9 ms·
Many Planes Are Still Flying, Nearly Empty
- gbronner 7y agoI bought a jfk sfo ticket last week. By Sunday, Delta had lopped off almost all of the transcontinental service, had eliminated red eyes, and replaced most planes with a220s, which are the smallest main line jet they use.
- technicaldonut 7y agoI will be flying from east US to Germany this weekend. (Planned move and visa is running out so no choice). So far I'm the only person on the transatlantic plane. Interestingly enough the local US-US flight seems to still have a lot of passengers on it (50ish%)
- googlexa1 7y agoHow do you know that? Seatmap are not a reliable indicator - I made this mistake once to board a full flight to India (idea was to save on assigned seat) - many people booking will not be assigned a seat until checkin. The information your OTA or bespoke corporate travel agent has is no different to expertflyer, seatmap bad indicator and for availability you'll only see a max of 9 in each bucket..
- hannasanarion 7y agoEmpty transatlantics aren't unheard-of. I was one of only two passengers on a Lufthansa MUC-EWR last year. It's better for them to run highly unprofitable flights than miss their contract obligations with big corporations that want a plane available to move people transatlantic on a day's notice.
- pintxo 7y agoAlso, you have a schedule and there is likely a return flight for which you need a plane in EWR in this instance.
- technicaldonut 7y agoI called the airline yesterday and they told me.
- earthboundkid 7y agoWell, might as well recline the hell out of your seat then. :-)
- orclev 7y ago> Interestingly enough the local US-US flight seems to still have a lot of passengers on it (50ish%) That's probably a mix of people with critical jobs needing to travel, people having to move for a variety of reasons, and people listening to the ignorant and ignoring the advice to social distance.
- technicaldonut 7y agoProbably. As far as I can see from the airport website this is a regular flight leaving a few times a day. Right now it appears to fly once every other day.
- rwmj 7y agoIn 2011 I took a flight to Boston which happened to be on the same day that William and Kate got married. I don't know if that was the reason, but the flight was almost empty (apparently under 30 passengers on a 737). It was annoying for a couple of reasons: Firstly they didn't upgrade anyone, even though first and business was basically empty. Secondly, the flight attendants were constantly badgering me in case I wanted something, when really what I wanted was a bigger seat and to be left alone. Anyway, good luck on your 1 passenger flight.
- bluGill 7y agoThey can't upgrade people on an empty flight without upsetting the balance of the plane. I've been on flights where we didn't leave the gate until people downgraded so the front wasn't overfull. (I was the only person flying economy, first and economy plus was full so everybody was in front of the wings)
- lordlimecat 7y agoI'm having trouble believing that the margins are so close that the position of a 200lb mass on a 68000 lb plane is a significant factor in anything. If true it would suggest that using the lavatories would be a significant event requiring coordination with the stewards and pilot.
- quacked 7y ago30*150 = 4500 lb. There are cases of planes crashing because everyone rushed to the front or the back to avoid smoke. I know it's not the same as a commercial airliner, but I used to teach hang gliding on the beach and we'd sometimes get a little packed sand in the back of the keel (which is the name for the central bar that the wings were mirrored across). The total weight of the student plus the glider could get up to ~280 lb, and the amount of packed sand would be less than a pound or two, but the flight characteristics of the gliders would change drastically, to the point where we could barely get them in the air. As another commenter notes below, the few people moving around the cabin is less about control ability and safety than it is about fuel efficiency.
- cgpcraig 7y agoI've been wondering, do they upgrade you to the highest end seat on the plane then?
- technicaldonut 7y agoI have hopes, but it likely depends on the airline. Had an empty flight with Singapore Airlines right after Christmas and they didn't. This is British Airways so we'll see.
- kerkeslager 7y agoIf you ask, they'll almost always say yes. Something like, "Hey, I noticed the flight is mostly empty. Would it be possible for me to get a complimentary upgrade to one of the empty first class seats?"
- gnulinux 7y agoThey're losing millions of dollars every week. Will they still be eager to say yes?
- pintxo 7y agoI wouldn't mind economy service if I still get the first class seating. So zero cost for them.
- technicaldonut 7y agoI'd take any kind of upgrade to be honest. Right now I'm in premium economy as for some reason the ticket was cheaper than economy.
- technicaldonut 7y agoThe question is if the stewardess cares as much as the airline. Realstically speaking there is virtually no difference in service for them. Assuming that I get the usual economy food and I'm really the only person on the flight.
- tyingq 7y agoOne of the conditions of the relief money the airlines took was to maintain reasonable service to their existing US destinations. Another was to protect jobs through the end of September. So yes, the planes are empty, but September is the timeframe to watch.
- kbr2000 7y agoTakes a deep breath: can anyone explain how costs of maintenaning a fleet like that on the ground, would way up against flying empty? At what point would it make sense to "mothball" airplanes for longer term storage?
- tyingq 7y agoDoesn't give the costs you're looking for, but this article does a good job of explaining that even the "mothball" protocol is fairly complicated: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2019/08/12/boeing-737-max-desert-storage/#11ca967b1e61 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2019/08/12/boein...
- t0mas88 7y agoMothballing a plane is quite hard. For parking it a few months you would need to secure the engines and regularly run things like hydraulic systems etc. The batteries are really not designed to sit still, so it's best to take those out and connect ground power to operate systems once in a while. Maintenance costs are based on different schedules, there is usually a time limit (as in calendar time), a flight time limit and a cycles limit (a cycle is one take-off + landing). Which one is more limiting depends on the type of operation the plane was designed for, A long-haul plane is designed for more flight-time vs cycles, a regional jet is designed for a high cycle count. So maintenance costs will decrease if you keep them on the ground, but some components may then "time-out" which will still incur maintenance costs to bring them back to airworthy condition.
- dayofthedaleks 7y agoCan any recent airline passengers comment on whether airports are using the reduced volume to enforce social distancing in customs, boarding, and TSA lineups? I flew back from Mexico mid-March and going through the sweaty scrum unmasked felt a bit like being in Brunner's _The Sheep Look Up_.
- tyingq 7y agoThey are, but the problem is much easier. Typical load factors (% of filled seats) were 80% prior to all this. They are now single digits. And, that's after massive amounts of reductions to flight schedules. Boarding 10 people onto a plane with 130 seats with social distancing isn't so hard. Similar for the ticket counters and TSA.
- kalium-xyz 7y agoThere are people still trying to get home, this is a crucial service for them and specialists who are required around the world to keep things running.
- Tepix 7y agoTFA talks about hourly flights. Getting home is not the issue.
- monkpit 7y agoTFA?
- opwieurposiu 7y agoThe Featured Article or The F*ing article
- monkpit 7y agoWow, that seems aggressive
- Zhyl 7y agoIt's a convention (a meme?), along the lines of "read the manual" being rendered as "RTFM". In online discourse it is common for people to ask questions or make statements without reading the reference material being discussed. This is frustrating to other commenters who feel that a lot of the discussion is needless and effectively off-topic. Hence the aggression in the acronym is partly a joke that this is such a common occurrence that the expletive itself is part of the acronym. It's definitely not meant to be taken personally. Mostly.
- googlexa1 7y agoThe word fucking? or featured? Remember they're only words... snowflakes will melt
- 7y ago
- ForHackernews 7y agoGod, what a waste. Airplanes are bad enough for climate change when they actually carry people.
- googlexa1 7y agoNow's not the time for thunberging..
- ForHackernews 7y agoI don't know what that means. Honestly, it seems like a great time to reconsider our impact on the planet: All the things the naysayers claimed were impossible and could never be stopped or changed have been shut down in the span of less than a month.
- ehnto 7y agoWell. Not everything is shut down without consequence. Many things have definitely surfaced as not being so hard after all, like killing the commute and working from home.
- iso1631 7y agoPerhaps in software, it's not clear what productivity impact there is. However many people are furloughed and laid off. Sales aren't being made, which means money isn't coming in. To pretend that the current situation is "not so hard" betrays your privilege.
- ehnto 7y agoThere are many jobs outside of software that have had resistance to working from home for really no good reason. I was really just trying to balance my comment anyway, working from home was the first example that came to mind. My main point that there will be consequences to shutting many things down, even if it seems like it was quite easy.
- 7y ago
- tim333 7y agoI wonder how much comes down to the legalities of refunds and compensation. If the flight goes and you don't get on it then you lose your ticket money usually but if the airline cancels then they have to refund I think. In my own case I have a flight from Singapore to London on May 30 approx with BA and I can't get to Singapore as it's closed for transit. If BA fly and I can't get there I'm not sure I can do much but if they don't fly I can probably get compensation like the EU standard 600 euro for a delayed flight. I think BA are still flying emptyish at the moment.
- dsego 7y agoAccording to this pilot on youtube, that is one of the reasons, they don't have to refund. Another reason is to keep the crew and planes current and not have to retrain pilots or do additional maintenance checks on the planes later on. These seem to be required by law after a longer period of not flying. *https://youtu.be/x5HNUjVEPyQ https://youtu.be/x5HNUjVEPyQ
- Symbiote 7y agoYou are entitled to a refund, but not compensation. Compensation is due for flights cancelled within 14 days of the departure date, with an exception for extraordinary circumstances. https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights/air/ https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-right...
- pintxo 7y agoDoesn't BA offer flexible rebookings? LH allows (mostly) free rebooking on all tickets, event the really cheap ones, where you usually cannot do this.
- drewg123 7y agoHow far in advance are the airlines cancelling flights? I've looked at flight cancellations lately, and it looks like about 30-50% of US domestic flights are being cancelled. I haven't really seen anybody talking about this.
- chmaynard 7y agoPerhaps these airlines and their partners could repurpose some of their large jets for freight and acquire smaller jets to ferry passengers around. Small commercial aircraft manufacturers such as Embraer might turn out to be a good investment.
- tyingq 7y agoThe air freight market isn't doing so well either: https://www.aircargonews.net/data/worldacd-march-a-month-like-no-other-in-aviation-history/ https://www.aircargonews.net/data/worldacd-march-a-month-lik...
- yodsanklai 7y agoI still see quite a few flights from France to international destinations. For instance, right now AF342 - Paris - Montreal. Technically, France has been in a rather strict lockdown for a month, and all non-essential trips are strongly regulated. I really wonder who is in those planes. Canadians finally deciding to go home? Can they even make it to the airport without getting fined? And can French people even leave the Shengen area? Let say a French citizen wants to go to some country that still accept them, can they find a flight and go there somewhat legally?
- t0mas88 7y agoSome are flying mostly for the cargo they transport, so the seats aren't very full. And then indeed they would take Canadians (or Americans flying via Canada) that want to go home. Cargo is also medical equipment etc that is really necessary in other places. If you look at a flight-tracking site you'll notice Atlantic crossings starting at FL380 or even higher, for example now BA287 is at 40,000ft just coasting out in Ireland. That's not the normal altitude, typically we enter Oceanic airspace with an initial altitude of 35,000 or something similar with maximum possible (but not efficient) being 36ish.
- sleepychu 7y agoIs the implication that in this weight config (just cargo and empty seats) it is efficient to fly at 40,000ft?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Robotbeat 7y agoYeah. For a given speed, a lower weight (with the same outer shape) means you need to fly at a higher altitude (where the air is less dense) to reach an optimal lift to drag ratio.
- t0mas88 7y agoYes, entering Oceanic you basically tell them: "Request track Delta, Flight level 350, Able 370, second choice track Charly" Translation: I want this route, the best altitude for me is 35,000 ft and at my current weight the maximum I can climb to is 37,000 ft. That optimum altitude is calculated by the flight management system.
- aazaa 7y agoShortly after 9/11 was a period of reduced air travel that affected air quality in measurable ways. Has air traffic dropped off enough to log similar changes?
- bjelkeman-again 7y agoSweden’s largest airport at Stockholm now has a total of seven flights between now and the end of the day (another five hours). All regional flights. We normally get at least one flight every two minutes, just landing on one runway (I live under one of the flight paths). Normally they carry 71000 passengers per day and have 17500 employees at the airport.
- ryguytilidie 7y agoI understand a lot of the repatriation flights, but I'm still seeing multiple OAK-LAS/SFO-LAS per day. Who is flying between these cities right now...?
- chawco 7y agoEveryone is focusing on the aircraft, but the pilots are also super important here. They need to maintain a certain number of hours every 90 days, IIRC, in order to be flight ready. If not, they need to do a refresher in a simulator. As I’m sure everyone is familiar after the 737 max debacle, there is a shortage of simulators. This would mean it would take months or perhaps even a year to get all pilots recertified for commercial flight. That’s not a great situation to be in, and easily solved by keeping them flying.