If planes are really empty, why can they not just pay the airport fees since I believe that is all the airports care about.
Or, perhaps take off, and separately land, a smaller plane such as a Cessna.
Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak
151–160 of 364 posts
Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak
#152The oddity I've personally had, is I had been planning a summer trip to Germany for the Euro 2020 tournament (assuming they don't get cancelled.) However, I hadn't bought plane tickets yet. Due to the virus, I figured I might get cheaper rates. The opposite has been true. The round trip went from ~$1200 up to ~$1800 in just a month or two. I'm still tracking flights, but so far I haven't seen a good dip in pricing. I don't know if airline pricing isn't reacting to supply/demand, or if there hasn't been that big of a dip in US to Europe passenger traffic.
Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak
#153Ironic. I had heard tales of the old Soviet Union about trains running empty to fill distance quotas. It was presented as the ultimate proof of how messed up their system was.
This appears to be happening in China with electricity quotas. Running AC and machines in empty factories to make quota. "Local companies and officials are fraudulently boosting electricity consumption and other metrics in order to meet tough new back-to-work targets" https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/Lights-go-on-but-no... "Video evidence. In #Wenzhou, factory manager told they must consume 3000 kWh electrici…
Same happened on this "New Silk Road" track:
"Empty trains on the modern Silk Road: when Belt and Road interests don’t align"
https://pandapawdragonclaw.blog/2019/08/23/empty-trains-on-t...
Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak
#154Earlier 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…
I don’t understand this. Can’t we put rules in place to prevent this? How hard can it be to take the slots back from the big airlines if they are not using them?
Hence, the problem with empty planes being flown around.
Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not about the passengers, it's about parking space for the planes. You not taking off means someone else can't land.
If that's really the issue, why are they constantly making ghost flights? Surely there are places to park planes in bulk (eg. same place where they're parking all the 737 MAX)
> Surely there are places to park planes in bulk
No, there aren't for airliners. Most are in the air at any given time.
There's boneyards and mfg. airports, and that's about it.
A possibility would be a non-operating airport in a friendly country - thinking about the new Berlin airport.
Boeing likely finally stopped making the 737 MAX after they ran out of parking space, which forced a decision.
To park even one airliner long-term requires prior permission and monthly payments.
Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zerhoedge has also been a month ahead of the media with respect to coronavirus reports. The fact that ZH speculates about conspiracies does not mean that everything on their site is BS.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Yet useless for telling the time
Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak
#157Earlier 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…
I don’t understand this. Can’t we put rules in place to prevent this? How hard can it be to take the slots back from the big airlines if they are not using them?
This is exactly why they HAVE to use them, but in the current situation it doesn't make sense.
Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak
#158The oddity I've personally had, is I had been planning a summer trip to Germany for the Euro 2020 tournament (assuming they don't get cancelled.) However, I hadn't bought plane tickets yet. Due to the virus, I figured I might get cheaper rates. The opposite has been true. The round trip went from ~$1200 up to ~$1800 in just a month or two. I'm still tracking flights, but so far I haven't seen a good dip in pricing. I…
I've also seen this! I went casually looking at the route I fly most often (but I'm not flying myself at the moment) and both economy and business fares seem to have gone up very substantially.
What's going on?
The airlines have changed their rebooking policy to make it much more lenient for the next few months. Maybe this is making the tickets more valuable and pushing up the price?
Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak
#159The oddity I've personally had, is I had been planning a summer trip to Germany for the Euro 2020 tournament (assuming they don't get cancelled.) However, I hadn't bought plane tickets yet. Due to the virus, I figured I might get cheaper rates. The opposite has been true. The round trip went from ~$1200 up to ~$1800 in just a month or two. I'm still tracking flights, but so far I haven't seen a good dip in pricing. I…
Those buying tickets are probably people who need to travel and thus will pay more. The market for the cheaper tickets isn’t there
Re: Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
In authoritarian states you frequently get situations where you're punished for not meeting certain bureaucratic metrics. For example, in China word is factory output is used as a proxy for productivity, so they're allegedly running factories without producing anything just to raise the power bill to appear productive. Face is ingrained in Chinese culture partly because in an authoritarian state where your behavior m…
The American model for government funding is also a bit messed up ( at least what I remember from high school civics in the 1980s) where each department must spend what they are allocated or the department is guaranteed to get less money in the next fiscal year budget. I could be wrong but this creates a disincentive for saving money as most states and the federal government work on the same model.
It seems reasonable at first: if you weren't able to spend all the money you've got that means you've got too much of them. But you're right, that does create the incentive to needlesly spend.
Also, it is not limited to gorvernment: a Director in a Fortune 100 company that I'm working for right now is buying 40 16" MacBook Pros for a team of .Net developers, because:
a) he had spare $100k in his budget.
b) it is easier to get VPN access approved for external contractors if they are using Macs