Why London's Heathrow Airport Sometimes Hosts 'Ghost Flights' With No One on Them (jalopnik.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Six times per week, an empty plane used to fly from London's Heathrow Airport to Cardiff, Wales. The next day, the plane would make the return trip without a single passenger. Half As Interesting, the second channel from Planelopnik-approved Wendover Productions, details why ghost flights like this sometimes operate from Britain's biggest airport in his new video. Despite being one of the most crowded airports in the world, Heathrow operates with only two runways. As a result, it's extremely difficult to get a "slot pair" -- rights for airlines to land and take off at a certain time. Only 650 slot pairs exist per day, so airlines are prepared to drop massive cash in order to get prime slot pairs. And they can trade and sell them, too. [...] Should an airline fail to use their slot at least 80 percent of the time, Heathrow will reassign it to the next company on the waiting list.

Comments

Re:I'm taking bets

[Nidi62]

I used to work on the ramp of a major airport and let me tell you, those tanks they kept in the cargo holds to store the chemicals were great. The chemicals have to be kept at a constant temperature so the tanks were always cool during the summer and warm during the winter. Good place to relax by if you had some downtime.