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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

#241

Post by jtolmar »

betaby wrote: post #115
emiliobumachar wrote: post #108

Ironic. 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.

Never heard that, why would they in planed economy?

Same reason large corporations do redundant things and ignore their own best interests; bureaucratic hierarchies just don't scale well. A few layers removed from object reality, all that's left is loyalty politics and meeting your metrics.

I think communism can work, but the Soviet version with a giant state-controlled bureaucracy can't.

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

#242

Post by im3w1l »

beojan wrote: post #187
timthorn wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are similar ghost trains in the UK: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150723-why-britain-has-...

That's not because they have targets to meet, that's because closing a station officially is very difficult.

In both cases it's because of stupid bureaucracy, seems pretty comparable to me.

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

#243

Post by p_l »

llukas wrote: post #169
dukoid wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard they were running heavily loaded (= not empty) trains back and forth without any purpose other than meeting ton-km quotas, but I wasn't able to find a source... Edit: Found an article mentioning this practice: https://mont.thesentinel.com/2019/10/03/one-imperfect-day-in...

I read that some types of track require stressing every so often otherwise it loses its properties (in context of Polish railway laying new track then not running heavy trains on it and in consequence track had to be replaced again).

A slightly related issue is that airline pilots need to fly certain amount of time/operations to remain in current training.

Part of the big problem with reactivating MiG-29 squadrons in Poland after the "aftermarket mods" resulted in grounding was that even the instructors lost the legal right to examine training level.

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

#244

Post by p_l »

allovernow wrote: post #119
betaby wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never heard that, why would they in planed economy?

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…

It doesn't have to be an authoritarian state, nor do you need the concept of "face".

It happens often enough in corporations. Which arguably are authoritarian... (with rare exceptions).

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

#246

Post by zulln »

wutbrodo wrote: post #211
sonofgod wrote: post #62

I feel like there's a short-term solution to this: You can keep your slot and not fly the plane, as long as you pay some large percentage* of the cost of each ghost trip to the organisation that'd resell your slot. Your 'flight' must be fully crewed. That way the carbon isn't emitted, (some) jobs are kept secure, and the airline recoups a little of the money they would have otherwise lost.

What's the purpose of the "fully crewed" requirement?

Guess it is because this

> (some) jobs are kept secure

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

#247

Post by p_l »

mamon wrote: post #160
stevenwoo wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 easi…

Current client wrote-in a stupid policy into intermediate vendor's contract that I have to use a Mac.

Nothing, absolutely nothing that is used in the company is related to the Mac. In fact, a lot of the tools we use would work better on Windows, and many people use Windows. The Macs for direct employees are used as perks.

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

#248

Post by p_l »

koheripbal wrote: post #197
reaperducer wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The airlines that are stockpiling capacity at our expense will come hat in hand for a bailout at our expense. Yep. The same airlines that today are crying because of their "razor-thin margins" are the same ones that recorded billions of dollars in profit just a few months ago.

Airline margins are highly cyclic. Making "billions" in one month, might be countered by huge losses in the next. Evey yearly numbers don't tell the full story - you have to look at multi-year trends in profitability. ...and, indeed, they aren't great for the industry as a whole. Most nations operate a national carrier at a loss.

One of the biggest signals is always the price of fuel.

You need a ton of signals to actually interpret the condition of an airline.

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

#249

Post by Ididntdothis »

vkou wrote: post #216
Ididntdothis wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And yet, all of these companies that run like command economies have collectively out-competed all the companies that run like market economies. We know this, because the latter... Don't really exist. No company of any note operates like one. Does that imply that command economies are actually more efficient than market ones?

"Does that imply that command economies are actually more efficient than market ones?"

I think it's probably similar to politics. A well-run dictatorship can do better than a democracy but usually dictatorships deteriorate after a while.

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

#250

Post by wolco »

SECProto wrote: post #202
closeparen wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Very small airline. They have 29 planes that can hold 74 people. American airlines (including regional partnerships has 1700).
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