The Airline Industry's Meltdown
"In 2017, when United Airlines reduced the weight of its paper in its inflight magazine, it saved nearly 770,000 litres of fuel a year – or $290,000 in costs."
This hit home.
770000 litres of jet kerosene translate to 2100 tons of CO_2 emissions[0]. That's the emissions of more than 200 average Germans or 50% of the emissions of over 400 people. Cutting one's emissions by half is most likely not easy at all, so maybe even more people would be required for an equivalent reduction in emissions.
Now: if someone at an airline thinks that the inflight magazine feels cheap now and that it should be printed on better paper again, it would wipe out any emission savings that hundreds of people could ever hope to achieve personally. Makes one feels a bit helpless, doesn't it?
[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerosin (Look for "Kohlendioxidemissionen bei Verbrennung").
Edit: the point I wanted to make is that a willy-nilly decision of someone with sufficient influence can have way more effect that intentional decisions of average people could ever have.
One way to understand these trends, Aboulafia told me, is through the industry’s most beloved metric: the seat mile. If a plane with 300 available seats flies 1,000 miles, that flight clocks up 300,000 seat miles. Airlines are constantly comparing revenue per available seat mile, or Rasm, with cost per available seat mile, or Casm. Aboulafia, pronouncing these terms as “razzum” and “cazzum”, said: “As long as razzum is a nose above cazzum, you’re happy.”
If you're an Italian speaker, this can be very funny and ironic.
No mention of the meltdown within GDS companies.
GDSs, for those not aware, offer airlines anything from booking/pricing/interoperation services to full IT outsourcing.
These companies basically take a small fee out of every operation done by either Online Travel Agencies (OTA) or the airline itself.
Even before the pandemic airlines were already pissed at these monsters (Travelport and Amadeus being the biggest contenders) that arguably they created, but now with the razor thin margins of airline travel, GDSs are either gonna take a big cut on their already reduced revenue, or the boot.
For Amadeus, virtually all contractors (at least 1000 in one site, multiple thousands worldwide) have been dismissed overnight, and most hired staff are working reduced hours. I can only assume it's been the same for Travelport.
Observation: Often articles about the airline industry and new aviation tech manage to completely miss the giant elephant in the room - which is the incompatibility of this industry in its current form with a world in a climate crisis. This article is a noteworthy exception that it even talks about it.
Good article, but I think it really misses some key stats. Here's a summary of the daily passenger statistics from the TSA [1]. We're still running around 25% of normal. The airline industry is getting absolutely annihilated this year. If Congress does not pass a new bailout, like this week, the airlines will be forced to layoff tens of thousands of flight attendants, pilots, mechanics, etc. For the most part, those are not jobs that easily transfer to other industries.
The economic devastation of coronavirus is just getting started for airlines. The lack of demand for jet fuel is going to have serious cascading effects throughout the oil and gas industry.
Another unintended consequence of having so many aircraft parked for so long not operating is bringing them back to life and flying them. It's never been done on such a large scale, and there have been numerous documented instances of emergencies involving fuel pumps on 737s causing in-flight shutdowns of engines due to the aircraft sitting for so long and getting in an unstable state. Boeing even had to send out a directive to all airlines to double and triple check certain components on aircraft that have sat for so long.
Aircraft, just like cars, are designed to be continuously flown and running, not sitting around.
Is this trip really necessary?
It's a good read, but mostly states the obvious.
One real question - which plane makers will survive? Unless air travel rises to higher levels than before the epidemic, there are enough spare aircraft around for a few years of no new purchases. COMAC will be supplying the China market soon, along with their client states. Airbus is subsidized. Boeing might not make it.
If you have frequent flyer miles then consider cashing them out now. I used all of mine to buy Home Depot gift cards. I expect that many airlines will end up bankrupt again so miles may end up worthless.
I have been wondering about the long term impact of all this on airplane maintenance.
Just like the military industrial complex needs ongoing work to maintain it's domain knowledge and tooling, will the maintenance teams responsible for these aircraft end up losing key people, infrastructure and key knowledge during the shutdown?
Suggestion: make a theme park from grounded / unused planes. A Disney World, but flight-themed, and with REAL planes (and real ex-pilots). I can tell you that a ton of boys would be excited as hell to learn how to take off and land from a real pilot. In stormy weather! I'd definitely give it a visit :-)
Anecdotally, one of the silver linings is the barrier for startups operating in the airline industry has never been lower. Prior to Covid it was exceedingly difficult to get a sit-down with business development personnel at major airlines, but the situation is now largely reversed if you approach with a product/service that could even marginally increase revenue per seat mile.
Planes are basically pollution machines, so it's quite good news if people can refrain from travelling in the air (most of time unnecessarily)
Very good article, did not expect.
We keep trying to make airlines work with a ton of taxpayer bailout money. I wonder if its time to just face the obvious problem that airlines may not be a profitable way to transport people over long distances, and perhaps consider alternatives? Would high speed rail be more profitable once the initial investments are made? Are there alternatives?
Finding a flight is also a frustrating experience for users right now. Airlines are selling tickets for destinations, which if you look at historical data, they haven't flown to for 6 months. If you buy a ticket, your flight gets cancelled and you end up spending the next weeks jumping hoops and waiting for your money to be refunded (and assuming you bought it in a jurisdiction that mandates refunds).
Advice: if the airline isn't flying to this destination this week, if you can't see the flight on the airport's online arrival boards or on flight tracking websites, don't buy the ticket, the flight is likely fictitious.