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Overall the article is very informative. But I hit a Gell-Mann amnesia moment very early. The author says: Airlines complain that they are losing money because

Overall the article is very informative. But I hit a Gell-Mann amnesia moment very early. The author says: Airlines complain that they are losing money because so many flights are nearly empty. But airlines haven't complained about that in a while. Here's a quick google: https://www.statista.com/statistics/221085/passenger-load-factor-of-delta-air-lines/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/221085/passenger-load-fa... Delta had a load factor of 85.6% last year. It would be hard to find "nearly empty" flights given that load factor. Many years ago airlines ran with 50% load factor. Nowadays they're selling most of their middle seats, most of the time!

chippy 8y ago
> It would be hard to find "nearly empty" flights given that load factor. Isn't the load factor a type of average? In that case, there could be a number of flights with low occupancy, and a number with 100% occupancy. What we should look for is statistics about the frequency of airlines complaining about empty flights. I also note the graph shows load factor from 2008 to 2017 and does not start from zero. it starts from 81.4% so there is a (small?) 4.2% improvement over almost a decade. To me, that shows an improvement but not evidence about how they have stopped complaining about some empty flights.
mcphage 8y ago
> But I hit a Gell-Mann amnesia moment very early. [...] The author says: Airlines complain that they are losing money because so many flights are nearly empty. But airlines haven't complained about that in a while. Is that the article being wrong, or is that just an older example? Keep in mind the article itself is from 2015, and all of the examples presented might not be up to date (since the author was listing ones that they've noticed over time). That's nowhere near what Crichton described: "You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect."

chippy 8y ago

> It would be hard to find "nearly empty" flights given that load factor. Isn't the load factor a type of average? In that case, there could be a number of flights with low occupancy, and a number with 100% occupancy. What we should look for is statistics about the frequency of airlines complaining about empty flights. I also note the graph shows load factor from 2008 to 2017 and does not start from zero. it starts from 81.4% so there is a (small?) 4.2% improvement over almost a decade. To me, that shows an improvement but not evidence about how they have stopped complaining about some empty flights.

mcphage 8y ago

> But I hit a Gell-Mann amnesia moment very early. [...] The author says: Airlines complain that they are losing money because so many flights are nearly empty. But airlines haven't complained about that in a while. Is that the article being wrong, or is that just an older example? Keep in mind the article itself is from 2015, and all of the examples presented might not be up to date (since the author was listing ones that they've noticed over time). That's nowhere near what Crichton described: "You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect."