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Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak

businessinsider.com

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Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak

#71

Post by cmcaine »

qubex wrote: post #63
cmcaine wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you just give fines to companies that don't run flights on routes then you can impose a penalty without incentivising empty or near-empty flights.

Excellent idea! So now you only have two more problems: lobbyists being paid to influence the fines (so that they don’t cause their clients so much harm as to make their anti-competitive strategies unprofitable); and regulatory capture (where regulatory bodies become beholden to those whom they regulate).

Those are already problems with aviation, so that's nothing new. The existing rules didn't emerge from primordial ooze, they were also influenced by lobbyists and have certain effects.

Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak

#72

Post by m000 »

yardstick wrote: post #49
qubex wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you understand the problems associated with the “just sell the slots” idea. The problem is that big airlines could buy up slots and then not use them. They wouldn’t necessarily have an incentive to sell them, either, because the buyers could be small, regional, or low-cost companies that could leverage them to build up a small but profitable business and later take on the bigger airlines (as happened wi…

The op addressed this issue with their comment about selling 1-5 year leases.

The objective is not fairness among companies. The objective is to keep the market competitive for the benefit of the consumers.

If you can afford a 5 year lease on a slot you won't actively use, you're still stifling the competition. And since EU prohibits EU-governments to subsidy airlines, this paves the way for non-EU countries with deep pockets to eventually control the EU air travel market.

Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak

#73

Post by tyingq »

tedunangst wrote: post #41

But no mention of which airlines or routes? What percentage of flights to Europe are empty?

Mentioning the heavily slot controlled airports would make more sense. The airlines aren't really at fault here. The airports that take your slot when they don't get their takeoff/landing fees are.

Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak

#74

Post by nogabebop23 »

qubex wrote: post #57
viburnum wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airlines (and other businesses with very high fixed costs) can be profitable if there’s enough consolidation in the industry. Otherwise they get into price war death spirals with no way out.

Railways are also often unprofitable, even when a monopoly (because of inflexible ticket pricing and high amortisation, depreciation, and maintenance costs).

ha - maybe passenger service but not freight in north america!

Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak

#75

Post by tyingq »

hrdwdmrbl wrote: post #8

A non-original idea is to create a market for landing slots.

They probably just need a temporary way for the airlines to pay to keep their slots directly, versus having a minimum number of payments tied to takeoffs and landings.

Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak

#76

Post by smkellat »

As a halfway answer to this, I ask if specific plane types are required on these routes. If not then swap out current craft for smaller vehicles so that your pilots can maintain proficiency time while still moving cargo and the reduced number of passengers. Flying isn’t like riding a bike and pilots can’t sit in simulators ground-side indefinitely. You won’t be swapping in a Dash 8 for an A380 in every case but smaller Embraer jets in lieu of the Airbus heavies could help keep the training/proficiency side going.

Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak

#77

Post by m000 »

cmcaine wrote: post #54
qubex wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes — because such behaviour results in losses for the company and, if sufficiently extreme (i.e., pushing them to bankruptcy) is self-correcting (they leave the market and vacate the slots).

You can just fine the companies rather than incentivising them to run empty planes. Better yet, institute a proper carbon tax and either a carefully thought-out market for slots and/or fines.

Fines are not a solution. When you hear about fines, it is typically some government trying to save face on the media:

- The collected fine will not be used to undo the damage to the market/competitors.

- The fine won't ever exceed the profits gained by the company because of the infringement. Or else the company will contest it as unfair.

That's why you read "EU fines Google with 5 billion" and Google doesn't really care. They will go through the moves of pretending they care, maybe try to shave off part of the fine, but at the end of the day, it's business as usual.

Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak

#78

Post by sokoloff »

smkellat wrote: post #76

As a halfway answer to this, I ask if specific plane types are required on these routes. If not then swap out current craft for smaller vehicles so that your pilots can maintain proficiency time while still moving cargo and the reduced number of passengers. Flying isn’t like riding a bike and pilots can’t sit in simulators ground-side indefinitely. You won’t be swapping in a Dash 8 for an A380 in every case but small…

Most anything over 12500 lbs (about 5500 kg) max takeoff weight or powered by jet engines requires the pilots to have a rating specific to the type. This means anything used in commercial service larger than a medium-sized (~8+1 seat) King Air.

A pilot type rated in an A320 isn't necessarily going to have a current type rating in a Dash-8 or ERJ/CRJ. (This is both a regulatory and an actual safety hurdle.)

(And of course, many of the trans-Atlantic routes can't be covered by significantly smaller equipment, though I'd expect that those routes are not flying literally empty anyway.)

Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak

#79

Post by barry-cotter »

qubex wrote: post #30
barry-cotter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a stupid rule. This is not an unforeseeable case. Just sell the slots. You can sell them once and forever or you can auction them yearly or every two, three, five years, whatever. Demanding planes run for no one’s benefit is just setting money, and more importantly resources, on fire.

I don’t think you understand the problems associated with the “just sell the slots” idea. The problem is that big airlines could buy up slots and then not use them. They wouldn’t necessarily have an incentive to sell them, either, because the buyers could be small, regional, or low-cost companies that could leverage them to build up a small but profitable business and later take on the bigger airlines (as happened wi…

“Big“ airlines buying up slots and not using them is a non-problem. Most airlines go bust over thirty years because the entire industry is so awful to be in. Flying busses don’t have that much better profit margin than the kind on the roads and the customers shop almost solely on price. That’s why Delta, Pan Am etc. are in and out of Chapter 11 or actual bankruptcy. You think companies in those kinds of financial straits won’t sell assets they’re not using, like slots?

Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak

#80

Post by dhdhhagvahwu »

Somewhat related:

My father was a Navy pilot during the Cold War. He told me fuel budgets were based on the last period’s consumption. If their actual use was below what was considered their predicted amount, they would put planes on a schedule where they would take off fully loaded, fly to 30k (or whatever made sense) and dump all of their fuel into the atmosphere.

They would then land, empty, and repeat the process.

That was a shitload of avgas dropped into the atmosphere but hey, military bureaucracy...

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