3 ms·

It does a bit, but there is devil in the details. eg it is the airports, not the routes where the issue arises. Government involvement aside, the slots at con

It does a bit, but there is devil in the details. eg it is the airports, not the routes where the issue arises. Government involvement aside, the slots at constrained airports are typically all allocated/owned. To get a slot you have to pay someone else for it, and that gets expensive. To make it work economically you want more passengers, which means a bigger aircraft.

Retric 12y ago
There is also time of day considerations. You can generally more easily sell seats for a noon departure than a midnight one. So, even regional airports with significant spare capacity often have some contention.
aidenn0 12y ago
I'm still waiting for someone to explain why United seems to have over a dozen flights from LAX to IAD every day, nearly all of them on narrow-body aircraft? I've flown that specific leg about a hundret times now and all but once the largest aircraft I was on was a 757. It seems like it would be more economical to eliminate one or two of those flights and use a 777 instead.
- rogerbinns 12y ago
  It depends on the kind of travellers. Business travellers are far more price elastic, preferring schedule. Less frequent but larger planes means giving up the most lucrative passengers to your competition. The best aircraft to use is one where you fill every seat and no one with money is left waiting. Having empty seats get very expensive very quickly because you are hauling unused weight in the plane, fuel to carry that weight, fuel to carry that fuel, heavier/bigger landing gear, bigger airport fees (typically based on plane maximum weight), more expensive maintenance etc. There is also the opportunity cost where the bigger plane could be used on a more profitable route. You should see Cathay Pacific flights between London and Hong Kong. For example on Sundays they have the following departures from HKG to LHR: 00:20 00:35 09:10 14:35 23:55 - there is also a 23:55 on the Saturday making that 3 flights in under an hour. All of them are on the 777-300ER. You see something similar for LHR to HKG. Cathay doesn't have any A380s and really seem like they could use a few!

Retric 12y ago

There is also time of day considerations. You can generally more easily sell seats for a noon departure than a midnight one. So, even regional airports with significant spare capacity often have some contention.

aidenn0 12y ago

I'm still waiting for someone to explain why United seems to have over a dozen flights from LAX to IAD every day, nearly all of them on narrow-body aircraft? I've flown that specific leg about a hundret times now and all but once the largest aircraft I was on was a 757. It seems like it would be more economical to eliminate one or two of those flights and use a 777 instead.

rogerbinns 12y ago
It depends on the kind of travellers. Business travellers are far more price elastic, preferring schedule. Less frequent but larger planes means giving up the most lucrative passengers to your competition. The best aircraft to use is one where you fill every seat and no one with money is left waiting. Having empty seats get very expensive very quickly because you are hauling unused weight in the plane, fuel to carry that weight, fuel to carry that fuel, heavier/bigger landing gear, bigger airport fees (typically based on plane maximum weight), more expensive maintenance etc. There is also the opportunity cost where the bigger plane could be used on a more profitable route. You should see Cathay Pacific flights between London and Hong Kong. For example on Sundays they have the following departures from HKG to LHR: 00:20 00:35 09:10 14:35 23:55 - there is also a 23:55 on the Saturday making that 3 flights in under an hour. All of them are on the 777-300ER. You see something similar for LHR to HKG. Cathay doesn't have any A380s and really seem like they could use a few!