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> Plane not full enough to make a big enough profit? I don't think margins are as large as you think they are... I checked Lufthansas 2023 income report and th

> Plane not full enough to make a big enough profit? I don't think margins are as large as you think they are... I checked Lufthansas 2023 income report and they made 6m EUR. For a company that size it's.. not impressive. And flying a plane from point A to point B involves a huge amount of staff both onground and and in air, so cancelling a flight because it makes a loss or not enough is no surprise. > And when accounting for door to door times, flying isn’t that much faster anyway. I got a few days off work (finally) to go to Italy with the girlfriend. Total flight time is 4 hours with one stop. Shortest train time is 26 hours, with 3 train changes.

ornornor 2y ago
The margins are not that big, yes. But it’s also part of the deal: I buy a ticket to fly somewhere, not for a gamble that on the day of the flight the airline will choose to disrupt my plans and cancel the flight because they’re not making money after all. You can’t have your cake and eat it, it used to be that sometimes they make money sometimes they don’t. Nowadays they cancel flights routinely because they prefer to screw you than sometimes make little or no money on certain flights. They want to win every time now at the traveler’s expense. > Shortest train time is 26 hours, with 3 train changes. Not saying this works every time from anywhere to anywhere. I’ll personally reconsider my destination if I can’t get there with a train but that because of how much I hate flying. I’ve also done 8–9h on the train, booked a first class ticket, and worked most of that time so that my travel time counted as paid work hours. Then I didn’t have to worry about how much toothpaste I have in my luggage, what the size of my carry on is, whether my bags will make it to the destination at the same time as I do, whether the seat will be too narrow with no legroom or just merely uncomfortable, figure out how to get out of the airport and to my actual destination without getting ripped off… it’s no contest for me. Not saying it’s the same for everyone obviously, just laying out my thought process for others to think about theirs. Not mentioning pollution of course. The train emits much much less CO2 per distance traveled, makes less noise, less waste (all these single use utensils and boxes the food comes in).
- namdnay 2y ago
  > I buy a ticket to fly somewhere, not for a gamble that on the day of the flight the airline will choose to disrupt my plans and cancel the flight because they’re not making money after all The thing is, the majority of people will choose the ticket that is cheaper, even if there is a small chance of getting shafted. just look at how quickly ryanair grew, despite everyone knowing that each flight is a gamble. So a carrier can either play by the legacy rules, and get eaten, or they have to play by the new rules
  - ornornor 2y ago
    Which is why regulation is necessary in my opinion. I also buy the cheapest plane ticket I can find when going somewhere because I know it will suck, I'll get shafted, and I'll regret my decision no matter what. I can't tell if paying for the more expensive tickets (within the same fare bucket) will result in any improvement or just throwing the extra money out of the window because I'll get the same experience as the cheapest one so I go for the cheapest. In these cases, the market cannot regulate itself IMHO. It's a race to the bottom and if there is no legislation to compel actors to a minimal set of rules/conditions then we end up where we are with air travel now: it sucks more and more.
    - jajko 2y ago
      The regulation is there, not perfect, but you are just a vengeful customer based on your own description, like it or not. Rest of us understand flying isn't perfect and bad stuff can and does happen, especially when its the last thing you need (ie well rested after long holidays and then some nightmare happens when flying home) but that's life. I've experienced the same also with Turkish airlines, stellar customer experience, 400 euro compensation on top of luxury hotel and direct ticket next morning. If you are so desperately risk-averse, yeah travel by train, those 2 days to Seville are wonderful (I've done it, but compared to 90 minute flight its pretty bad way to spend weekend and if you have small kids there is no discussion). Destinations further are simply not reachable in any other reasonable way. Volcano blows up on Iceland or Sicily? Bam, half of the world is affected for days. Iran sends hundreds of rockets on Israel? Colleague of my wife got stuck in Jordan for few days. There is stuff constantly happening and events have cascade effects. Ever saw plane you just boarded suddenly be swarmed by technicians, and have it declared unable to fly afterwards? Imagine real world effects of such event. Plus airlines have razor thin margins, expecting perfection is... not logical to keep things polite.
fransje26 2y ago
> I checked Lufthansa's 2023 income report and they made 6m EUR. That's not what I found? [1] The article states: The company more than doubled its net profit to 1.7 billion euros (previous year: 790 million euros). [1] https://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/en/lufthansa-group-generates-operating-profit-of-27-billion-euros-in-2023-and-invests-more-than-ever-for-its-customers/ https://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/en/lufthansa-group-gener...

ornornor 2y ago

The margins are not that big, yes. But it’s also part of the deal: I buy a ticket to fly somewhere, not for a gamble that on the day of the flight the airline will choose to disrupt my plans and cancel the flight because they’re not making money after all. You can’t have your cake and eat it, it used to be that sometimes they make money sometimes they don’t. Nowadays they cancel flights routinely because they prefer to screw you than sometimes make little or no money on certain flights. They want to win every time now at the traveler’s expense. > Shortest train time is 26 hours, with 3 train changes. Not saying this works every time from anywhere to anywhere. I’ll personally reconsider my destination if I can’t get there with a train but that because of how much I hate flying. I’ve also done 8–9h on the train, booked a first class ticket, and worked most of that time so that my travel time counted as paid work hours. Then I didn’t have to worry about how much toothpaste I have in my luggage, what the size of my carry on is, whether my bags will make it to the destination at the same time as I do, whether the seat will be too narrow with no legroom or just merely uncomfortable, figure out how to get out of the airport and to my actual destination without getting ripped off… it’s no contest for me. Not saying it’s the same for everyone obviously, just laying out my thought process for others to think about theirs. Not mentioning pollution of course. The train emits much much less CO2 per distance traveled, makes less noise, less waste (all these single use utensils and boxes the food comes in).

namdnay 2y ago
> I buy a ticket to fly somewhere, not for a gamble that on the day of the flight the airline will choose to disrupt my plans and cancel the flight because they’re not making money after all The thing is, the majority of people will choose the ticket that is cheaper, even if there is a small chance of getting shafted. just look at how quickly ryanair grew, despite everyone knowing that each flight is a gamble. So a carrier can either play by the legacy rules, and get eaten, or they have to play by the new rules
- ornornor 2y ago
  Which is why regulation is necessary in my opinion. I also buy the cheapest plane ticket I can find when going somewhere because I know it will suck, I'll get shafted, and I'll regret my decision no matter what. I can't tell if paying for the more expensive tickets (within the same fare bucket) will result in any improvement or just throwing the extra money out of the window because I'll get the same experience as the cheapest one so I go for the cheapest. In these cases, the market cannot regulate itself IMHO. It's a race to the bottom and if there is no legislation to compel actors to a minimal set of rules/conditions then we end up where we are with air travel now: it sucks more and more.
  - jajko 2y ago
    The regulation is there, not perfect, but you are just a vengeful customer based on your own description, like it or not. Rest of us understand flying isn't perfect and bad stuff can and does happen, especially when its the last thing you need (ie well rested after long holidays and then some nightmare happens when flying home) but that's life. I've experienced the same also with Turkish airlines, stellar customer experience, 400 euro compensation on top of luxury hotel and direct ticket next morning. If you are so desperately risk-averse, yeah travel by train, those 2 days to Seville are wonderful (I've done it, but compared to 90 minute flight its pretty bad way to spend weekend and if you have small kids there is no discussion). Destinations further are simply not reachable in any other reasonable way. Volcano blows up on Iceland or Sicily? Bam, half of the world is affected for days. Iran sends hundreds of rockets on Israel? Colleague of my wife got stuck in Jordan for few days. There is stuff constantly happening and events have cascade effects. Ever saw plane you just boarded suddenly be swarmed by technicians, and have it declared unable to fly afterwards? Imagine real world effects of such event. Plus airlines have razor thin margins, expecting perfection is... not logical to keep things polite.

fransje26 2y ago

> I checked Lufthansa's 2023 income report and they made 6m EUR. That's not what I found? [1] The article states: The company more than doubled its net profit to 1.7 billion euros (previous year: 790 million euros). [1] https://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/en/lufthansa-group-generates-operating-profit-of-27-billion-euros-in-2023-and-invests-more-than-ever-for-its-customers/ https://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/en/lufthansa-group-gener...