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Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak
- phkahler 7y agoTangential question: is there a significant reduction in flights over the US? Is it my imagination or are we having more blue skies like the days after 9/11?
- dtech 7y agoThis seems like a sensible rule that leads to unwanted behavior in this unforeseen case. Would make sense to grant a temporary exemption.
- scrollaway 7y agoYep. Featured on HAI a year ago, it's not a new practice it's just been exacerbated due to COVID-19. https://youtu.be/X8XZriAdB1g https://youtu.be/X8XZriAdB1g
- chrisseaton 7y ago> This seems like a sensible rule Does it?! Why would you ever want to motivate an airline to fly just for the sake of it? Whether there's a pandemic or not it seems like a bad thing.
- martinald 7y agoBecause otherwise airlines can buy up all the slots so competitors can't operate.
- chrisseaton 7y agoBut it's ok with you that they buy up all the slots so competitors can't operate... just so as long as they burn fuel while they do it?
- qubex 7y agoAs I’ve answered elsewhere: burning fuel (and sustaining other operating costs) while they squat on slots ultimately ensures that squatting on too grand a scale and/or for too long will result in bankruptcy and thus ensures that the system is self-correcting (by limiting incumbent advantage).
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cmcaine 7y agoIf you just give fines to companies that don't run flights on routes then you can impose a penalty without incentivising empty or near-empty flights.
- qubex 7y agoExcellent idea! So now you only have two more problems: lobbyists being paid to influence the fines (so that they don’t cause their clients so much harm as to make their anti-competitive strategies unprofitable); and regulatory capture (where regulatory bodies become beholden to those whom they regulate).
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cmcaine 7y agoThose are already problems with aviation, so that's nothing new. The existing rules didn't emerge from primordial ooze, they were also influenced by lobbyists and have certain effects.
- danem 7y agoThe threat of regulatory capture is present with every regulatory solution.
- dodobirdlord 7y ago
- noinsight 7y agoBecause on the flip side, airlines could keep canceling flights on less popular routes when they're not at full capacity (i.e. not/less profitable). That would inconvenience passengers. Under this regulation they could lose that route to a competitor that is more willing to service customers (or can operate at a lower cost). EDIT: I found the EU page outlining the regulation here: https://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/air/airports/slots_en https://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/air/airports/slots_en EDIT 2: This appears to be a global practice: https://www.iata.org/en/policy/slots/ https://www.iata.org/en/policy/slots/
- chrisseaton 7y agoThis rule says it's ok to squat on slots just as long as you burn fuel while you do it.
- qubex 7y agoYes — because such behaviour results in losses for the company and, if sufficiently extreme (i.e., pushing them to bankruptcy) is self-correcting (they leave the market and vacate the slots).
- chrisseaton 7y agoWhy not create a competitive market for slots, rather than incentivising people to literally burn fuel?
- qubex 7y agoBecause (as is argued elsewhere in this thread), large airlines could buy up all slots and then not operate flights on them, starving their would-be competitors of opportunity to create a basis for themselves.
- oerpli 7y agoBut they could just do the same with the current ruling - the only difference would be whether they spend their money on more expensive slots or on wasting fuel.
- barry-cotter 7y agoThis is a stupid rule. This is not an unforeseeable case. Just sell the slots. You can sell them once and forever or you can auction them yearly or every two, three, five years, whatever. Demanding planes run for no one’s benefit is just setting money, and more importantly resources, on fire.
- qubex 7y agoI don’t think you understand the problems associated with the “just sell the slots” idea. The problem is that big airlines could buy up slots and then not use them. They wouldn’t necessarily have an incentive to sell them, either, because the buyers could be small, regional, or low-cost companies that could leverage them to build up a small but profitable business and later take on the bigger airlines (as happened with Europe’s budget airlines, most notably EasyJet and Ryanair).
- yardstick 7y agoThe op addressed this issue with their comment about selling 1-5 year leases.
- sho 7y agoThat didn't address the issue at all. They would just buy the leases and keep the competition out that way; no difference.
- barry-cotter 7y agoThat means one of two things; the slots aren’t worth that much or they were sold for less than they were worth. If they’re almost worthless, as not using them suggests their not being used is no great loss. If they are worthwhile then either they’ll be used, someone else will buy them or the owner is setting money on fire by not using a valuable asset, in much the same way as someone who uses a vacant lot in Manhattan as a planning lot instead of building a skyscraper on it. If you want a slot to go to its most valuable use sell it to the entity that values it most, whether permanently or by auctioning it yearly.
- heliodor 7y agoUnforeseen? Only because the people who created this rule couldn't be bothered or allowed to spend a few extra minutes thinking of edge cases. This is just one example of many blunt rules and laws we have on the books. Maybe in 100 or 500 years we'll implement governance systems that can serve us better.
- drivebycomment 7y agoIt is difficult to write a rule that works perfectly all the time. It is even more difficult to write a concise rule that does so. And complex rules potentially increase the cost for everyone. I think this particular behavior isn't as bad as people make it out to be. I would assume this increases overall airline industry's carbon emission in tiny fraction while the rule probably prevented the tragedy of the commons for those slots.
- mikro2nd 7y agoThe rule is under review for temporary suspension following a nudge from the EU and/or IATA. People are not always totally stupid, but bureaucracies work slowly.
- pengaru 7y ago"asking for the rules to be suspended during the outbreak to prevent further environmental and economic damage" It's not like having those planes full of people results in less environmental damage.
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- gruez 7y agoThe difference is now the flights can be canceled without impact to anyone else.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoDoesn't it depend on whether the people are then on additional trips, or transferred from other trips. If they're taking ghost planes instead of other modes of transport, then they may be reducing environmental damage?
- pengaru 7y agoDoes that seem likely to you when the impetus for not flying is the coronavirus?
- hrdwdmrbl 7y agoA non-original idea is to create a market for landing slots.
- hnarn 7y agoCreate? They're already auctioned off and traded freely.
- markbaikal 7y agoThey are currently auctioned almost nowhere. Instead, they are permanently owned by incumbent airlines who never paid for them. Additionally, incumbent airlines lobby against slot auctions, see e. g. https://airlines.iata.org/analysis/the-dangers-of-slot-auctions https://airlines.iata.org/analysis/the-dangers-of-slot-aucti... The fact that slots are not available to newcomers is a valuable moat for incumbents.
- ipnon 7y agoWho else proposed this idea?
- markbaikal 7y agoEvery reasonable economist should. https://iea.org.uk/in-the-media/media-coverage/put-airport-slots-for-auction https://iea.org.uk/in-the-media/media-coverage/put-airport-s...
- tyingq 7y agoThey probably just need a temporary way for the airlines to pay to keep their slots directly, versus having a minimum number of payments tied to takeoffs and landings.
- jsjddbbwj 7y agoThey are paying for the fuel. So?
- gpvos 7y agoFuel is being burned, creating more CO2, without any benefit to society.
- jsjddbbwj 7y agoSo if I have a corporation I have to benefit society with it? Else what, the government must expropriate my corporation from me?
- untog 7y agoAre you just mindlessly trolling here or do you have a point? Climate change is a thing that concerns people. Waste is a thing that concerns people. Is any of this surprising?
- jsjddbbwj 7y agoDo those two things concern people as much as you think? I don't see it as a major issue people vote on.
- untog 7y agoEquating “what people are concerned about” with “what people vote on” is unwise. It’s not as if we all get a direct vote on “should we tackle climate change?” But hey: “For Democrats, climate change is now one of the two most important issues in politics, according to a new poll.” https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/02/poll-us-voters-really-do-care-about-climate-change/606907/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/02/poll-us-...
- jsjddbbwj 7y ago
- everyone 7y agoCovid 19 is a good opportunity for extremely sensible change. Lets all stop needlessly flying, lets all work from home (if your just doing an office job anyway), lets use local products and not stuff from half way across the world.
- bob33212 7y agoA decent percentage of people put food on the table and a roof over their head by doing a job we could classify as needless
- EarthIsHome 7y agoAnother reason why work shouldn't be a precondition for being alive. I think that would be a sensible change.
- refurb 7y agoYet it's work that funds the taxes that would pay for basic income. Unless people are willing to take a massive decrease in quality of life to fund such a system, it will never happen.
- EarthIsHome 7y agoYour statement isn't true in the US. The wealthiest in this country don't really do any work. In fact, the wealthier you are, the less you actually have to work. The people who are working for a wage are the ones who are working to live, and the wealthiest don't have to do that. Often, people who work the hardest make the least. I reject your premise that that people will have a reduced quality of life. These taxes will go to public services and increase the quality of life for the masses instead of for the few.
- refurb 7y agoCreating value requires some combination of labor and capital. Take away any return on capital and that capital goes elsewhere.
- mikhailfranco 7y agoAirlines almost never make profits, because their revenue and main cost are strongly pro-cyclical: In the booms, they fly full, but with high fuel prices. In the recessions, they fly empty, but fuel is cheap. Covid-19 has devastated travel, but also dropped the oil price - still no profits.
- viburnum 7y agoAirlines (and other businesses with very high fixed costs) can be profitable if there’s enough consolidation in the industry. Otherwise they get into price war death spirals with no way out.
- qubex 7y agoRailways are also often unprofitable, even when a monopoly (because of inflexible ticket pricing and high amortisation, depreciation, and maintenance costs).
- nogabebop23 7y agoha - maybe passenger service but not freight in north america!
- api 7y agoTransportation is critical yet often unprofitable, which is why it's usually heavily regulated and subsidized.
- mathieuh 7y agoFurther, it acts as a multiplier. Which is why I believe rail travel should be nationalised—very few people take a train for the sake of being on a train, people take trains to work or to spend money somewhere else. It makes no economic sense to insert competition into a natural monopoly whose main purpose is to multiply people’s productivity. Everyone loses out.
- tedunangst 7y agoBut no mention of which airlines or routes? What percentage of flights to Europe are empty?
- tyingq 7y agoMentioning the heavily slot controlled airports would make more sense. The airlines aren't really at fault here. The airports that take your slot when they don't get their takeoff/landing fees are.
- chrononaut 7y agoIs this article being slightly over-dramatic? I would've thought most of these planes carry a significant amount of cargo, which likely has increased since there are fewer passengers and more room, and there might also be more remote/online purchasing as of recent. Or is that not really a factor here?
- i_am_proteus 7y agoPassenger carriers do use extra weight/space for LTL shipments, but bear in mind that shipping in general is down due to supply-side effects (c. 25% reduction at Long Beach, the West Coast's busiest commercial port[0]) so there will be significant reductions in demand for LTL freight as a knock-on effect. [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/port-of-los-angeles-sees-coronavirus-impact-sharply-reducing-imports-11582648931 https://www.wsj.com/articles/port-of-los-angeles-sees-corona...
- sonofgod 7y agoI 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.
- Scoundreller 7y agoMakes sense. As the saying goes: "Tax the inelastic".
- wutbrodo 7y agoWhat's the purpose of the "fully crewed" requirement?
- zulln 7y agoGuess it is because this > (some) jobs are kept secure
- woofie11 7y agoSeems like that could be done by paying people, even if they don't show up. "Paying people" seems like a good way to define "crewed"
- wutbrodo 7y agoRight, I guess it just seemed like a huge non sequitur. While we're expanding welfare, why not do it in a more principled and efficient way than "whoever happens to work for an airline right now"
- smkellat 7y agoAs a halfway answer to this, I ask if specific plane types are required on these routes. If not then swap out current craft for smaller vehicles so that your pilots can maintain proficiency time while still moving cargo and the reduced number of passengers. Flying isn’t like riding a bike and pilots can’t sit in simulators ground-side indefinitely. You won’t be swapping in a Dash 8 for an A380 in every case but smaller Embraer jets in lieu of the Airbus heavies could help keep the training/proficiency side going.
- sokoloff 7y agoMost anything over 12500 lbs (about 5500 kg) max takeoff weight or powered by jet engines requires the pilots to have a rating specific to the type. This means anything used in commercial service larger than a medium-sized (~8+1 seat) King Air. A pilot type rated in an A320 isn't necessarily going to have a current type rating in a Dash-8 or ERJ/CRJ. (This is both a regulatory and an actual safety hurdle.) (And of course, many of the trans-Atlantic routes can't be covered by significantly smaller equipment, though I'd expect that those routes are not flying literally empty anyway.)
- dhdhhagvahwu 7y agoSomewhat related: My father was a Navy pilot during the Cold War. He told me fuel budgets were based on the last period’s consumption. If their actual use was below what was considered their predicted amount, they would put planes on a schedule where they would take off fully loaded, fly to 30k (or whatever made sense) and dump all of their fuel into the atmosphere. They would then land, empty, and repeat the process. That was a shitload of avgas dropped into the atmosphere but hey, military bureaucracy...
- jl2718 7y agoI’ve been waiting for airlines to give up on scheduling altogether and move to JIT routing. Maintaining schedules seems fragile, and I think demand would increase dramatically if customers didn’t have to plan ahead. This will definitely happen when the industry gets disrupted by cheap autonomous and electric mini-planes, but it seems that schedules are so broken already that the biggest thing keeping up the facade are FAA rules (e.g. massively unnecessary runway intervals).
- dodobirdlord 7y ago> I think demand would increase dramatically if customers didn’t have to plan ahead I think customers won't be a fan of showing up and waiting 17 hours or whatever until the next flight has enough people to fly. > This will definitely happen when the industry gets disrupted by cheap autonomous and electric mini-planes Battery energy density is a looooong way from matching jet fuel, especially since the weight of the carried jet fuel doesn't have to include the oxygen to react with. And smaller planes are less efficient. I don't see this happening.
- jl2718 7y agoSure. Inter-city electric is a no-go. Autonomous, however, is way past due, and the price of aircraft could easily drop by an order of magnitude. That means an oversupply of planes waiting for passengers. Anything that grows addressable passenger demand above the lowered cost basis will take over the industry.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mathattack 7y agoThe airlines that are stockpiling capacity at our expense will come hat in hand for a bailout at our expense.
- 0x8BADF00D 7y agoExcept there won’t be money available when they ask for it. When the dollar collapses after the Fed cuts rates, the interest rate will rise very high. The government will be forced to cut spending, and there will be no bailouts this time.
- zukzuk 7y agozerohedge.com is leaking again
- allovernow 7y agoZerhoedge has also been a month ahead of the media with respect to coronavirus reports. The fact that ZH speculates about conspiracies does not mean that everything on their site is BS.
- bdcravens 7y agoEven a broken clock is right twice a day.
- SirYandi 7y agoYet useless for telling the time
- hk__2 7y agoThat’s precisely the point.
- allovernow 7y agoThey've been posting summaries of published literature out of China in real time.
- emiliobumachar 7y agoIronic. 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.
- betaby 7y agoNever heard that, why would they in planed economy?
- allovernow 7y agoIn 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 must fall within rigidly defined qualitative and quantitative metrics, appearances are everything.
- stevenwoo 7y agoThe 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.
- mamon 7y agoIt 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 easier to get VPN access approved for external contractors if they are using Macs
- blondie9x 7y agoHonestly, how can we ever beat climate change if this is the norm.
- ourmandave 7y agoGreta T's just gotta be shaking her head over this shit.
- blondie9x 7y agoI mean the norm of flying empty planes when there is no demand. If there is no demand to travel but planes fly regardless how do we ever beat climate change. Does that make more sense?
- ken 7y agoThis is just our typical air travel fuel usage. These flights are the norm. Our solution to climate change can't be to count on a black swan virus pandemic to reduce global demand.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoBusses run empty at odd hours, because its necessary to have a regular schedule to keep customers? Not so crazy...its a fact of scheduled transportation.
- capkutay 7y agoDoes anyone have any reliable information on the risks of flying right now? I took a couple flights this week, seemed to be status quo. People of all ages flying with no one practicing any special hygiene measures.
- avip 7y agoDepending on your destination, there's a non-trivial risk you'll be immediately bumped back to origin. Stay tuned.
- jaynetics 7y agoAre you referring to the risk of getting infected on board? I've read about a German case where a passenger was found to be infected. They tried to trace everyone who sat within 2 rows of him. Not sure if this is a very thorough approach and really represents the "danger zone". Might even depend on the plane model and quality of air conditioning.
- EamonnMR 7y agoThe risk is that you'll be the one who infects a new community.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y agoThis formula gives you the odds someone on a plane is infected: 1-(1-IR)^N N is the number of seats. IR is the infection rate. Takes a lot of assumptions to get the odds someone on the plane is infected, and even more to get the answer you want. The biggest assumption would be how likely you are to get the virus just because someone on your plane has it. You could replace the N with total number of people at an airport. Again, not that helpful because it takes a lot of assumptions and only gives you half the picture.
- wutbrodo 7y agoThat's assuming that the individual infection probabilities are independent, which is not at all warranted.
- 7y ago
- otterley 7y agoSource post: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/airlines-are-flying-empty-planes-to-keep-slots-during-the-coronavirus-crisis-c8w33vzqg https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/airlines-are-flying-...
- arbuge 7y agoThe other thing to note is that an oil price crash is going on. It had started before the outbreak, was accelerated because of it, and accelerated further by the OPEC+ talks failing yesterday. Cheaper aviation fuel will incentivize airlines to keep their planes in the sky.
- quickthrowman 7y agoShort USO, long JETS: the next overcrowded trade
- yumraj 7y agoIf planes are really empty, why can they not just pay the airport fees since I believe that is all the airports care about. Or, perhaps take off, and separately land, a smaller plane such as a Cessna.
- partiallypro 7y agoThe oddity I've personally had, is I had been planning a summer trip to Germany for the Euro 2020 tournament (assuming they don't get cancelled.) However, I hadn't bought plane tickets yet. Due to the virus, I figured I might get cheaper rates. The opposite has been true. The round trip went from ~$1200 up to ~$1800 in just a month or two. I'm still tracking flights, but so far I haven't seen a good dip in pricing. I don't know if airline pricing isn't reacting to supply/demand, or if there hasn't been that big of a dip in US to Europe passenger traffic.
- chrisseaton 7y agoI've also seen this! I went casually looking at the route I fly most often (but I'm not flying myself at the moment) and both economy and business fares seem to have gone up very substantially. What's going on? The airlines have changed their rebooking policy to make it much more lenient for the next few months. Maybe this is making the tickets more valuable and pushing up the price?
- JulianMorrison 7y agoI think that if passenger numbers go down and fixed costs stay the same, and if passengers aren't very price sensitive (their company is paying their fare) then it makes sense to raise prices. The trouble is that this will drive out the holiday flyers and leave them dependent on business flyers whose companies can turn off the tap on a whim. And will have every incentive, and excuse, to do so.
- iso947 7y agoThose buying tickets are probably people who need to travel and thus will pay more. The market for the cheaper tickets isn’t there
- fma 7y agoCoworker of mine is in a similar situation. He said tickets were 2x before. I joked he's making up for the other person who cancelled.
- dboreham 7y agoI've been on three flights (domestic US) in the past week. Pretty much normal load factor as far as I could tell.
- p_l 7y agoUnited States has only 3 Class 3 Airports (same number as Poland), only one of them on official IATA list. Unless you fly to/from/through NYC or D.C., your domestic flight doesn't touch any slot, and thus avoids the reason for flying empty.
- atulmadhugiri 7y agothey should do this with the 737 MAX for a while before they let passengers on them
- mc32 7y agoThey could solve this easily by having the airports “freeze” the current quotas till things achieve some equilibrium... else this is unnecessarily wasteful.
- BooneJS 7y agoIs this an excellent chance to rack up some safe miles with free upgrades to first class?
- qwerty456127 7y agoWhy empty? Why not let actual people travel for free/cheap? I believe there is enough people who don't care about the virus but don't have spare money to travel far away.
- taspeotis 7y agoThey are ... ticket prices are down.
- keanzu 7y agoUnder Europe's rules, airlines operating out of the continent must continue to run 80% of their allocated slots or risk losing them to a competitor. Risk losing their slots to a competitor? No airline is making money right now and none can afford to take over new slots to operate more flights. Your slots are completely safe - there are no buyers.
- polishTar 7y agoIf the slots are so valuable that it makes sense to fly empty flights to keep them, then certainly it would also make sense for a disruptor to start flying empty flights to steal them if they were left unused.
- trickstra 7y agoSo just because of some greedy business contracts the most fuel-inefficient mode of transport is running all the less efficiently. Think about it next time the airline shows you an offer to "Fly green" or "offset your carbon footprint".
- skybrian 7y agoIt seems like this could be fixed with a bit of economics? One idea would be to have airlines pay reservation fees for unused slots, where the cost is slightly lower than flying planes in that slot. I also wonder how the waste compares with Bitcoin?
- p_l 7y agoThe point of the rule is "use it or lose it" - if you don't fly routes that can be boarded by passengers, you have to make space for another airline to compete. Making it possible to just reserve space would result in obvious approach of squatting, especially when it's cheaper than flying a plane in.
- skybrian 7y agoSquatting is already effectively allowed by flying an empty plane. The airlines figured it out. This would make squatting only slightly cheaper and avoids the waste of flying a plane. Plus the airport gets the revenue and there is less airport congestion. The fee is still an incentive to give the slot up if they're not going to use it eventually. It's somewhat similar to a land value tax discouraging vacant lots.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- natmaka 7y agoAFAIK this is common practice in many armies, where each group obtains a predetermined amount ('dotation') of goods (gas, ammo, clothes...) for a given period (often a year), uses whatever it needs, then an accounting process takes into account whatever wasn't used in order to calculate the next dotation. It seems consistent and efficient. However it neglects human nature. The soldiers want to avoid missing anything, they simply refuse to see their dotation reduced, therefore just before the end of the period they discreetly use (without any other reason) or destroy all unused goods. Centralization and bureaucracy excel at breaking human will and things altogether.
- eckmLJE 7y agoIt's also a common practice in any department that has their budget determined this way, e.g. https://vimeo.com/27060669 https://vimeo.com/27060669
- p_l 7y agoI'm not sure if I have ever heard of any budgeting that didn't have exactly that problem. Perhaps budgeting on specific problems? That still might require separating budget for headcount....
- Blake_Emigro 7y agoYeah, I had a GF that worked for a government research department. The last quarter of the year the department staff did ridiculous things to ensure every penny of the budget was spent. Frivolous travel, non-relevant conferences, parties, etc. As someone who worked in the private sector and managed project budgets I was blown away haha.
- ikyriakidis 7y agoI have experienced this in the private sector as well...
- jonhohle 7y agoAnother one I dislike government programs that are “cut” when really they just have a reduced rate of increase, rather than a lower gross amount.
- sudoaza 7y agoWho needs all that pesky oxygen anyway
- mrandish 7y agoWell, on the positive side, at least all the 737 Max planes being grounded isn't a factor anymore... /s
- mettamage 7y agoSo this is one of the reasons why startups can be competitive. I didn't know. Now I do. I find it a very compelling reason.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mehrdadn 7y agoIs "thousands" of gallons even remotely accurate? The numbers I can find are that a 747 uses 1 gal/second, so a single excess 5-hour flight is like 18,000 gallons. Even a ~45% efficiency reduction on that for more modern planes gives 10,000 gallons per excess flight. Multiply that by however many excess flights per airline per day and then by many airlines are doing this (I dunno, let's say 5 flights for 5 airlines? though this feels generous) and suddenly you have like 250,000 gallons/day being wasted per day. Multiplied by however many days they're doing this (idk, 10? though that also sounds generous) that's already like 2.5 million gallons every couple of weeks. Did they mean "millions"?
- labawi 7y agoGeneralizing total plane consumption from instantaneous consumption doesn't seem like a good idea. Their engines have high dynamic range between take-off, climb, steady flight and glide. 4.5l/s (1gal/s) seem like a lot, would that be take-off/climb consumption? Then again, a 747 is huge and usually heavy, carrying a lot of people and cargo..
- mehrdadn 7y agoI mean, if you're aware of more accurate numbers, I'm all ears. These are just the numbers I was able to find, and I doubt that I'm off by 100x-1000x.
- labawi 7y agoI think the instantaneous fuel consumption at take-off vs. a very long glide down could in fact be 1000x, but is at least 100x. So I ask, what do your numbers represent? EDIT: "747-400 has eight fuel tanks, with a combined capacity of 57,164 gallons of Jet-A fuel"[1]. So around 30-40k gal for a typical trans-oceanic flight? Meaning 1 gal per 1 second of flight time should be within order of magnitude, but far from take-off or peak consumption. [1] http://www.boeing-747.com/boeing-747-internals/fuel-system.html http://www.boeing-747.com/boeing-747-internals/fuel-system.h...
- 7y ago
- sub7 7y agoWho gives a fuck about some wasted gas? If the economic freeze lasts long enough, the service sector gets decimated. People will be laid off and the secondary effects of this virus will be almost as bad as the life toll.