Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak

Post by masklinn » Sun, Mar 08, 2020, 10:48 AM UTC

forkexec wrote: post #305

natmaka wrote: post #257

AFAIK this is common practice in many armies, where each group obtains a predetermined amount ('dotation') of goods (gas, ammo, clothes...) for a given period (often a year), uses whatever it needs, then an accounting process takes into account whatever wasn't used in order to calculate the next dotation. It seems consistent and efficient. However it neglects human nature. The soldiers want to avoid missing anything,…

"Use it [budget] or lose it." End of the year buying 100 $2500 toilet seats and 1000 $100 spools of wire. Welcome to government! PS: My mom was a civil service accountant with the Navy, and my dad and both grandfathers were USAF.

Post by mehrdadn » Sun, Mar 08, 2020, 11:11 AM UTC

labawi wrote: post #322

mehrdadn wrote: post #294

Is "thousands" of gallons even remotely accurate? The numbers I can find are that a 747 uses 1 gal/second, so a single excess 5-hour flight is like 18,000 gallons. Even a ~45% efficiency reduction on that for more modern planes gives 10,000 gallons per excess flight. Multiply that by however many excess flights per airline per day and then by many airlines are doing this (I dunno, let's say 5 flights for 5 airlines?…

Generalizing total plane consumption from instantaneous consumption doesn't seem like a good idea. Their engines have high dynamic range between take-off, climb, steady flight and glide. 4.5l/s (1gal/s) seem like a lot, would that be take-off/climb consumption? Then again, a 747 is huge and usually heavy, carrying a lot of people and cargo..

Post by yellowapple » Sun, Mar 08, 2020, 11:18 AM UTC

m000 wrote: post #77

cmcaine wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Post by yellowapple » Sun, Mar 08, 2020, 11:28 AM UTC

emiliobumachar wrote: post #317

o-__-o wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And THIS is why crypto markets are dropping, because China is flooding the network with miners to meet energy quotas

IMO mining costs are dominated by chips, nobody has idle data centers on standby for such an occasion.

Post by senordevnyc » Sun, Mar 08, 2020, 1:03 PM UTC

mehrdadn wrote: post #328

labawi wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the instantaneous fuel consumption at take-off vs. a very long glide down could in fact be 1000x, but is at least 100x. So I ask, what do your numbers represent? EDIT: "747-400 has eight fuel tanks, with a combined capacity of 57,164 gallons of Jet-A fuel"[1]. So around 30-40k gal for a typical trans-oceanic flight? Meaning 1 gal per 1 second of flight time should be within order of magnitude, but far from ta…

> So I ask, what do your numbers represent? And I said, it's right there if you actually take 5 seconds to Google. Literally the top result [1] says [2] that for a medium-haul flight (3,240–6,300 km), a 747-800 burns 9.9 kg/km of fuel, which at 917 km/h and 0.81 kg/L density, comes out to 0.82 gal/s if I'm doing my math correctly. So I guess my bad for being off by a whopping... 20%? Like I said, I'm all ears if you…