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Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History

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Re: Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History

#41

Post by bluGill »

fusslo wrote: post #33
buellerbueller wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if you are really serious about saving the planet from airplanes, you could start a network of similar-feeling folks and begin randomly bombing enough flights to terrify the world into not flying. Give yourself an edgy name, like the Children of Kali, to make it stick. Honestly, if you think the stakes are that high then you implicate yourself with anything but fully committed action. Anything less, and you j…

I recently read Days of Rage about the various groups committing political violence during the 60s and 70s. Weatherman, Black Panthers, Black Liberation Army, etc. I don't know if there was really a 'message' more than just reporting what 'happened'. But, I have to say I came away with the idea that that kind of political violence is futile. Non-violent political action seemed to have MUCH more beneficial action than…

The general impression from talking to people who live then (I was a baby in the 1970s so I knew/know a fair number). The violent groups were looked on as weird or kids who needed to grow up - they were ignored for the most part other than cheering on what the police did.

There is a reason Rosa Parks was chosen to start the bus boycott - she comes off as "just like me" to the average person. Thus when she couldn't take it anymore the rest of America didn't write her off.

Re: Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History

#42

Post by kbart »

Modern aviation is an amazing engineering feat (all the environmental issues aside). With such numbers it means that "one in a million" failure occurs roughly evey week, but the fact that we have so little major incidents demonstrates how well aicrafts are engineered.

Re: Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History

#43

Post by sdoering »

K0nserv wrote: post #23
jjice wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For transport you're right. I think the parent your referring to was specifically saying there's no alternative way to power a plane. That's my assumption at least.

I was saying a bit of both. megablast is correct that there are alternatives, but I'd maybe quibble with "viable". For example you can get from Stockholm to Umeå with a 1 hour flight or a 6-8 hour train journey, is the train a viable alternative? For aviation there aren't alternative fuels and on many journeys even the alternative transport options aren't in the same ballpark.

Calling it a “1 hour flight” is a bit misleading when comparing transport options. The relevant number is door-to-door travel time.

Once you include getting out of Stockholm to the airport, security, boarding, the flight itself, possible baggage collection, and the trip into Umeå, I would be surprised if the total were much below 4 hours. Comparable German domestic flights such as Hamburg–Munich usually took me around 4–4.5 hours in practice in the past when traveling for work before the pandemic.

That makes the train a 6–8 hour alternative to a roughly 4-hour flight journey. Whether that is viable depends on the traveller, but it is certainly more competitive than “1 hour versus 8 hours” suggests.

I admit that for me, living about an hour north of the Hamburg main station but only 15 minutes from the airport, the plance for a business trip in Munich can still be a viable (albeit seldom taken) option. More often than not, if time permits, I take the train, work on the train. But as said - there still are situations, that make flying such a distance viable (to me).

I just wanted to point out, that it is not as clear cut as 1 hour vs. 6 to 8 hours.

Re: Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History

#45

Post by richwater »

datakan wrote: post #36
richwater wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real cost of air travel continues to go down as customers really only discriminate on price. Airlines have tried before to compete on other facets but everything failed. The best you can do is look at specific carriers, and more importantly specifically what aircraft you'll be flying on. A cross country flight in economy is going to be more comfortable in a Delta A220 than a United 737 Max. However, because of hu…

Maybe, I don't know. Sprit Airlines closing up abruptly like it did may refute your premise. They were the cheapest of the cheap, people hated them and now they are gone.

As the country exited COVID, mainline carriers began to really push their basic and barebones fares which directly took away business from ULCCs like Spirit. Spirit never really leveraged their credit cards effectively to help subsidize the cost of seats.

ULCCs thrive when they can maximize their time in the sky across as many different flights as possible. Filling up the day with many different flights allows them to rake in checked-baggage fees, reserved seat fees etc more often than longer mainline carrier flights. All of this went out the window when a large portion of their A320 fleet was grounded because of the P&W engine issues. This absolutely killed their utilization percentage.

Spirit died way more because of business management than it did because customers didn't choose on price.

Re: Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History

#46

Post by dudefeliciano »

ortusdux wrote: post #27
bestouff wrote: post #4

Yes let's continue burning fuel. It's fine.

Here is a good list of 'fuel per seat (in mpg)' numbers for various airplane configurations and flight durations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Examp... The total average across the industry in 2018 was between 67 and 81 mpg. Modern planes are in the 100-120mpg range.

and according to the article the last record was 200k planes per day on june 29 2025, while july 23rd had more than 280k - so while efficiency may be going up (how many of those 280k planes are in the modern 100-120mpg range?) total flights are as well. Result: total emissions are steadily increasing.

Re: Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History

#47

Post by dudefeliciano »

elil17 wrote: post #34
ortusdux wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a good list of 'fuel per seat (in mpg)' numbers for various airplane configurations and flight durations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Examp... The total average across the industry in 2018 was between 67 and 81 mpg. Modern planes are in the 100-120mpg range.

The issue is that we are enabling people to travel long distances too cheaply.

What about short distances? Why is it cheaper to fly Berlin-Stuttgart than to take a train? it makes absoutely no sense.

Re: Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History

#48

Post by richwater »

RankingMember wrote: post #22
richwater wrote: post #9

The new Airbus Project Sunrise aircraft also set the record for longest passenger aircraft flight

Just looked that up. Good lord, they need to amend the universal declaration of human rights to include flying people 24 hours straight in coach as a violation.

It will surely be a tough sell. It will be very expensive (comparatively), and most travelers won't even want to do it. There's a reason Ethiad is so successful on these kinds of flights because their hub creates a natural stopping point halfway.

Re: Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History

#49

Post by VBprogrammer »

K0nserv wrote: post #23
jjice wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For transport you're right. I think the parent your referring to was specifically saying there's no alternative way to power a plane. That's my assumption at least.

I was saying a bit of both. megablast is correct that there are alternatives, but I'd maybe quibble with "viable". For example you can get from Stockholm to Umeå with a 1 hour flight or a 6-8 hour train journey, is the train a viable alternative? For aviation there aren't alternative fuels and on many journeys even the alternative transport options aren't in the same ballpark.

In the UK I could get from Central London to Central Glasgow in 4.5 hours on the train. The same trip on a flight, it takes an hour to get the airport (assuming it's not one of the budget airlines pretending Essex or Bedfordshire is London...), I need to be there 2 hours before (maybe less is you are brave and Security isn't messed up) the flight takes an hour and then I have to get out of the airport and find my way from Paisley back to Glasgow Central.

Of course there are a lot of variables, if instead I leave from my house the aircraft would actually be faster, mostly due to the extra time it takes to get to Central London and from Waterloo to Euston.

In reality we usually drive in about 6-8 hours because, as a family of 4 traveling, it's considerably cheaper even before you take into account having transport on the other end.

Re: Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History

#50

Post by chneu »

K0nserv wrote: post #8
bestouff wrote: post #4

Yes let's continue burning fuel. It's fine.

Flying is a bit unique in that there aren't really viable alternatives. It also accounts for a fairly small portion of emissions. Land transport (cars and trucks), power generation, and heating are where the big wins exist with viable alternatives.

There are plenty of alternatives. Most importantly: traveling locally. Nobody needs to visit 30 countries by 30 years old or whatever dumb social media excuses they have.

Air travel is a very recent modern invention(1960s, at least for everyday folk) and people act like flying around the world is a right.

Modern capitalism is an excess machine and it'll feed us constant excuses for why our reasons are valid. Air travel is a great example. Travel and tourism are seen as "musts" by people nowadays. It's insane how destructive and unnecessary it is. It's wild how entitled everyone is nowadays. I'll happily take down votes for calling out the insane excess that we have nowadays. We're killing ourselves one funco pop at a time and we all deserve that funco pop according to the latest excuse(won't someone blame the rich!!!)

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