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Coronavirus will change airlines and the way we fly

bloomberg.com

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Re: Coronavirus will change airlines and the way we fly

#51

Post by meheleventyone »

qubex wrote: post #43
meheleventyone wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a pretty risky thing to do. Not only to yourself since you don’t know in advance if you’re going to have symptoms or not (risking permanent injury and death) but to your family and wider society. It would only take a few people doing this and not adequately self isolating for the weeks required to get better to start spreading the virus again quickly.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m most definitely not advocating it. But keep in mind there’s folks considering shooting up bleach because Podium Dementor mused about it ‘sarcastically’. People’s cognitive processes surprise, sometimes.

Yeah I wouldn’t be surprised if the next “superspreader” event after this first set of lockdowns is caused by someone who deliberately infected themselves.

Re: Coronavirus will change airlines and the way we fly

#52

Post by peteretep »

arcticbull wrote: post #50
peteretep wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Business is paid for by businesses, and premium economy is paid for by, uh, cheap businesses. I think this is probably wrong, but admit I don’t have the numbers to back it up. Last few years I’ve flown ~100 sectors in J and ~20 in PE, mostly intercontinental, and my impression is that there’s a strong showing of leisure travellers, based on the large number of couples and families. Could be expats with decent packa…

I'd love to know for sure too, I'll report back if I can find anything conclusive!

You don’t have anyway to contact you on your profile but I think we have stuff in common; feel free to drop me an email

Re: Coronavirus will change airlines and the way we fly

#53

Post by arcticbull »

peteretep wrote: post #49
arcticbull wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. It depends who's paying. For the most part leisure travelers aren't going to pay for anything other that basic economy. The basic economy experiment bears out that thesis: legacy airlines wanted passengers to pay more than LCC fares they had to compete with -- so they created an ostensibly painful and unattractive product in BE to encourage people to pay a tiny amount more for anything . Ultimately nobody…

> LCCs are interesting, because I would argue they support my case I think they bolster equally well the hypothesis that people will pay more, but they are guided to the cheapest option by Google Flights and so on, and then don’t price compare add-ons. Hard to know without hard data.

SouthWest would certainly agree with you, which is why they de-listed themselves from all the major OTAs a few years ago. That was before the UI updates for basic economy, though, so it's hard to say if that changed anything -- but of course they haven't been back.

Re: Coronavirus will change airlines and the way we fly

#54

Post by talliedthoughts »

TekMol wrote: post #13

I wish they would simply remove every second seat and charge twice the price. That would mean the same revenue for the airline and a much more comfortable flight for me. Win win. And they would probably still have some wiggle room. Because 50% less customers would mean at least some reduction in costs. What about the HN gang? Would you keep flying if prices doubled?

Any increase in price leads to some people deciding to skip the flight entirely. You might only need to raise prices by 30% percent or so to have a half-empty plane, if your customers are highly price-sensitive.

I would probably take fewer short holiday trips during the year - switch to 1-2 long holidays instead of 6-7 weekend trips. That way the cost of flying takes up a lower percentage of the overall holiday budget.

If people get used to higher prices, I also expect airlines to try and maintain them even after the seating restrictions are lifted, same as adding carry-on bag fees but not lowering the base price to compensate.

Re: Coronavirus will change airlines and the way we fly

#55

Post by arcticbull »

peteretep wrote: post #52
arcticbull wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to know for sure too, I'll report back if I can find anything conclusive!

You don’t have anyway to contact you on your profile but I think we have stuff in common; feel free to drop me an email

Will do!

Re: Coronavirus will change airlines and the way we fly

#56

Post by ttoinou »

qubex wrote: post #6
Pfhreak wrote: post #2

I think about the depression era behaviors that stuck around in my grandparents as a good example of what to expect coming out of this pandemic. They learned certain things out of necessity and it changed their worldview on everything from darning their own socks to what ingredients they'd use in their cooking. I expect that many of us will carry similar behavioral scars for years or decades later - ensuring we have…

I’ve been thinking along these lines, but with a twist. I’m half British and half Italian, raised and resided in the latter most of my life. As I’m sure you know, both of these countries have been hit very severely by the pandemic, and Italy in particular is probably the epitome of the “hard lockdown” — or at least, it’s been one of the more prominent cases because it was the first Western country to make that move a…

Can we go in and out of Malta, if yes how ?

Re: Coronavirus will change airlines and the way we fly

#57

Post by kijin »

irrational wrote: post #12
open-source-ux wrote: post #5

I have a hunch that once the severity of the pandemic eases, we may see an increase in car journeys for holidays, particularly for continental Europe. Why? Many people will remain cautious about travelling with strangers in closely packed airplane cabins or even train carriages. The alternative is to travel by car. But people can only tolerate a certain amount of time in the car and so this may affect where people tr…

> The alternative is to travel by car. But people can only tolerate a certain amount of time in the car We routinely drive 2000 miles round trip to visit family. People can tolerate lots of time in the car if they really want to go somewhere.

1000 miles one way takes about 15 hours at highway speeds. It's not that different from a transcontinental flight plus the time it takes to travel to and from the airport, wait at the airport, etc. You're also free to bring as much luggage as your vehicle will allow, stop and rest at any time, or go sightseeing along the way. On top of that, the seats are more comfortable, and it might even be cheaper for a family of four.

The only downside is that someone has to drive the car for all those hours. As soon as that problem is fixed, I don't see myself traveling by air at all unless I have to cross an ocean.

Re: Coronavirus will change airlines and the way we fly

#58

Post by TekMol »

arcticbull wrote: post #35
TekMol wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine 9 passengers sitting like this: *** *** *** Now lets remove 4 of them: * * * * * I would say every one has at least a 50% reduction in the number of people close to them. On top of that, minimum distance and average distance both went up. I wouldn't be surprised if the infection rate in the second example is only 10% of the first. Pair that with everyone wearing a mask. I have read that the infection rate goe…

> Pair that with a 10-minute test [1] which everyone has to take at the airport and let only negatively tested passangers on board. Isn't that the only thing you'd need? Then the seating arrangement wouldn't be relevant. Seems unnecessary to require both.

Depends on how quickly after an infection the test detects it. And on how reliable the test is.

Re: Coronavirus will change airlines and the way we fly

#59

Post by qubex »

ttoinou wrote: post #56
qubex wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been thinking along these lines, but with a twist. I’m half British and half Italian, raised and resided in the latter most of my life. As I’m sure you know, both of these countries have been hit very severely by the pandemic, and Italy in particular is probably the epitome of the “hard lockdown” — or at least, it’s been one of the more prominent cases because it was the first Western country to make that move a…

Can we go in and out of Malta, if yes how ?

No we can’t: commercial (passenger) flights were suspended on 20th march and though there’s various repatriation schemes running in both directions (in and out), pretty much everything is suspended.

It’s better if you abide by official sources though: https://www.maltairport.com/notifications/travel-advice-coro...

Re: Coronavirus will change airlines and the way we fly

#60

Post by TekMol »

gambiting wrote: post #40
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish they would simply remove every second seat and charge twice the price Will that help with the virus? It is less than six feet and you will be with that person for hours or so.

Isn't the distance completely irrelevant in an airplane anyway, seeing as everyone is in a closed, pressurised environment with recirculated air?

That would hold true if the virus would behave like a gas that dissolves in air. But it is carried by droplets that fall to the ground.

I would think there is not more wind in an airplane then in a supermarket. So the droplets that carry the virus should fall down to the ground in a similar fashion.

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