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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.
Want to bet that we'll see this pop up in some chemtrail conspiracy video within a day?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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. This is why ghost flights happen occasionally.
Having two apps, the 'iff app' and the Cardiff Bus app, is a bit confusing. We've been working with our developers and have produced an updated app that we know you will all love. We've had lots of feedback about having two separate apps - one app for tickets and one for live times/timetables and information, so the latest release will bring that altogether in one great app, and allow you to save some valuable space on your phone too!
Please explain to me again how Capitalism organizes the economy for the most efficient use of resources.
HA! Trick question. All isms suck.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The actual reason is because of identity politics. There are people in UK who identify as Ghosts, and therefore there need to be ghost flights to satisfy the politics of inclusion.
I hear Zombie flights are also coming up, and also Attack Helicopter flights, and also special planes outfitted with fake grass flooring, wood walls, and plenty of greenery for treesexuals.
Saw that on Sherlock. Still waiting for S4 reshow.
Typical British bureaucratic nonsense. The way to stop this is to change the rule so that, to keep a time slot, an airline needs to have a flight that is open to the public: Either as a passenger flight, or as a mail carrier flight. The flight needs to be reasonably priced (so we can't keep an airplane empty by charging $2000 for a seat to Cadriff).
Problem solved.
Either that, or allow airplanes to pay a $100,000 per month retainer to keep a time slot if they are not using.
Wouldn't it be easier to get a "slot pair" if they weren't filled with useless "ghost planes"?
Amazing that the carbon footprint of unnecessary jet fuel expenditures isn't even brought into question.
Want to bet that we'll see this pop up in some chemtrail conspiracy video within a day?
See, the Deep State has been using them to fool all of us into thinking that there's plenty of air traffic and subsequently the economy is doing great. Of course, add in the bogus unemployment figures too boost people's confidence in the economy.
Now, exactly who does benefit from an un realistic view of the economy? Yeah, retailers and consumer durable makers like washing machines.
But WHO exactly NEEDS to have a confident buying public? WHO needs folks to throw caution to the wind and buy their product.?
There is only one answer and one answer only. The Girl Scouts of America. They need us to buy their cookies. People have to think, "The economy is great. I can get an expensive gym membership so the money and calories for these cookies don't matter squat!"
The Girl Scouts of America IS the Deep State!!
Trump thinks the Deep State is after him but the fact of the matter is, no the girls aren't - or are they? The Girl Scouts are girls and are going to be women one day. And Trump's misogynist attitudes do not go over well with them.
Trump pissed off the Girls Scouts and they're out for him!!
And who else they have in their pocket? Yep! Vladmir Putin!
Why is this on slashdot?
captcha: nonsense
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Passengers aren't required on some flights... they just move letters and shipments. Also, if a population is moving, sometimes there's nobody on the return flight for months... think Boston to Florida.
So, we've got half a story here.. this must be a SlowNewsDay.
Incentivizing flying empty planes to earn $$$ trading slots!
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...
So why not recover more revenue from users? Add some additional rules to prevent congestion by empty planes: Should an airline fail to use their slot at least 80 percent of the time not counted as used when the passenger or cargo weight loaded is less than 30% of maximum for that plane.
If an airline intends to use its slot, then it must give notice at least 24 hours ahead of time --- if no timely notice is received then for that day the slot is up for grabs - after giving notice, it will be liable to pay an additional $5000 fee ("slot confirmation charge").
"Business does things for business reasons that would be kind of probably inexplicable if done by hobbyists, or something"
Cardiff airport also has a large BA servicing facility.
Or at least seriously suboptimal. Instead of flying empty planes, Heathrow should charge a "non-usage fee" which is a few thousand dollars less than the "ghost flight" costs.
More or less cost neutral to the airline; raises some income for Heathrow ... and saves the jet fuel, wear and tear ...
A whole bunch of stuff copied from the article - but it leave out the use it or lose it part... The reader has to guess or go to the other article.
so they sell the right take off and land at certain times, a slot pair, but why are they flying empty planes?
Make them outrageously high. But discount the actual landing fee by dividing it--or somehow scale it down--by the number of "souls" on-board. Eventually some bean counter will wonder if it's actually worth it to be hanging on to those slots that are not being used by actual fare-paying passengers. Perhaps the airports could do the same with jet fuel and make fuel cost more when it's used to fly an empty aircraft. It's seems to me to be the height of stupidity to burn up fuel--fuel that the airlines are constantly complaining is too expensive--to fly empty planes.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
True capitalism would have the airport auction off EVERY departure time on the schedule on a daily basis, thank you very much. Actual economies have "friction" which render them sub-optimal. And yes, government bureaucracy is a huge source of friction.
You are correct. True Capitalism would encourage one or two companies to purchase all the slots, and gouge travelers once it had a monopoly on the airport. Unregulated capitalism that only considers pure supply and demand generates its own friction. (In this case in the form of resistance to true competition) I could probably make a pretty solid claim that every sort of economic model has similar levels of overall friction, and that one of the interesting ways of comparing systems would be to analyze where that friction would lay.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I seem to remember reading or watching a program that described this happening elsewhere. Maybe Hong-Kong. Apparently there's politics involved too with those who own the slots and renting them out. The airport has lost control over who lands in a slot. There were a bunch of small private jets that wanted to gain access and are having issues - but the slots are being sold to the highest bidder. Plus have a long lead time.
There are quite a number of ways to measure efficiency, and you're only focusing on one.
1) Given the Rules, this is efficient. The rules may be dumb, but that doesn't negate them.
2) Price stability is another form of efficiency. Given #1) this helps provide efficient pricing model.
3) I'm sure there is a great deal of pressure for more runways, but I am equally sure there are all sorts of rules and pressure preventing additional runways from being built. Likewise, Additional Alternate Airports are not likely due to competing needs and limited (finite) resources.
The more rules and regulations there are, the greater the likelihood of inefficiencies in the micro-economic system. The question we rarely ask ourselves as we draft rules and regulations should attempt to quantify the values of those rules and regulations; "Is it worth it"
I'll give a quick example of a question I would like to ask: "Would you (John/Joan Q Public) be willing to forgo TSA Grope N Feel / Naked Scan inspections, if instead the TSA Ticket Fees were cut in half, the remainder going into an "insurance" fund to pay out upon a fatal air traffic accident or terrorist event?"
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Yet another YouTube video that tries make clever little jokes all over the place, and instead falls on its face.
Even our ultra secret conspiracies are done half-assed.
The Majestic 12 (or MJ-12) was originally supposed to have twelve on the committee, but one guy dropped out and rather than redoing all the letter heads they stuck with an eleven man committee (sorry, no women on the committee, it was the 1940's after all)
It's amazing we can disassemble downed UFOs at all. Especially considering the officer's lounge at every secret military base can't manage to order a proper ratio of coffee grounds to coffee cups.
Let us install some sensors as well. Atmospheric, environmental, geophysical sciences, civil engineering, city planning and security services thank you.
Time for Heathrow to overbook the slot pairs then, just in case some airlines don't really use them. Airlines ought to appreciate the treatment, considering how familiar they are with the process!
If you can't have some sort of planning (and make no mistake auctioning of the slot would make some airline unavailable some days) would be utterly nightmare stuff for traveler. Sometimes what you call friction *do* actually provide stability which is required for societies to function, while "friction-less" leaves you , just like physical items, in a state of unstable equilibrium at best, in constant disequilibrium at worst.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Weight and balance system which helps stating how to make the take off taking into account cargo, and then the staff programming those , or the staff entering data for those which would have to be silent on this (as somebody being in that industry that would make me part of the conspiracy). And then take into account the fact that those chemtrail in summer would be bombarded to heavy UV, not a good thing for most chemicals, a lot would decompose, and then from 30000 foot the amount diluting and coming onto the ground would be ridiculously small per square meter.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
This video is interesting until it gets preachy about climate change enviromentalism tell other people what to do with their planes bullshit.
Hey, why build a an airplane set for a movie when you can just get on a ghost flight! You would have to of course do the cost benefit analysis to see if the price for the tickets for each cast/crew member was worth it vs building the set.