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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

#201

Post by Ididntdothis »

joshschreuder wrote: post #171
closeparen wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just another instance of the classic Soviet problem. A scarce resource is allocated by a government bureaucracy instead of a market, and the bureaucracy's design is imperfect, so nonsensical incentives fall out of it sometimes. There's no irony. It's just kind of quirky for the West to manage flight/landing slots this way, instead of an auction (as the FCC does with spectrum).

I used to work for a consulting company and heard similar stories for IT budgets. Companies nearing the end of financial year with budget to spare would scramble to get more consultants in to spend the remainder, otherwise the following year their budget would be scaled back to whatever they actually spent.

Don't forget that a company internally is run like a Soviet Style planned economy. 5 year plans, no way for people on the ground to adjust plans, inflexible leadership. I could also mention things like total disconnect between communication from leadership and reality or motivational posters. It's all there.

It's not surprising they create similar behaviors.

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

#202

Post by SECProto »

closeparen wrote: post #136
Nextgrid wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the auction model doesn't seem to work well when it comes to spectrum. What you end up with is a few big players delivering awful service while having enough money to outbid anyone, essentially preventing any competitor from ever breaking into the market to provide better service.

The government can only give away slices of a fixed resource for so long. Eventually it runs out. You literally can't start an airline from scratch. You have to first buy one that already has landing slots, then figure out how to dispose of the planes/staff/operations/debts that come with the package. Is that really better for competition than just having a market for slots?

> You literally can't start an airline from scratch.

Gonna need a citation on this one. I would guess the actual reason airlines are hard to start from scratch is the massive capital required, but would be interested in having this guess proven incorrect.

Porter Airlines in Canada (which presumably has a very similar regulatory regime) was started from scratch about 20 years ago.

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

#204

Post by mycall »

Nextgrid wrote: post #131
closeparen wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just another instance of the classic Soviet problem. A scarce resource is allocated by a government bureaucracy instead of a market, and the bureaucracy's design is imperfect, so nonsensical incentives fall out of it sometimes. There's no irony. It's just kind of quirky for the West to manage flight/landing slots this way, instead of an auction (as the FCC does with spectrum).

To be fair, the auction model doesn't seem to work well when it comes to spectrum. What you end up with is a few big players delivering awful service while having enough money to outbid anyone, essentially preventing any competitor from ever breaking into the market to provide better service.

What I don't like is the DoD keeping the best 5G spectrum to themselves (3GHz-4Ghz) while the rest of the world is using it, putting our future lead in communiciations industry at risk.

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

#205

Post by humaniania »

zukzuk wrote: post #106
0x8BADF00D wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except there won’t be money available when they ask for it. When the dollar collapses after the Fed cuts rates, the interest rate will rise very high. The government will be forced to cut spending, and there will be no bailouts this time.

zerohedge.com is leaking again

That site is so cynical and toxic. I regret giving it any significant amount of time. WallStBets reminds me a lot of it. Lots of manipulative content.

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

#208

Post by taspeotis »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #206

Why empty? Why not let actual people travel for free/cheap? I believe there is enough people who don't care about the virus but don't have spare money to travel far away.

They are ... ticket prices are down.

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

#209

Post by toxik »

derrick_jensen wrote: post #198
asah wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

y and this optimizes for the highest bidder, i.e. most profitable and not the airline best serving the user.

Companies are only profitable because they serve their users better than their competitors.

You cannot seriously believe this. Is a parking company only successful due to how well it serves its users? No, it extracts rent.

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

#210

Post by derrick_jensen »

toxik wrote: post #209
derrick_jensen wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are only profitable because they serve their users better than their competitors.

You cannot seriously believe this. Is a parking company only successful due to how well it serves its users? No, it extracts rent.

Maybe replying with "companies" was too broad, but within the context of airlines its correct
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