Route Proving Flights - Who foots the bill?

[shon7]

Been hearing a lot about Virgins Route Proving flights on the A340-600 but am curious? Does Airbus pay for these flights or does Virgin pay? How does this work?

Also on the same lines, once the A340 is certified do all aircraft have to go through these flights or is it only the first one off the production line.

[mutt]

Not sure about the A340-600 case, but we are in the process of starting a new long haul ETOPS flight, 15 hours each way. At least one empty route proving flight will be operated at the airlines expense.

Mutt.

[Speedbird48]

Manufacturers may fly demo airplanes around various prospective customers routes and call it Route Proving but that is a sales ploy paid for by them.

Airlines, both 121 and 135, here in the US, must carry out route proving runs on every new type that they intend to fly. It is to see if the company has the background structure to operate safely and efficiently. The cost is all carried by the airline/operator and the airplane has a passenger load consisting of airline staff and FAA inspectors. The inspectors give various scenarios that the crew and the airline supporting organisation has to play out to satisfaction.
There is a set number of hours that has to be flown but this can be reduced by up to 50% with a satisfactory performance.

[PAXboy]

I think that you wil find that, in this case, the flights run at pax levels for the smaller (existing) 340-200. So that if a trip is cancelled, they can shift the pax on to an existing aircraft without problems.

The term 'route proving' is probably the VS term to bed the machine down. Consequently, all costs are theirs but offset by the fact that they have had the machine/s at a substantial discount from the supplier to be a launch customer. For the carrier there are Pros and Cons and those have been discussed elsewhere.

They are proving the machine on the route, not proving the route to the carrier's bean counters. :D