was in the old days (trans-Atlantic passenger flights) before the virus, once that hit, and the travel restrictions were put in place, all airlines and many other businesses were absolutely stalled, everything stalled. There is nothing unique about us.”

Now he has a new mission and that is flying from Dublin to China to bring in the personal protective equipment (PPE) so badly needed by the Health Service Executive (HSE) in the fight against COVID-19. Of these flights, he says there is a duel benefit.

A couple of days there were no flights at all due to a lack of supplies to collect, but five is the maximum

“This is A; a fantastic opportunity to help out, but B; a life blood for Aer Lingus. That is very important too as the company now has some income coming in instead of just all expenditure.”

Aer Lingus is now operating up to five flights daily to China with a contract that goes on until the end of May. “A couple of days there were no flights at all due to a lack of supplies to collect, but five is the maximum.

“The shortest trip we would do would be to Boston. If I went to Boston today (Tuesday) I would be back Thursday, that is the absolute shortest rotation, but these flights to China and with the environment worldwide, there is no staying down there. We are doing a round trip which is unheard off. The flights are classified as humanitarian.”

Manpower

To make this possible, the manpower on the flights is completely different to a commercial passenger plane which would be staffed with two pilots and eight cabin crew. In Padraig’s current crew, there are three captains and two first officers (FOs) who share all the duties, one crew operating the journey over and the other the journey back. There are also two aircraft engineers on board that look after the turnaround of the aircraft in Beijing. They deal with any technical difficulties and oversee the loading.

“On the aircraft we space out, we have designated seats on board the aircraft and designated toilets. The aircraft and the cockpit are fully disinfected before we depart at all.

“We have the wipes and hand sanitisers and the masks. We wear those during the turnaround in China as we meet with the immigration people when they come to check the customs declaration on board.”

Aer Lingus also keep the same crews together to try avoid any contamination of people moving from one crew to another.

“We fly into Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK), the biggest airport in Asia. It is incredible to see but it is just full of, literally hundreds of wide-body parked aircrafts. The last day we were there, there was a flight from Germany, and only one other aircraft moving the entire time we were there.

“This is how mad the whole thing is. I can fly to China without seeing one other aircraft.

“On a normal course of my day, you could fly to New York and you would see dozens of aircraft in your own vicinity at all times. You can now fly to Beijing without seeing any aircraft at all.”

The typical flight time for this trip is 10.5 hours over (11 hours 15 minutes on the return leg) flying over the North Sea, Scandinavia, Estonia into the Russian airspace just south of St Petersburg, across Siberia and Mongolia before descending into Beijing.

“We spend about four hours on the ground to load up. We fill the holds of the aircraft, which are absolutely immense, and the Chinese loaders fill every seat on the aircraft except for business class. We keep business class completely separated and isolated and no one gets into it except ourselves.

“Upon arrival back to Dublin, the aircraft is unloaded immediately. They start to unload it even before we leave the aircraft.

“It is brought through security, loaded into army trucks and there is a garda escort to bring them to wherever the distribution centre is. That stuff is leaving the airport as I am getting in my car to drive home.”

Working together

The pilot remarks on the unprecedented nature of – not only the situation – but how by working together, this mission has been made possible.

“In these weird times we are in, what really stood out to me is how all this was organised. This Chinese operation is unique. It is not as simple as people may think to launch an aircraft to a new destination. It would normally take up to a year to do this, whereas this Chinese operation was set up in eight days.

“The way that everyone pulled together was quite extraordinary. The way the union and Aer Lingus management got together was something that we have not seen before.

“Everybody realising that things needed to happen, the planning department, the commercial department, legal, flight ops, ground ops and the flight planning people – you name it, they made it happen.

“Up until a few days before we actually launched the first flight, there were still negotiations going on between ourselves at the highest level and the Russians with regard to overflight rights. For this to happen within eight days without any prior notice will never be seen again.

“Aer Lingus has never operated to China before. This is an extraordinary achievement and I don’t say that lightly as we don’t beat our drum, but to get this organised in eight days was nothing short of miraculous.”

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