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But that depends on how it's typically operated. Nobody uses an airliner as a one-person transport, but unfortunately many people use a Prius that way.
by rwallace 10y ago
But that depends on how it's typically operated. Nobody uses an airliner as a one-person transport, but unfortunately many people use a Prius that way.
- mantas 10y agoOn average, airplanes are not used to 100% capacity either. Some flights are oversold, some are half-empty. Sometimes they're almost empty. Cars frequently are occupied by 2 or more people, sometimes they are full too. I never saw any hard statistics, but it's definitely not cars 90% 1 occupant, planes always near-full. It's anecdotal evidence for sure, but my car is, on average, as full as average plane I took. Especially if we count per-mile rather than per-trip.
- VLM 10y agoThings also get weird with air cargo. My pilot buddy says they fill the cargo area and aircraft to the weight or volume limit pretty much every flight he takes. He may fly for a weird carrier or on weird routes, but it sounds believable that there is infinite supply of "I wanna get there faster" cargo. You might see ten empty seats but merely means there's a one ton MRI thingie that's on emergency shipment in the cargo area. He mentioned they're really into containerization and a small container alone costs $200 so I am almost scared to ask how much it costs to actually ship it. Then again everything aerospace rated costs a hundred times more, so a $2 isn't so ridiculous. Aacargo.com division of american airlines proudly advertises they ship 100 million pounds of cargo per week, and also advertise they have 6000 flights per day so thats averaging about a ton of cargo on every flight and a ton represents maybe ten empty passenger seats, so your average flight should have ten empty seats. Of course reality is the seats might be near empty at midnight and 100% full during the day, etc.