4 ms·

I think the fallacy here is that they can just push back from the gate, trot directly to the runway and takeoff. In any major airport, that's a crapshoot. I've

I think the fallacy here is that they can just push back from the gate, trot directly to the runway and takeoff. In any major airport, that's a crapshoot. I've been spending a lot of time watching ground ops from http://www.airportviewer.com/airport/KSFO http://www.airportviewer.com/airport/KSFO (courtesy of HN, posted a few months ago). There are times when the planes pile up 14 deep. I saw JFK up to 20 planes on the ground waiting. This is hardly the airlines' fault. What I dont understand is why they don't use wide-body planes more. I mean, I know the standard explanation: they use too much fuel on short-hauls. But why can't the manufacturer solve this problem, either by reducing the wing size or changing the shape, to have a wide-body, short-to-medium haul aircraft? Aviation continues to grow, so while I understand the removal of hub-and-spoke, to the distributed pattern, it seems like if there's enough customer demand to run N 737's/A320's per day from SFO to, say, DEN, why not run 0.6*N 777's instead. Or what if southwest slowly replaced their '37 fleet with "short range 777s" ? Or, more specificially, why don't they enact regulations at some of our busiest airports and say "Sorry, but at peak hours at JFK, you can only arrive/depart wide-body aircraft". Half the planes that run SFO are these tiny skywest embraer and bombardier jets. During peak times, restricting their use and requiring at least a '37 or a320 could boost capacity significantly (+100 people per takeoff/landing)

deepsun 8y ago
> why don't they enact regulations Not sure who are "they". FAA only cares about safety. Airport cares about profits. If tiny planes pay the same fee as large ones, why nerf them?
- JudgeWapner 8y ago
  > FAA only cares about safety not true. Try flying a cessna into JFK. Apparently ATC just circle you over the atlantic until they "find time to fit you in". private pilot paid his taxes and "has every right to use the facility", but if you actually try it, you'll have a bad time.
alteria 8y ago
>Why don't they use wide-body planes more Off the top of my mind, there are some other non-fuel factors 1- A competitive schedule in a business market includes offering a high number of frequencies, so running several flights on a narrowbody is preferred over a widebody 2- Building off of the above, you can segment your customers better, charging more for business-friendly timing 3- You mention seeing the tiny Skywest regional jets at SFO. While I'm not too familiar with United's route structure, I'd guess that most of these routes may not support a narrowbody (either because of mainline costs or demand) 4- Delta apparently used to run tiny regional jets out of JFK when Jet Blue was starting up in order to squat on slots, but also disrupt operations, since Delta would be much less impacted than Jet Blue.
- JudgeWapner 8y ago
  I think #2 is the strongest case. Wendover Productions talked about that a lot, how you can have 6 different prices for the same flight. #4 is terrible, that's not competition, its warfare. Again Wendover talked about something similar. Icelandair tried going to Dallas, so American immediately began a Dallas route to make their competitor suffer. That may technically be "competition", but the spirit of it is malicious. I think we should revert to the hub and spoke system. Have huge jets that do nothing but travel between hubs all day. Let the business people have their half, and let the cattle buy essentially last-minute bus-tickets to traverse the country. Then book your ticket from the hub to home. Even though that's inefficient compared to direct routing, a 2 or 3 hour ground delay costs the same (in time) as going from CHI->LAX and then backtracking to phoenix or vegas to your final destination. Another thing I think could work would be "JIT" routing. where you dont even know where your connections will be, until the day you fly. then you could have sudden, "ad-hoc hubs" that suit that particular day's distribution of travelers. Each morning a huge rack of computers could solve that day's "travelling-salesman problem" of weather, demand, location of aircraft, etc and come up with an optimal solution. people wouldn't like this at first, becuase of fear of the unknown, but I suspect it would lead to monumental increases in efficiency.
  - T-hawk 8y ago
    How do you propose to have crew available for every possible permutation of that routing? It would take an enormous standing population at every airport in the system, only a small portion of which will work on each given day. Good luck finding employees to take on that arrangement. Routing is about scheduling more than just aircraft.

deepsun 8y ago

> why don't they enact regulations Not sure who are "they". FAA only cares about safety. Airport cares about profits. If tiny planes pay the same fee as large ones, why nerf them?

JudgeWapner 8y ago
> FAA only cares about safety not true. Try flying a cessna into JFK. Apparently ATC just circle you over the atlantic until they "find time to fit you in". private pilot paid his taxes and "has every right to use the facility", but if you actually try it, you'll have a bad time.

alteria 8y ago

>Why don't they use wide-body planes more Off the top of my mind, there are some other non-fuel factors 1- A competitive schedule in a business market includes offering a high number of frequencies, so running several flights on a narrowbody is preferred over a widebody 2- Building off of the above, you can segment your customers better, charging more for business-friendly timing 3- You mention seeing the tiny Skywest regional jets at SFO. While I'm not too familiar with United's route structure, I'd guess that most of these routes may not support a narrowbody (either because of mainline costs or demand) 4- Delta apparently used to run tiny regional jets out of JFK when Jet Blue was starting up in order to squat on slots, but also disrupt operations, since Delta would be much less impacted than Jet Blue.

JudgeWapner 8y ago
I think #2 is the strongest case. Wendover Productions talked about that a lot, how you can have 6 different prices for the same flight. #4 is terrible, that's not competition, its warfare. Again Wendover talked about something similar. Icelandair tried going to Dallas, so American immediately began a Dallas route to make their competitor suffer. That may technically be "competition", but the spirit of it is malicious. I think we should revert to the hub and spoke system. Have huge jets that do nothing but travel between hubs all day. Let the business people have their half, and let the cattle buy essentially last-minute bus-tickets to traverse the country. Then book your ticket from the hub to home. Even though that's inefficient compared to direct routing, a 2 or 3 hour ground delay costs the same (in time) as going from CHI->LAX and then backtracking to phoenix or vegas to your final destination. Another thing I think could work would be "JIT" routing. where you dont even know where your connections will be, until the day you fly. then you could have sudden, "ad-hoc hubs" that suit that particular day's distribution of travelers. Each morning a huge rack of computers could solve that day's "travelling-salesman problem" of weather, demand, location of aircraft, etc and come up with an optimal solution. people wouldn't like this at first, becuase of fear of the unknown, but I suspect it would lead to monumental increases in efficiency.
- T-hawk 8y ago
  How do you propose to have crew available for every possible permutation of that routing? It would take an enormous standing population at every airport in the system, only a small portion of which will work on each given day. Good luck finding employees to take on that arrangement. Routing is about scheduling more than just aircraft.