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> Even if you could do that at an airline the margins are so razor thin. I bet there's a dollar value assigned to every second a plane is not in the air. You e
by kibwen 4y ago
> Even if you could do that at an airline the margins are so razor thin. I bet there's a dollar value assigned to every second a plane is not in the air.
You either pay the predictable, ongoing cost or you pay the massive, unpredictable cost like they are currently. There's no free lunch. That is, unless you're an executive looking to boost short-term profits by eliminating "redundancy" and then peacing out before the whole thing collapses from your short-sighted, greedy ineptitude.
- dehrmann 4y agoPeople don't like to hear this now, but airlines chose the right thing to optimize for. Air travel is rarely that important to have these redundancies, and they vote with their wallets every time they buy economy tickets. Given that safe is a baseline, most people value price over reliability.
- ThunderSizzle 4y agoIn my experience, every airline will screw you if your not their frequent flyer. Fly once a year? No one is going to waive a fee or refund you anything. Might as well go for cheapest price. My wife's experience shows SWA as an exception in that.
- Uvix 4y agoWhereas I'd rather have reliability, which is why I'll take a 10-12 hour drive over a 2 hour flight any day.
- pkulak 4y agoIs this really a massive cost, though? What does it cost to release some statements to the media and maybe reimburse some hotel receipts in 6 months? Especially balanced against the fuel savings of grounding half your fleet for 6 days. It's absolutely cheaper to run without enough staff and then just deal with the fallout every couple years. No one will remember this. Even the people effected will pick the cheapest flight next time, not matter the airline.
- noirbot 4y agoThat does bring up an interesting question - are they actually saving on fuel? I would have assumed, given the relatively planned-out nature of most airline operations, that fuel would be something contracted out in advance, and that they may have already bought the fuel whether they use it or not.
- pc86 4y agoYes and no, they certainly buy fuel in bulk and several weeks/months out, but they're still not flying for a week, so their yearly fuel cost is going to be less than projected.
- HDThoreaun 4y agoAirlines are too competing to have extra labor for situations like this. Everyone will book on the other airline that works 99% of the time and you’ll be out of business before a catastrophe hits. “Just add more slack” is not an option that also allows these businesses to be profitable.