Following the Southwest Airlines lap joint failure airBaltic are going to be mightily p1ssed off.
From a worldwide fleet of several thousand, there is a batch of only 579 aircraft requiring inspection, and if other authorities follow the FAA lead, repeat inspections, of effectively the whole length of the passenger cabin.
Don't know how many of airB's airframes are above the 30.000 cycle trigger point, I suspect a fair few, but of the 16 aircraft in the current fleet,10 are in the batch affected.
Unlucky throw of the dice for them having such a high percentage manufactured in the "dodgy years" between 93 & 2000.
Edited to say, Flight International recently published a list of the companies with affected airframes.Of 579 aircraft, only 175 have enough cycles to require inspection. Norwegian & SAS were on the list, airBaltic not, so I was wrong and their aircraft, although in the numerical list, must be lower cycle than I gave them "credit" for.
Last edited by captplaystation; 23rd Apr 2011 at 07:37.