The Billionaire Space Race Is Making Life Difficult for Airlines (bloomberg.com)

On Feb. 6, Elon Musk's SpaceX launched its largest rocket into the blue Florida sky. Onboard was "Starman," a dummy strapped into the billionaire's cherry red Tesla roadster. Minutes later, fans cheered as Musk topped himself by nailing a simultaneous landing of the Falcon Heavy's boosters. It was arguably a turning point for the commercial space age. Airlines were somewhat less thrilled. From a report: On that day, 563 flights were delayed and 62 extra miles added to flights in the southeast region of the U.S., according to Federal Aviation Administration data released Tuesday by the Air Line Pilots Association, or ALPA.

America's airspace is a finite resource, and the growth of commercial launches has U.S. airlines worried. Whenever Musk or one of his rivals sends up a spacecraft, the carriers which operate closer to the ground must avoid large swaths of territory and incur sizable expenses. Most of the commercial activity to date has been focused on Cape Canaveral, the Air Force post on Florida's Atlantic coast, where Musk's Space Exploration Technologies and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin base their stellar operations. It is one of 22 active U.S. launch sites, and a number of other locales -- including Brownsville, Texas; Watkins, Colorado; and Camden County, Georgia -- are pursuing new spaceport ventures to capitalize on commercial space activity.

Comments

Technology advances and the world changes

[93 Escort Wagon]

The airlines need to adjust and adapt, just like everyone else.

Re:Technology advances and the world changes

[Austerity Empowers]

I think the airlines probably deserve to have more notice about these launches, so that they can plan appropriately and avoid delays.

Adding 62 miles to their flightpath is definitely something they need to suck up, the world cannot be held hostage for this.

Re:Technology advances and the world changes

[KiloByte]

Except... airlines are useful. Private expeditions to Mars are not.

Your leisure or business flight does nothing to advance humanity. Space research, on the other hand...

Re:Technology advances and the world changes

[Daemonik]

You're talking a couple hundred pounds of fuel per plane, they only have so much capacity as it is and they tend to only carry as much fuel as they need to get to their destination. I guess you expect the public to subsidize Musk's launches through higher plane ticket prices then?

How about Musk and his fellow space cadets pay for the airlines extra expenses whenever they're doing a launch. Or limit how many "spaceports" we really need. How about both?

Re:Technology advances and the world changes

[Daemonik]

Your leisure or business flight does nothing to advance humanity. Space research, on the other hand...

Yeah, physicists, doctors, mathematicians.. those science types never fly around to conferences to speak about their humanity progressing ideas or anything..

Re:Technology advances and the world changes

[Immerman]

By all means, let's charge SpaceX for the use of airspace.

But, if we do that we should charge the airlines as well - after all, why should they get subsidized by being given a free ride? It's not their airspace after all.

Go ahead and make the proposal - I bet you the airlines stop complaining so fast the silence creates a sonic boom.

Re:Technology advances and the world changes

[Wrath0fb0b]

How about Musk and his fellow space cadets pay for the airlines extra expenses whenever they're doing a launch. Or limit how many "spaceports" we really need. How about both?

The "extra" expenses come from having to share a mutually-exclusive resource to which everyone has an equally valid moral claim.

What you're essentially arguing is that because airlines used to be the only people using the airspace and got by with some particular expenses, then that gives them the right to demand the same level of service (or money to compensate) in perpetuity.

What's more, this is true even when airlines compete with other airlines. When Southwest adds a flight from ORD to SFO, the other airlines incur some additional costs due to scheduling. This might mean sitting on the tarmac at O'Hare for a few more minutes or having to slow their approach to slot in on approach. By your logic, they owe United the money for this "extra" expense.

Re:Technology advances and the world changes

[Quarters]

Why should the airlines desire to make money supercede other business' access to the airspace? SpaceX isn't making money at the expense of the airlines. The airlines are losing a trivial amount of money because they haven't accounted for the airspace not being entirely theirs.

And yes, $70/min * 8 minutes * 568 flights = $318,080.00 is trivial to airlines. The average passenger count on a domestic flight is 90 (https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-amount-of-passengers-on-a-plane) and the average per passenger profit for a domestic one-way flight is $17.75 with an average profit margin of 9% (http://time.com/money/5158363/airline-profit-per-passenger/). So the average per-one-way profit is 90*$17.75 = $1597.50. That multiplied by those 568 flights is a profit of $970,380.00. Well maybe ~30% of profit isn't paltry. But, those 568 flights only account for 2% of the 28,537 average daily US airline passenger flights (http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_total_number_of_US_commercial_flights_daily). That $1,597.50 profit per flight multiplied by almost 30,000 daily flights equates to an industry daily profit of $45,587.857.50. Of that the $318,080.00 the airlines "lost" so the Falcon Heavy could launch comes out to a, yes, trivial 7/10ths of 1%.

Cry me a river, "Why should the airlines have to lose money so that SpaceX can make money?".

Dumbest thing I've read all week.

[fahrbot-bot]

Whenever Musk or one of his rivals sends up a spacecraft, the carriers which operate closer to the ground must avoid large swaths of territory and incur sizable expenses.

They're not launching things willy-nilly for funzies - ding-dongs; they're doing it because they're providing a service for paying customers (commercial and governmental) and preparing for future services. It's not the "billionaire space race" it's commerce and the free market. If it wasn't SpaceX or Blue Origin, etc... it would be the Air Force or NASA directly. Air carriers would have to delay and/or re-direct their traffic regardless. Jesus, get some critical thinking skills.

You know it's bad because "billionaires"

[BenJeremy]

Sigh... seriously, the headline is clearly written by somebody who either hates space travel, or somebody who just hates that billionaires are involved in it.

Grow up.

Delays?

[eagle52997]

The Bloomberg article makes a point of stating how many flights were delayed and extra distance traveled on the day of the launch, but how many flights are delayed on other days? How much extra distance is added because of bad weather? Without these numbers to compare to, the launch day may have had fewer delays. We have no way of knowing from this article.

Re:Rabble Rabble!

[elrous0]

God damn horseless carriages ruining everything...

Except I'm pretty sure none of us commoners are every going to get to ride on a SpaceX rocket. It's not like Musk is ever going to produce a Model T spaceship for the rest of us. He's just a rich prick indulging a hobby that will, at best, let NASA continue to pretend they aren't just wasting taxpayer money on a useless space station for a little longer.