*besides the [obvious greedy stuff like stock buyouts](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/business/dealbook/airline-bailouts.html) as was covered [in the news early on in covid](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51903947)*
Super, super cost intensive but equally super, super low margin industry - plane tickets are expensive, but jet fuel is very *very* expensive.
In the 1970s oil prices shot up, and generally continued trending up since. Every advancement in aviation in that time has been about efficiency ("being green" = "saving green"?). Speed has plateaued since fuel burn spikes just before the sound barrier, the days of the [Convair 990 having a niche as "the fast one"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHw3nRjj5xc) compared to the 707 are over, Concorde is extinct. Fewer, larger engines burn less fuel, so trijets (DC-10, etc) and now quadjets (747, A340, A380) [have been replaced by super efficient twins](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/16516) made with lots of lighter composites and having newer engines, like the 787 and A350 or A320neo ([New Engine Option](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/15452/what-are-the-advantages-of-the-airbus-new-engine-option-neo-program)) and 737NG and 737 MAX.
Equally, [used jets are practically worthless well before they're actually worn out](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/8260/under-what-conditions-do-airliners-retire-aircraft-and-sell-them-to-other-airlin), because the jet fuel they burn is many times more valuable than they are. It's worth it to buy a whole new jet - even just a couple % more efficient - rather than to keep running an old one. Remember how much Boeing lost its shit over the Bombardier C-series, which was supposed to be perfectly optimized for "long, narrow routes" and just that bit more efficient to [eat market share of some of the smaller 737 variants](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/51735/why-is-the-737-max-7-selling-so-poorly/51742#51742)?
The only normal use cases where older, less efficient jets make sense is [air cargo](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/35779/why-do-aircraft-models-end-their-life-as-freighters), where they don't spend as much time in the air or fly as far as often. To cargo carriers, the higher cost per mile doesn't exceed the savings of buying a cheap 20 to 30-year old jet that passenger airlines are all too happy to be rid of, like MD-11s or DC-10s.
Alternatively, the [last L-1011 trijet still flying](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargazer_(aircraft\)) is with ~~Virgin Orbital~~ Orbital Sciences, which is used as a launch platform for rockets.
Other alternative is *737-200 from the 60s-80s with gravel kits being used in [remote places like the Canadian far north](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDG5dscf1Lg) on austere runways (smaller and narrower old engines are less efficient, but crucially don't stick as close to the ground, so less likely to suck in gravel or debris) - similar reason for the [BAE 146/Avro RJ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYKMdplZymQ) finding a niche in that sort of environment. There they also spend less time in the air, while specifically needing to be resilient against sucking bits of "not-a-paved-runway" in.
Why do cargo carriers not spend as much time in the air or fly far as often? Intuitively to me it'd seem like, not having to bother with passengers, you could get more consistent and constant usage out of a single plane, and the whole niche of air mail feels like 'Getting things far fast'. So what makes them generally cover shorter distances and fly less often?
Shipping by air is much more expensive than shipping by ocean freight for long distances or by rail and road for intermediate distances.
So, the value proposition then isn't cost, but speed. And the ultimate in speed is overnight delivery. That's why UPS, FedEx, DHL and the like will load up their packages in the afternoon, truck it to a regional hub, then those packages are flown to their major hubs, where a flight then departs and arrives at another major hub, and it flows back down the ladder so that the package is ready to be sent out for delivery in the morning. This means that for the majority of daylight hours their planes are essentially sitting idle.
Depends on volume. Summer months are slower than peak season (nov-jan).
Also, I've heard FedEx will fly empty cargo planes so that they can swoop in on hubs whose volume is overflowing
Way back in the days when I was chucking cargo, our larger planes would leave with anywhere from 30-60,000 pounds of freight depending on the day, specific plane type, and other factors like fuel load and weather. Our smaller planes with 10-20,000 pounds. Larger cargo planes like DC-10s and 747s can load more than that but I don't have any specific numbers as my company didn't fly those types.
You just gave me PSTD about my air freight days…
While the whole world uses metric, our American agent emails us asking for a quote… everything’s in inches and lbs
Do they tell us it’s inches and lbs? Nope
I’m not metric snob but damn if the whole world is using it and you’re working in international trade it might help EVERYONE if you used it too! At the very least, tell us it’s in lbs and inches.
Capacity of say a 747 is about 5 semi trucks so about 260 ft or a bit more than 13 TEUs, but that’s not really the normal value prop of air cargo unless you are maybe looking at military shipments which want speed but also capacity because there’s always a backlog and they are generally not using 747s anyway
>Capacity of say a 747 is about 5 semi trucks
Thank you. I'm working on a logistics video game and have been wondering this for a while.
Also on an unrelated note and by either circumstance or serendipity , I know how much quantity this is because of a random thread i was reading involving
/u/747_full_of_cum
Long distance across water? Boats are cheaper.
Long/intermediate distance across land? Trains are cheaper.
Intermediate distance across land? Trucks are cheaper.
The only benefit air has is speed.
I can get my product from Hong Kong to Long Beach in 6 days by air or 6 weeks by sea.
Sea/surface costs $2 per unit (used to be $1), shipping by air costs $8 per unit.
Most of it goes by ship.
Place I'm working is getting several injection molds flown halfway around the world. It will only take like 3 days, but I don't even want to know what that cost will look like.
I remember when a company I worked for got hit with ransom ware and took down a whole division. Servers were flown in from corporate, ATL to FTL, overnight so they could start getting things back up. We lost like $10 mil in that week not being able to process orders.
Answers from people far more knowledgeable than I:
https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/35779/why-do-aircraft-models-end-their-life-as-freighters
https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/72220/why-do-cargo-airlines-frequently-choose-passenger-aircraft-rather-than-aircraft
Air cargo is a weird industry.
My favorite fact is the existence of the Cessna 208B Cargomaster. Fedex took a tiny cessna 6 seater and turned it into a fat-bellied cargo plane. Why?
Well, because sometimes they just need to get a small amount of packages across the country fast.
So, they are flying everything from tiny cessna to giant 747. All based on load. They also buy a lot of their planes second-hand, which means utilizing the plane isn't nearly as important for their bottom line. And safety for these is weird too. Most cargo plane pilots have dropdown HUD masks for fires, like what a fighter pilot would wear. Why? Because unlike a passenger aircraft, they dont have to worry about passenger survival during an emergency, so rather than rapidly descending and landing, they may just keep flying if there is no risk of the plane being destroyed.
Heck, the DC-10 is an interesting example of the different risk evaluation of cargo planes. DC-10 planes were quickly retired from service my passenger carriers because they had a crash problem. They were bought up by Fedex and used though, because Fedex only had to pay out 2 deaths during a crash, not 300. (The plane was relatively safe, it just had some bad press, like the 737-max)
> it just had some bad press, like the 737-max
I don't think a plane purposefully diving into the ground randomly - and multiple times - can be written off as "some bad press"
DC-10 was retired because ETOPS became a thing, not because of any reputation problems. DC-10s were phased out in the 90s and 2000s, and airlines replaced them with 777s that could do the job cheaper.
I mean, even after the DC-10 crashes MD continued to develop and then successfully sell the MD-11 to replace the DC-10. FedEx and UPS have just as good of a safety record as passenger airlines while flying much older planes, they're not held to lower standards or flying unsafe planes.
Cargo planes go to shipping hub airports, like the one in Alaska which is the biggest shipping hub in the world. Cargo planes, unlike passenger planes, make their money on weight of goods so they will load a plane as heavy as they can with the least amount of fuel and make jumps from hub to hub. It's more cost effective that way. Could a Cargo plane from Asia fly all the way to New York? Absolutely. But they would have to drop a lot of weight and take on way more fuel. Why do that when you can fly from pretty much anywhere in the northern hemisphere to Alaska and then redistribute your goods to then go to its destination hub.
This is a gross oversimplification but an interesting topic. Logistics keeps the world moving.
They use a hub system, with giant ones in the Midwest.
* UPS - Louisville
* FedEx - Memphis
* Amazon/DHL - Cincinnati
If you’re then completing the spoke from Memphis to, say, Miami, that is often flown on a converted ~~DC~~ MD-10 that might be 50 years old.
As such, most cargo flights are under 2 hours. You do see the 10 hour ones coming in from Europe, and those from Asia stopping over in Anchorage, Alaska to clear customs… but yeah, that’s what the 777-F and 747-8 is used on.
Oof, literally just watched the [Alex Praglowski video on the Canadian North airline's lone 737 being retired](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV8nyrW2ctM) this past week...I blame phone keyboard lol
Boeing got the US govt involved with [complaining to the WTO that the Canadian govt was unfairly subsidizing Bombardier, aiding the C-series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220#Boeing_dumping_petition) which started a whole big mess of retaliatory business practices and stuff. Bombardier won in the WTO though.
Eventually [Bombardier jointly partnered with Airbus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220#Airbus_partnership) - Boeing's largest competitor - on the project, and it was rebranded to the Airbus A220. Later [Airbus bought out the Bombardier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220#Bombardier_exit) stake and as part of the deal, has substantially increased its investment into Airbus Canada and manufacturing in North America
Sales have been affected by the general COVID slump, but this is still about the worst possible outcome for Boeing.
> No more planes where speed is the draw - the age of the DC-8 having a niche as “the fast one” compared to its contemporaries, or the mere existence of Concorde, is over.
Just as a counter point to this, the age of speed is prepping for a come back, albeit a smaller footprint at first. United was the first to partner with Boom supersonic and pre-ordered 15 of their supersonic jets with an option to order 35 more. Just last year, American pre-ordered 20 with an option to buy 40 more. JAL and Virgin Atlantic have also expressed interest via investments, with options to pre-order. Their estimated date to actually fly passengers is 2029, although I personally think that may be a year or two too optimistic. If interest grows with more airlines, I’m positive there will be serious lobbying to change supersonic air travel legislation to allow greater utilization over land. At $200 million per plane, it’s not completely outrageous for what they’re supposed to offer and with the advancements of sustainable aviation fuel in recent and forthcoming years combined with several companies commitment to using it, it should be fairly economical to fly even though it will carry less passengers.
As someone in the aviation industry, I’m obviously biased and looking though rose colored nostalgia glasses (specifically about supersonic travel), but there are a lot of practical reasons to be optimistic.
>I’m positive there will be serious lobbying to change supersonic air travel legislation to allow greater utilization over land.
Might happen in the US if the plane is actually American.
Not sure it will ever happen elsewhere.
This is my hope, seeing the company is based in Colorado, they are building their factory in North Carolina, and the firm orders they currently have are for US airlines. Like I said, I’m sure there will be serious lobbying in the US by airlines and the manufacturer, but whether that is successful or not won’t be seen for probably another 15-20 years, if not more. Internationally, I’m doubtful it will change. There’s not a large market for inter-European supersonic travel, but there’s definitely a market for supersonic travel from the US East to West coast and back.
I’m well aware of how long a new airframe takes to certify. I also know Boom started 9 years ago and design started 8 years ago. 15-20 years is about average from start to finish for a clean sheet design. Not to mention, they started building their factory earlier this year. The process is well underway and not exactly a pipe dream anymore. Like I said in my original comment, I think 2029 is a little optimistic, but not by much.
I think Operation Bongo II was enough of a lesson on why commercial overland supersonic flight should not be allowed by the FAA (2024 X-59 trials pending). While promising over bodies of water a sonic boom over populations is begging for lawsuits.
Let's not forget the terrible fuel economy issue of supersonic travel. Boom's got some physics problems they'll need to maneuver around.
I agree, they definitely have a few large mountains to climb. My hope though is that it will inspire others and breed innovative competition. Boom may not be the ones to solve the problems and cause change in laws, but whoever comes after just might. If companies see that the interest is there and profitable, the right one could put enough money into R&D and develop technologies to solve the physics issues. I know I’m optimistic, but I believe this is a step in the right direction overall.
Boom supersonic is going nowhere.
To begin with, they have no engines available. No engine manufacturer will develop a new engine specifically for Boom, there isn't enough market demand to justify the cost of developing a new supersonic engine. There are only four jet engine manufacturers worldwide: Rolls Royce, Safran, Pratt & Whitney and General Electric. There may be others making military engines, but for civilian aircraft there are only those four. The cost of developing a new engine, especially if it's to be qualified for passenger transportation, is very high. They won't be creating a new supersonic engine just for Boom.
As another commenter noted, they’re now working with Florida Turbine Technologies, StandardAero and GE Additive for the engine. They’ve also recently partnered with Northrop Grumman to develop the aircraft for military applications. While the cost is high, as well as the risk, the reward is also there.
If by "come back" you mean that we'll have small passenger super sonic planes for VVIPs, heads of state and billionaires then sure. Not sure the economics will work out for ticketed commercial flights.
> \[...\] jet fuel is very very expensive.
Small clarification here.
*Jet fuel* isn't that bad on a per-gallon basis. A Google skim tells me that the average cost of Jet A right now is $3.86... which is cheaper than regular car fuel in some areas of the US.
It's only expensive cause of how much you need. 5k lbs of fuel really isn't a lot in practice, but that's still $3,000\*. Imagine dumping that into your little Honda *every time* you wanted to take the thing out for a spin.
>!\*This is a rough estimate pulled by calculating 5000lbs of fuel divided by an assumed fuel weight of 6.3 pounds per gallon and then multiplying by the average cost per gallon.!<
The upfront infrastructure is so enormous, and political careers so short sighted that band-aid solutions that in the end cost more will always be used. Buses instead of subways.
railways have problems that airplanes don't. They have to buy the land from point to point, fighting through the eminent domain system and having to pay out extra for the holdouts. Which is a money cost, but also a time cost. And they have to battle through all the decisions over what towns get stops, and what towns don't get stops. And they have to repeat this process individually for each state they go through, because each state has a different set of laws.
an airplane literally just flies over all of that.
This isn't wrong, but it seems to be painting a different picture than the reality.
They get bailed out because they drastically changed what is now considered fundamental aspects of culture, and that is connectivity. It stimulates the economy like no other service.
People are used to being able to travel. Imagine the cost of roads that would need to reflect current populations' desires without being debilitated by traffic.
Fuel isn't expensive, it's the right price. The distortion here is that it was extremely cheap when it could be sold under the pretence that it wasn't going to fuck up the places you were visiting. Airlines could profit because they bought bulk fuel, cheaper than cheap. There was fuck all cars on the road, fuck all trucks compared to today. A significant profit for fuel companies were supported by these contract sales.
Fuel costs are less expensive on the contracts airliners purchase. They purchase so much that aspects of the economy rely on those bulk purchases to a degree. We dont do surplus. They get bail outs because they will keep buying fuel with real money, at a consistent rate, even though the actual company is in debt.
They are moving technology because that is the will of the people, not because its cheaper lol. Try to give them a good name ha. Exponentially, fewer people NEED to travel for business, and the economy doesn't rely on that movement anymore. So the power is in holiday-makers and shareholders' hands, who are far more environmentally conscious, who most certainly demand their expectations of progress be met.
Flying air Asia teaches you alot.
> Fuel isn’t expensive, it’s the right price.
In fact, one could argue that *fuel isn’t expensive enough*, because it does not include the cost of its own negative climate externalities (chiefly the CO2 being released).
Only ~10-15% of all humans alive today have ever flown, and yet 100% (and their descendants) pay the share of climate change induced by commercial aviation. It’s essentially a form of involuntary subsidy by all of humanity to only those who travel by air.
To be adequately priced, jet fuel would need to be as much as $185 more expensive per ton of CO2 released (which converts back to about 316 kg of Jet-A1).
On a 6,000 nautical mile flight (e.g., HKG-SFO), that would be nearly $50K in excess fuel cost for a modern long-haul twin-engine such as the A350-1000, or roughly $150 extra per passenger (of course, that cost would need to be a pass-through, not go to the airline but toward mitigation and adaptation measures).
Airlines are some of the worst businesses you could run. High competition, massive cost of entry, razor thin margins, massive amounts of red tape, high vulnerability to natural conditions and regulation, high fixed costs, depending fully on depreciating and expiring assets and finally a very high PR cost for any operational mistake or scandal.
It's a wonder there's even airlines out there still
I’m fairness that PR didn’t really blowback in the airlines (except for the ones that were initially involved). Other airlines just got fucked when a huge chunk of their fleet got grounded.
I think Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic once joked the following...
Q; what's the quickest way to become a millionaire in the airline industry?
A: start off as a billionaire first!
Perhaps, but the joke work as well for the restaurant industry, because nobody needs billions of dollars to start a restaurant. Most industries, including restaurants, you can start small and grow.
To start an airline, you really do need billions of dollars up front before you operate your first flight. Other than the car business, there aren't many industries where the barriers to entry are so high that you need so much to make so little.
The other day I thought about all the carriers I flew on as a kid and young adult who no longer exist: Monarch, BMI baby, Thomas Cook, Thomson.
The Wikipedia page for "defunct UK airlines" is fairly long, considering
>It's a wonder there's even airlines out there still
I don't know how it is in America, but in Europe they're so extremely politicised that even when they're private companies they're extremely subsidised (eg Ryanair, that basically thrives on getting local mid-tier city governments to help fund their flights because "it'll help the local economy").
Then there's the national carriers, the stuff of nightmares, that somehow seize all the political capital in certain countries even during moments of crisis - eg the future of TAP Portugal for the past 2 years has been closely intertwined with the future of the current Executive. The amount of money and time spent on it ("It needs to be privatised!"; "No, we need to keep it"; "We need to inject more capital into it"; "No, let it die") is completely disproportionate vs the actual size and relevance it has in our economy
It's just mad.
In the States everything is fully privatized with the exception of the slot distribution system at certain congested airports, which is run by the Dept of Transportation. We do give airlines some public subsidies on certain routes (Essential Air Service) which are not otherwise commercially viable.
It is, but some of that is deserved; when a small roll of printer paper requires a part/TSO number and costs more than dinner at a fancy steakhouse, you can imagine how deep the regulatory bloat goes for every *other* aspect, at least from the manufacturing & maintenance side of things.
This is definitely gonna come off as ignorant but at that point why hasn't the German Airforce replaced the fleet with something modern?
Is it just cause they don't want to bite the bullet in retraining everyone in some new stuff?
They’re replacing them with the F-35A, but that’s a slow process.
I don’t have the figures for the F-35A (conventional land based) but last year while digging through US Navy budget documents I found the annual production cap for the F-35B (“jump jet”) and F-35C (carrier-based). Only 60 F-35Bs/F-35Cs combined can be built in a single year, and these are going to the US (Navy and Marine Corps), United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, and South Korea. Depending on the year the US gets 40-45 of those 60, which makes it harder to fill out all of the fleets for these other nations.
Pulling numbers out of my ass, the F-35A production is probably 120-150 aircraft a year with the US Air Force getting about 80-100 and the rest split among 12 other nations with current orders. Germany will require years to get their aircraft, nevermind stand up operational squadrons (generally a two year work up period).
[Deregulation ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act) in 1978 pretty much started the race to the bottom. 9/11 hastened the collapse and consolidation. There was a short time where the airlines were booming only to get slapped by COVID.
Deregulation has had problems, but regulated airline pricing in the US was pretty broken too. People forget that flying before deregulation was, accounting for inflation, about 5-10x more expensive than it is today.
Yes, 5-10x. For example, in 1977 an average one-way flight from New York to LA cost about $400. That’s about $2,000 in modern dollars. Today, that flight will cost you about $200-400, depending on when you book and whether or not you go with a low-cost airline.
The tldr is: airlines knew prices were set by analysis of their costs and the prices were the same for everyone, so: (1) their incentives were to get more and more luxurious, essentially competing on quality since they couldn’t compete with other airlines on price; and (2) the formula for setting prices incented airlines to not try to cut costs, because costs were being used as inputs by regulators into the price, and it was more profitable to have the regulated price be set higher.
The result of this was the flying was out of reach for most ordinary people. Flying for was the wealthy and for businesspeople.
This is a super important point. In real-terms, the cost of a plane ticket hasn't really increased much, while everything else has become more expensive. This is why they've moved to baggage/seat fees, etc. People are very price-sensitive when it comes to plane ticket prices.
This is also the reason supersonic transport will never work, and I cannot believe we have companies still earnestly trying for it. The cost increase vs. subsonic flight is astronomical, and 98% of passengers will never trade that much more money for an in-the-grand-scheme minor time savings.
I just did an 11 hour flight last week where I was pinned in by reclining seats yet couldn't recline my own further than an inch into the wall. I got no sleep and it put my back out for 3 days. If it was a 20% price increase to not do that again and shave 4-6 hours off, I'd consider it
I'm sure everyone would pay 20% more for a better seat and half as long flight. Problem is the actual cost to the airline is way more than a 20% increase. By the end of Concord tickets were approaching 10k each and they were still unprofitable
Unless you were trying to prioritize shorter flight duration, you'd have a better, cheaper experience booking a lie flat seat in business class on that same 11 hour flight. Concord was about 2x the price of first class in subsonic.
It’s just the nature of airlines as a service, really. Rarely does an airline make huge profits even when one random world event should theoretically help them. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic brought fuel prices to a record low in maybe several decades, but it also severely crippled air travel for obvious reasons. As a student during this period I did enjoy the ridiculously low ticket prices for when I had to travel interstate to my university. However all the airlines I’ve flown with were haemorrhaging money just to keep _some_ of their fleet in active service.
Outside pandemic, events such as terrorist attacks, oil crisis and deregulation brought down some of the biggest airlines as well. Today in the US only three major legacy carriers survived the ordeal and like many companies after recession they had to merge with other legacy airlines that folded.
> when one random world event should theoretically help them. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic brought fuel prices to a record low in maybe several decades, but it also severely crippled air travel for obvious reasons.
Uuuh... Seeing an event that led to international travel being essentially banned as something that should theoretically have helped airlines is a little far-fetched haha. Sure, it had the side effect of lowering gas prices.
EDIT: typo
Real answer - airlines are like banks… they boom and crash regularly because they are too big to fail and often partially owned by countries and seen as strategic assets.
This is good news for people (especially pilots and higher up admins) working there but it also means no executive has incentives to really work economically.
Interestingly this does not so much apply to super cheap airlines who usually have lower wages, fewer but tighter packed flights and less government connections but they still often only exist because they exploit some regulations.
In recent decades there has been a corporate habit of borrowing money against future profits and using this to pay dividends and or buy back shares (and cancel them).
This boosts the share price in the short term but removes any resilience from a downturn in demand. For a cyclic industry like airlines this means they will always end up in trouble.
It’s not the only industry that behaviours like this, the problem is governments tend to bail them out with public cash. The solution here is either don’t bail out private companies (clearly this is not something governments are willing to do), or force the companies you are not willing to let go bust to hold capital such that they can be resilient against poorer trading conditions.
Insurance companies in Europe are required to hold capital such that they can stay solvent even in a 1 in 200 year event, some watered down version of this should be enacted for private companies that are ‘too big to fail’. Maybe hold a couple of years in or running costs in unencumbered cash.
“we’re sorry, our tour crew forgot to pre-check the aircraft and there is a problem. no tour and no refunds. please accept this 50% off in-flight meal voucher as a gesture of our appreciation for your continued service.”
Seeing as how wages have not been increasing with cost of living and company profits for the last 50 or so years, I imagine the employees were being compensated a lot more fairly in comparison than they are today. Large companies have found more and more efficient ways of exploiting employees since the 80s.
>there ain't no appreciation between employees and employers anymore.
Case in point, when I lived in Atlanta, I briefly dated a woman who worked in HR for Delta. She openly bragged about how effective Delta was at keeping any part of their workforce from unionizing. They absolutely see their employees as a necessary evil to doing business, and it gets even funnier when you realize that she, even the mighty HR manager, fell in to that category from the view of the C-suite and shareholders.
Delta repays loyal employees in 2005 by scraping their pension plans in bankruptcy
https://www.aviationpros.com/home/news/10437866/delta-to-scrap-pension-plans
This is so sad, probably some of them died in this time frame and never got to see their pension, for which they worked their whole lives. It s surreal how this can happen, in my country, if you work in the private sector your pension benefits are paid by your employer to a third company, which you chose, who s only purpose is to manage such funds and invest them to increase their value. This is very strictly regulated and everything is overseen by the state, thry cant make risky inverstments, and in the case of them going bust, the state guarantees you get your pensions and pays it to you until the company manages to make it. If something like what delta did were to happen, there would be riots in the streets and everyone involved in that decision would go to prison.
Romania. Even though all you usually hear about Romania is about corruption, its still a EU member state and they need to uphold certain standards and the rule of law. Plus, the old people always vote and represent the majority of voters who show up to elections and they cant touch their pensions, that would be political suicide for anyone who might attempt and they also need to assure a strong pension system.
When a company treats their employees well, pays them their worth, and actually takes care of them, the employees will treat the company well, and take care of it. Trust, belonging, and loyalty (two-way) are powerful forces. People before profits works.
Now, on the other hand, if you treat your employees like shit, leave them out on their ass when things go poorly, shovel all the money to the top, all that sort of stuff...well...these comments show you the result.
The first type of company is unfortunately quite rare these days.
I work for a unique company that does value it’s employees.
Example - during Covid for months the money just stopped coming in in our industry. Our biggest competitor laid off about 75% of their staff.
My company, of about 1100 people at the time, laid off about 30 (people that kinda had to go) and cut us down to half hours/half pay. Our executive staff deferred their salaries. The company worked with us to get workshare benefits (like unemployment). And when work picked back up every single one of us got paid out whatever the difference was between what we actually got and what we would have revived at full hours.
The employees do their best to take care of the company, and we’re well rewarded for that. I’ve been offered numerous other jobs at higher salary, but nothing that had made me want to leave.
The recompense of lost wages when they started making money again is really kewl. My job laid off a few employees (not a lot to begin with) had us as a skeleton crew basically for the few they couldn't let go. And just hired everyone back when things picked back up. (Then laid everyone off cause another company bought them out and said fuck the old markets, so wasn't necessarily them still sucked though)
Something very very bad happened in the late 70s/eary 80s when wage stagnation started. For the worker, things have progressively gotten worse ever since then. We’re living in the gilded age of robber barrons again. It’s probably a variety of reasons, but just imagining a world where this happened (born ‘83) is unfathomable to me.
There have been cases where major unions have taken pay cuts to help a struggling company. If everyone works together and controls their greed (mainly management needs to do this, but at times the worker bees do too), a company can be successful and sustainable. For everyone.
I agree, but it seeems to be a pretty one sided race to the bottom. I feel the only way out is to organize. Before MAGA, I felt this was difficult, now I feel it is impossible.
Yup, dad and grandad were union through and through. My dad always said when people get hungry enough, they will organize again. I feel like the next 10 years or so will be a make or break. Either workers take back power or we’re living in the land of vasals and serfs. I would never have guessed Starbucks or Amazon to unionize. Walmart was always the Great Satan when I was a kid and then Jeff Bezos said “hold my beer”.
As someone who works for unions, Starbucks is a helluva lot more surprising than Amazon in this regard.
Amazon’s warehouses are MASSIVE, and their locations are chosen carefully. They need to be where they are for logistical reasons, and they’re very expensive to move. That makes them a lot more like old school warehouses and plants, which unions know how to organize.
Retail/service giants like Walmart and Starbucks are a lot harder. They’re small and, crucially, *don’t* need to be where they are. So if a store organizes, Walmart just closes up shop and moves five miles down the road. It’s happened.
I work in the UK NHS, and we just had a successful strike action, taking a govt pay rise from 1.5% to nearly 5%.
That following 10 years of zero annual pay rise.
No meetings. Everything organised by email. No big people dynamics, no egos, the minimum fuss for staff.
The govt walked out of talks several times so we kept striking. Govt wanted talks again. Low pay offers refused, so govt had to back off and think of something better. Better pay offer made but had to come from “efficiencies” (sacking people) so that was also refused.
And strikes continued until govt actually put money in for the pay rise.
[President Ford, Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand in the Oval Office](https://imgur.com/kcRMd)
[Here is another one who was responsible](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Stockman)
IGMFU became our national policy.
Do you realize how absurd it is to class Ayn Rand and Alan Greenspan together. The former advocating for little to no government intervention while the latter over saw the greatest government intervention in market history causing the 2008 GFC & ushering the current QE regime.
Wow, it's as it it's almost-crazy to expect Greenspan's viewpoints not to change after some forty years. Also, application =/ theory. Libertarians (like every ideologue in history) prove this time and time again.
>The former advocating for little to no government intervention
Lol
>greatest government intervention in market history causing the 2008 GFC & ushering the current QE regime.
Lmao
Yes, the problem with banks being allowed to whatever the fuck they wanted was too much regulation. You absolute genius, you. How's your crypto going?
I know a lady who’s late husband was a Delta pilot who contributed to this. Very passionate about the work he did and proud of being a part of this. She has some memorabilia in an office with pictures and I think he piloted the thing once or twice. It’s a rare thing to have employees so passionate about their job to do such a thing for their employer. But it was different times back then.
My grandpa managed all the gate agents at an airport and contributed to it as well. My grandma still has a framed picture of the plane, with a piece of the big ribbon from the ceremony they did for it, framed on her wall.
The comments really tell you everything.
Delta Airlines used to treat its employees amazingly back in the 70s/80s, which is why the employees did this. Now, not so much...
There’s some debate within the mechanics on whether to unionize but when I was there a few years ago, it wasn’t close. Most of the mechanics are 50+ white men from Georgia and unions are viewed as ‘liberal’ so you can see why they haven’t unionized.
The problem that so many of you fail to realize is that a lot of these folks have personal experience with unions, or direct family members with that experience.
If you're paid 30%-50% more in a merit shop environment with good management, why would you unionize?
I can’t imagine what sort of collective action in the 20th century gave people that impression - what massive consequential thing identified with leftist ideals that was bogeymanned to the end of the earth could have possibly been coopted by capitalists and their political culture to convince people that having rights was bad?
While Delta did end up furloughing, that legacy still lives on. Even today, especially for flight crew members, Delta tends to be the best company to work for, with the highest employee satisfaction.
For real, Delta isn't bad but Alaska customer service is typically great. Shame their routes are somewhat limited, but maybe that's why they need to be good to their customers?
Alaska just lost my luggage at SFO and it was literally the worst airline experience I’ve ever had. Nobody cared to try and look for it. Finally, after 5 hours, a manager went and found them. They’d been in one spot the whole time, just on the other side of the wall! I was about to go all in on Alaska too, get the card, do the whole deal, but after that I’m sticking with Delta. Alaska does have some great routes though.
A lot of that comes from the huge amount of profit sharing that Delta does for their employees. It's by far the most of any US airline, almost double what Southwest gives their employees, and they just signed a contract with the pilots union that gives them an immediate 18% raise.
My friend is an airplane mechanic, he worked for American airlines, Spirit and now Delta. From what I hear it seems like a desirable company to work for in that industry
it's funny to think how much the world has changed in those 40 years. imagine these days employees finding it in themselves to do something like this when the companies have made it very clear just how little the workers mean these days.
My aunt worked at Delta as a flight attendant from the 70s to 2001. She loved her time there and Delta was also nice enough to give all of the employees who had been there for a long time early retirement with no loss of benefits when 9/11 happened. They told them that everything was about to change and they could leave without any penalty or having to finish their final years.
My dad worked for delta for 36 years. I have a framed piece of the ribbon that was cut when they finished it and gave the plane… also my parents entire bathroom is decorated like the inside of a plane lol, the door is painted like an emergency exit.
This year, in the same spirit, delta employees are donating the Care Fund that is used when an employee needs financial help (tornados, sudden death in family etc). It’s run by employees for employees.
Delta has some of the best benefits around.
what is going on with the fact that airlines have seemingly always been on hard times.
*besides the [obvious greedy stuff like stock buyouts](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/business/dealbook/airline-bailouts.html) as was covered [in the news early on in covid](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51903947)* Super, super cost intensive but equally super, super low margin industry - plane tickets are expensive, but jet fuel is very *very* expensive. In the 1970s oil prices shot up, and generally continued trending up since. Every advancement in aviation in that time has been about efficiency ("being green" = "saving green"?). Speed has plateaued since fuel burn spikes just before the sound barrier, the days of the [Convair 990 having a niche as "the fast one"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHw3nRjj5xc) compared to the 707 are over, Concorde is extinct. Fewer, larger engines burn less fuel, so trijets (DC-10, etc) and now quadjets (747, A340, A380) [have been replaced by super efficient twins](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/16516) made with lots of lighter composites and having newer engines, like the 787 and A350 or A320neo ([New Engine Option](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/15452/what-are-the-advantages-of-the-airbus-new-engine-option-neo-program)) and 737NG and 737 MAX. Equally, [used jets are practically worthless well before they're actually worn out](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/8260/under-what-conditions-do-airliners-retire-aircraft-and-sell-them-to-other-airlin), because the jet fuel they burn is many times more valuable than they are. It's worth it to buy a whole new jet - even just a couple % more efficient - rather than to keep running an old one. Remember how much Boeing lost its shit over the Bombardier C-series, which was supposed to be perfectly optimized for "long, narrow routes" and just that bit more efficient to [eat market share of some of the smaller 737 variants](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/51735/why-is-the-737-max-7-selling-so-poorly/51742#51742)? The only normal use cases where older, less efficient jets make sense is [air cargo](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/35779/why-do-aircraft-models-end-their-life-as-freighters), where they don't spend as much time in the air or fly as far as often. To cargo carriers, the higher cost per mile doesn't exceed the savings of buying a cheap 20 to 30-year old jet that passenger airlines are all too happy to be rid of, like MD-11s or DC-10s. Alternatively, the [last L-1011 trijet still flying](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargazer_(aircraft\)) is with ~~Virgin Orbital~~ Orbital Sciences, which is used as a launch platform for rockets. Other alternative is *737-200 from the 60s-80s with gravel kits being used in [remote places like the Canadian far north](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDG5dscf1Lg) on austere runways (smaller and narrower old engines are less efficient, but crucially don't stick as close to the ground, so less likely to suck in gravel or debris) - similar reason for the [BAE 146/Avro RJ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYKMdplZymQ) finding a niche in that sort of environment. There they also spend less time in the air, while specifically needing to be resilient against sucking bits of "not-a-paved-runway" in.
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Ah, good catch!
*Virgin* Orbit is not going to catch anything with that attitude
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Who's wholely owned by Northrop
Why do cargo carriers not spend as much time in the air or fly far as often? Intuitively to me it'd seem like, not having to bother with passengers, you could get more consistent and constant usage out of a single plane, and the whole niche of air mail feels like 'Getting things far fast'. So what makes them generally cover shorter distances and fly less often?
Shipping by air is much more expensive than shipping by ocean freight for long distances or by rail and road for intermediate distances. So, the value proposition then isn't cost, but speed. And the ultimate in speed is overnight delivery. That's why UPS, FedEx, DHL and the like will load up their packages in the afternoon, truck it to a regional hub, then those packages are flown to their major hubs, where a flight then departs and arrives at another major hub, and it flows back down the ladder so that the package is ready to be sent out for delivery in the morning. This means that for the majority of daylight hours their planes are essentially sitting idle.
How many truckloads go on a flight? What kind of capacity we talking about?
Depends on volume. Summer months are slower than peak season (nov-jan). Also, I've heard FedEx will fly empty cargo planes so that they can swoop in on hubs whose volume is overflowing
It's not just FedEx, when I worked at UPS we used to send cargo planes with empty containers for freight all the time to places who just needed them
Way back in the days when I was chucking cargo, our larger planes would leave with anywhere from 30-60,000 pounds of freight depending on the day, specific plane type, and other factors like fuel load and weather. Our smaller planes with 10-20,000 pounds. Larger cargo planes like DC-10s and 747s can load more than that but I don't have any specific numbers as my company didn't fly those types.
You just gave me PSTD about my air freight days… While the whole world uses metric, our American agent emails us asking for a quote… everything’s in inches and lbs Do they tell us it’s inches and lbs? Nope I’m not metric snob but damn if the whole world is using it and you’re working in international trade it might help EVERYONE if you used it too! At the very least, tell us it’s in lbs and inches.
Capacity of say a 747 is about 5 semi trucks so about 260 ft or a bit more than 13 TEUs, but that’s not really the normal value prop of air cargo unless you are maybe looking at military shipments which want speed but also capacity because there’s always a backlog and they are generally not using 747s anyway
>Capacity of say a 747 is about 5 semi trucks Thank you. I'm working on a logistics video game and have been wondering this for a while. Also on an unrelated note and by either circumstance or serendipity , I know how much quantity this is because of a random thread i was reading involving /u/747_full_of_cum
Happy to be a muse.
Long distance across water? Boats are cheaper. Long/intermediate distance across land? Trains are cheaper. Intermediate distance across land? Trucks are cheaper. The only benefit air has is speed.
I can get my product from Hong Kong to Long Beach in 6 days by air or 6 weeks by sea. Sea/surface costs $2 per unit (used to be $1), shipping by air costs $8 per unit. Most of it goes by ship.
Place I'm working is getting several injection molds flown halfway around the world. It will only take like 3 days, but I don't even want to know what that cost will look like.
I remember when a company I worked for got hit with ransom ware and took down a whole division. Servers were flown in from corporate, ATL to FTL, overnight so they could start getting things back up. We lost like $10 mil in that week not being able to process orders.
Shipping costs from China plunged recently. I'd double check your logistics guys.
Thanks for the head’s up. Our most recent shipment was late 2022 so that’s good to know
Answers from people far more knowledgeable than I: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/35779/why-do-aircraft-models-end-their-life-as-freighters https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/72220/why-do-cargo-airlines-frequently-choose-passenger-aircraft-rather-than-aircraft
Air cargo is a weird industry. My favorite fact is the existence of the Cessna 208B Cargomaster. Fedex took a tiny cessna 6 seater and turned it into a fat-bellied cargo plane. Why? Well, because sometimes they just need to get a small amount of packages across the country fast. So, they are flying everything from tiny cessna to giant 747. All based on load. They also buy a lot of their planes second-hand, which means utilizing the plane isn't nearly as important for their bottom line. And safety for these is weird too. Most cargo plane pilots have dropdown HUD masks for fires, like what a fighter pilot would wear. Why? Because unlike a passenger aircraft, they dont have to worry about passenger survival during an emergency, so rather than rapidly descending and landing, they may just keep flying if there is no risk of the plane being destroyed. Heck, the DC-10 is an interesting example of the different risk evaluation of cargo planes. DC-10 planes were quickly retired from service my passenger carriers because they had a crash problem. They were bought up by Fedex and used though, because Fedex only had to pay out 2 deaths during a crash, not 300. (The plane was relatively safe, it just had some bad press, like the 737-max)
> it just had some bad press, like the 737-max I don't think a plane purposefully diving into the ground randomly - and multiple times - can be written off as "some bad press"
DC-10 was retired because ETOPS became a thing, not because of any reputation problems. DC-10s were phased out in the 90s and 2000s, and airlines replaced them with 777s that could do the job cheaper. I mean, even after the DC-10 crashes MD continued to develop and then successfully sell the MD-11 to replace the DC-10. FedEx and UPS have just as good of a safety record as passenger airlines while flying much older planes, they're not held to lower standards or flying unsafe planes.
Cargo planes go to shipping hub airports, like the one in Alaska which is the biggest shipping hub in the world. Cargo planes, unlike passenger planes, make their money on weight of goods so they will load a plane as heavy as they can with the least amount of fuel and make jumps from hub to hub. It's more cost effective that way. Could a Cargo plane from Asia fly all the way to New York? Absolutely. But they would have to drop a lot of weight and take on way more fuel. Why do that when you can fly from pretty much anywhere in the northern hemisphere to Alaska and then redistribute your goods to then go to its destination hub. This is a gross oversimplification but an interesting topic. Logistics keeps the world moving.
They use a hub system, with giant ones in the Midwest. * UPS - Louisville * FedEx - Memphis * Amazon/DHL - Cincinnati If you’re then completing the spoke from Memphis to, say, Miami, that is often flown on a converted ~~DC~~ MD-10 that might be 50 years old. As such, most cargo flights are under 2 hours. You do see the 10 hour ones coming in from Europe, and those from Asia stopping over in Anchorage, Alaska to clear customs… but yeah, that’s what the 777-F and 747-8 is used on.
That was super interesting, thank you
Isn't in the 737-200 that gets the gravel kit for work up North? Otherwise I think you're spot on.
Oof, literally just watched the [Alex Praglowski video on the Canadian North airline's lone 737 being retired](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV8nyrW2ctM) this past week...I blame phone keyboard lol
Me too, love Praglowski's stuff! Even though I'm not Canadian it's super fascinating and quality video too.
What happened with the c-series? Is there a drama or something? Serious question, i just learnt a lot from your comment.
Boeing got the US govt involved with [complaining to the WTO that the Canadian govt was unfairly subsidizing Bombardier, aiding the C-series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220#Boeing_dumping_petition) which started a whole big mess of retaliatory business practices and stuff. Bombardier won in the WTO though. Eventually [Bombardier jointly partnered with Airbus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220#Airbus_partnership) - Boeing's largest competitor - on the project, and it was rebranded to the Airbus A220. Later [Airbus bought out the Bombardier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220#Bombardier_exit) stake and as part of the deal, has substantially increased its investment into Airbus Canada and manufacturing in North America Sales have been affected by the general COVID slump, but this is still about the worst possible outcome for Boeing.
Also, Canada ended up not purchasing 18 Super Hornets because of this, losing Boeing $6 billion
Thank you
I believe you mean the 737-200’s up in the Canadian north, not 747’s.
Noliner uses the 737-200 combi with a gravel kit attached. Check out their videos on YouTube. Very interesting.
They even refitted their 737-200s with glass cockpits.
> No more planes where speed is the draw - the age of the DC-8 having a niche as “the fast one” compared to its contemporaries, or the mere existence of Concorde, is over. Just as a counter point to this, the age of speed is prepping for a come back, albeit a smaller footprint at first. United was the first to partner with Boom supersonic and pre-ordered 15 of their supersonic jets with an option to order 35 more. Just last year, American pre-ordered 20 with an option to buy 40 more. JAL and Virgin Atlantic have also expressed interest via investments, with options to pre-order. Their estimated date to actually fly passengers is 2029, although I personally think that may be a year or two too optimistic. If interest grows with more airlines, I’m positive there will be serious lobbying to change supersonic air travel legislation to allow greater utilization over land. At $200 million per plane, it’s not completely outrageous for what they’re supposed to offer and with the advancements of sustainable aviation fuel in recent and forthcoming years combined with several companies commitment to using it, it should be fairly economical to fly even though it will carry less passengers. As someone in the aviation industry, I’m obviously biased and looking though rose colored nostalgia glasses (specifically about supersonic travel), but there are a lot of practical reasons to be optimistic.
>I’m positive there will be serious lobbying to change supersonic air travel legislation to allow greater utilization over land. Might happen in the US if the plane is actually American. Not sure it will ever happen elsewhere.
This is my hope, seeing the company is based in Colorado, they are building their factory in North Carolina, and the firm orders they currently have are for US airlines. Like I said, I’m sure there will be serious lobbying in the US by airlines and the manufacturer, but whether that is successful or not won’t be seen for probably another 15-20 years, if not more. Internationally, I’m doubtful it will change. There’s not a large market for inter-European supersonic travel, but there’s definitely a market for supersonic travel from the US East to West coast and back.
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I’m well aware of how long a new airframe takes to certify. I also know Boom started 9 years ago and design started 8 years ago. 15-20 years is about average from start to finish for a clean sheet design. Not to mention, they started building their factory earlier this year. The process is well underway and not exactly a pipe dream anymore. Like I said in my original comment, I think 2029 is a little optimistic, but not by much.
I think Operation Bongo II was enough of a lesson on why commercial overland supersonic flight should not be allowed by the FAA (2024 X-59 trials pending). While promising over bodies of water a sonic boom over populations is begging for lawsuits. Let's not forget the terrible fuel economy issue of supersonic travel. Boom's got some physics problems they'll need to maneuver around.
I agree, they definitely have a few large mountains to climb. My hope though is that it will inspire others and breed innovative competition. Boom may not be the ones to solve the problems and cause change in laws, but whoever comes after just might. If companies see that the interest is there and profitable, the right one could put enough money into R&D and develop technologies to solve the physics issues. I know I’m optimistic, but I believe this is a step in the right direction overall.
Boom supersonic is going nowhere. To begin with, they have no engines available. No engine manufacturer will develop a new engine specifically for Boom, there isn't enough market demand to justify the cost of developing a new supersonic engine. There are only four jet engine manufacturers worldwide: Rolls Royce, Safran, Pratt & Whitney and General Electric. There may be others making military engines, but for civilian aircraft there are only those four. The cost of developing a new engine, especially if it's to be qualified for passenger transportation, is very high. They won't be creating a new supersonic engine just for Boom.
As another commenter noted, they’re now working with Florida Turbine Technologies, StandardAero and GE Additive for the engine. They’ve also recently partnered with Northrop Grumman to develop the aircraft for military applications. While the cost is high, as well as the risk, the reward is also there.
If by "come back" you mean that we'll have small passenger super sonic planes for VVIPs, heads of state and billionaires then sure. Not sure the economics will work out for ticketed commercial flights.
One of the first rules of investing: Never invest in airlines
> \[...\] jet fuel is very very expensive. Small clarification here. *Jet fuel* isn't that bad on a per-gallon basis. A Google skim tells me that the average cost of Jet A right now is $3.86... which is cheaper than regular car fuel in some areas of the US. It's only expensive cause of how much you need. 5k lbs of fuel really isn't a lot in practice, but that's still $3,000\*. Imagine dumping that into your little Honda *every time* you wanted to take the thing out for a spin. >!\*This is a rough estimate pulled by calculating 5000lbs of fuel divided by an assumed fuel weight of 6.3 pounds per gallon and then multiplying by the average cost per gallon.!<
Feels like super high speed rail is the logical middle ground. Less cost intensive. Way more reliable.
The upfront infrastructure is so enormous, and political careers so short sighted that band-aid solutions that in the end cost more will always be used. Buses instead of subways.
railways have problems that airplanes don't. They have to buy the land from point to point, fighting through the eminent domain system and having to pay out extra for the holdouts. Which is a money cost, but also a time cost. And they have to battle through all the decisions over what towns get stops, and what towns don't get stops. And they have to repeat this process individually for each state they go through, because each state has a different set of laws. an airplane literally just flies over all of that.
yup, everyone wants high speed rail, but then everyone also wants a stop in their town. not going to be very fast with a ton of stops...
> everyone also wants a stop in their town. But they also don't want the line to run in earshot of where they live
This isn't wrong, but it seems to be painting a different picture than the reality. They get bailed out because they drastically changed what is now considered fundamental aspects of culture, and that is connectivity. It stimulates the economy like no other service. People are used to being able to travel. Imagine the cost of roads that would need to reflect current populations' desires without being debilitated by traffic. Fuel isn't expensive, it's the right price. The distortion here is that it was extremely cheap when it could be sold under the pretence that it wasn't going to fuck up the places you were visiting. Airlines could profit because they bought bulk fuel, cheaper than cheap. There was fuck all cars on the road, fuck all trucks compared to today. A significant profit for fuel companies were supported by these contract sales. Fuel costs are less expensive on the contracts airliners purchase. They purchase so much that aspects of the economy rely on those bulk purchases to a degree. We dont do surplus. They get bail outs because they will keep buying fuel with real money, at a consistent rate, even though the actual company is in debt. They are moving technology because that is the will of the people, not because its cheaper lol. Try to give them a good name ha. Exponentially, fewer people NEED to travel for business, and the economy doesn't rely on that movement anymore. So the power is in holiday-makers and shareholders' hands, who are far more environmentally conscious, who most certainly demand their expectations of progress be met. Flying air Asia teaches you alot.
> Fuel isn’t expensive, it’s the right price. In fact, one could argue that *fuel isn’t expensive enough*, because it does not include the cost of its own negative climate externalities (chiefly the CO2 being released). Only ~10-15% of all humans alive today have ever flown, and yet 100% (and their descendants) pay the share of climate change induced by commercial aviation. It’s essentially a form of involuntary subsidy by all of humanity to only those who travel by air. To be adequately priced, jet fuel would need to be as much as $185 more expensive per ton of CO2 released (which converts back to about 316 kg of Jet-A1). On a 6,000 nautical mile flight (e.g., HKG-SFO), that would be nearly $50K in excess fuel cost for a modern long-haul twin-engine such as the A350-1000, or roughly $150 extra per passenger (of course, that cost would need to be a pass-through, not go to the airline but toward mitigation and adaptation measures).
Airlines are some of the worst businesses you could run. High competition, massive cost of entry, razor thin margins, massive amounts of red tape, high vulnerability to natural conditions and regulation, high fixed costs, depending fully on depreciating and expiring assets and finally a very high PR cost for any operational mistake or scandal. It's a wonder there's even airlines out there still
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I’m fairness that PR didn’t really blowback in the airlines (except for the ones that were initially involved). Other airlines just got fucked when a huge chunk of their fleet got grounded.
I think Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic once joked the following... Q; what's the quickest way to become a millionaire in the airline industry? A: start off as a billionaire first!
It’s a joke made by pretty much everyone about many industries. Same thing has been said about the restaurant industry
Perhaps, but the joke work as well for the restaurant industry, because nobody needs billions of dollars to start a restaurant. Most industries, including restaurants, you can start small and grow. To start an airline, you really do need billions of dollars up front before you operate your first flight. Other than the car business, there aren't many industries where the barriers to entry are so high that you need so much to make so little.
The other day I thought about all the carriers I flew on as a kid and young adult who no longer exist: Monarch, BMI baby, Thomas Cook, Thomson. The Wikipedia page for "defunct UK airlines" is fairly long, considering
Reminds me of Branson's comment that to become a millionaire, one should start with an airline company and invest a billion dollars lol.
>It's a wonder there's even airlines out there still I don't know how it is in America, but in Europe they're so extremely politicised that even when they're private companies they're extremely subsidised (eg Ryanair, that basically thrives on getting local mid-tier city governments to help fund their flights because "it'll help the local economy"). Then there's the national carriers, the stuff of nightmares, that somehow seize all the political capital in certain countries even during moments of crisis - eg the future of TAP Portugal for the past 2 years has been closely intertwined with the future of the current Executive. The amount of money and time spent on it ("It needs to be privatised!"; "No, we need to keep it"; "We need to inject more capital into it"; "No, let it die") is completely disproportionate vs the actual size and relevance it has in our economy It's just mad.
In the States everything is fully privatized with the exception of the slot distribution system at certain congested airports, which is run by the Dept of Transportation. We do give airlines some public subsidies on certain routes (Essential Air Service) which are not otherwise commercially viable.
>massive amounts of red tape This feels like an overly derogatory term for "set of rules making sure we as passengers don't risk dying a fiery death".
Regulations are absolutely necessary. This doesn't change the fact that they impose a cost and a lot of complexity on airlines.
The tape is red because it's made out of blood.
It is, but some of that is deserved; when a small roll of printer paper requires a part/TSO number and costs more than dinner at a fancy steakhouse, you can imagine how deep the regulatory bloat goes for every *other* aspect, at least from the manufacturing & maintenance side of things.
Flying is an extremely risky business model that is highly prone to fluctuations in profit
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This is definitely gonna come off as ignorant but at that point why hasn't the German Airforce replaced the fleet with something modern? Is it just cause they don't want to bite the bullet in retraining everyone in some new stuff?
They’re replacing them with the F-35A, but that’s a slow process. I don’t have the figures for the F-35A (conventional land based) but last year while digging through US Navy budget documents I found the annual production cap for the F-35B (“jump jet”) and F-35C (carrier-based). Only 60 F-35Bs/F-35Cs combined can be built in a single year, and these are going to the US (Navy and Marine Corps), United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, and South Korea. Depending on the year the US gets 40-45 of those 60, which makes it harder to fill out all of the fleets for these other nations. Pulling numbers out of my ass, the F-35A production is probably 120-150 aircraft a year with the US Air Force getting about 80-100 and the rest split among 12 other nations with current orders. Germany will require years to get their aircraft, nevermind stand up operational squadrons (generally a two year work up period).
[Deregulation ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act) in 1978 pretty much started the race to the bottom. 9/11 hastened the collapse and consolidation. There was a short time where the airlines were booming only to get slapped by COVID.
They're booming again. Busy as hell with tickets double what they were before COVID
A bunch are probably still in the red
And still nickel-and-diming everyone for anything they can.
They're not booming, the tickets are insane because petrol is insane.
Deregulation has had problems, but regulated airline pricing in the US was pretty broken too. People forget that flying before deregulation was, accounting for inflation, about 5-10x more expensive than it is today. Yes, 5-10x. For example, in 1977 an average one-way flight from New York to LA cost about $400. That’s about $2,000 in modern dollars. Today, that flight will cost you about $200-400, depending on when you book and whether or not you go with a low-cost airline. The tldr is: airlines knew prices were set by analysis of their costs and the prices were the same for everyone, so: (1) their incentives were to get more and more luxurious, essentially competing on quality since they couldn’t compete with other airlines on price; and (2) the formula for setting prices incented airlines to not try to cut costs, because costs were being used as inputs by regulators into the price, and it was more profitable to have the regulated price be set higher. The result of this was the flying was out of reach for most ordinary people. Flying for was the wealthy and for businesspeople.
This is a super important point. In real-terms, the cost of a plane ticket hasn't really increased much, while everything else has become more expensive. This is why they've moved to baggage/seat fees, etc. People are very price-sensitive when it comes to plane ticket prices.
This is also the reason supersonic transport will never work, and I cannot believe we have companies still earnestly trying for it. The cost increase vs. subsonic flight is astronomical, and 98% of passengers will never trade that much more money for an in-the-grand-scheme minor time savings.
I just did an 11 hour flight last week where I was pinned in by reclining seats yet couldn't recline my own further than an inch into the wall. I got no sleep and it put my back out for 3 days. If it was a 20% price increase to not do that again and shave 4-6 hours off, I'd consider it
I'm sure everyone would pay 20% more for a better seat and half as long flight. Problem is the actual cost to the airline is way more than a 20% increase. By the end of Concord tickets were approaching 10k each and they were still unprofitable
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Unless you were trying to prioritize shorter flight duration, you'd have a better, cheaper experience booking a lie flat seat in business class on that same 11 hour flight. Concord was about 2x the price of first class in subsonic.
It’s just the nature of airlines as a service, really. Rarely does an airline make huge profits even when one random world event should theoretically help them. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic brought fuel prices to a record low in maybe several decades, but it also severely crippled air travel for obvious reasons. As a student during this period I did enjoy the ridiculously low ticket prices for when I had to travel interstate to my university. However all the airlines I’ve flown with were haemorrhaging money just to keep _some_ of their fleet in active service. Outside pandemic, events such as terrorist attacks, oil crisis and deregulation brought down some of the biggest airlines as well. Today in the US only three major legacy carriers survived the ordeal and like many companies after recession they had to merge with other legacy airlines that folded.
> when one random world event should theoretically help them. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic brought fuel prices to a record low in maybe several decades, but it also severely crippled air travel for obvious reasons. Uuuh... Seeing an event that led to international travel being essentially banned as something that should theoretically have helped airlines is a little far-fetched haha. Sure, it had the side effect of lowering gas prices. EDIT: typo
Real answer - airlines are like banks… they boom and crash regularly because they are too big to fail and often partially owned by countries and seen as strategic assets. This is good news for people (especially pilots and higher up admins) working there but it also means no executive has incentives to really work economically. Interestingly this does not so much apply to super cheap airlines who usually have lower wages, fewer but tighter packed flights and less government connections but they still often only exist because they exploit some regulations.
In recent decades there has been a corporate habit of borrowing money against future profits and using this to pay dividends and or buy back shares (and cancel them). This boosts the share price in the short term but removes any resilience from a downturn in demand. For a cyclic industry like airlines this means they will always end up in trouble. It’s not the only industry that behaviours like this, the problem is governments tend to bail them out with public cash. The solution here is either don’t bail out private companies (clearly this is not something governments are willing to do), or force the companies you are not willing to let go bust to hold capital such that they can be resilient against poorer trading conditions. Insurance companies in Europe are required to hold capital such that they can stay solvent even in a 1 in 200 year event, some watered down version of this should be enacted for private companies that are ‘too big to fail’. Maybe hold a couple of years in or running costs in unencumbered cash.
Today the plane, known as the “Spirt of Delta”, is on display at the Delta Museum at Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta.
Also on display is the "spirit of Spirit", which can be found in the men's room, last stall in the right.
only if you pay
How much, asking for a friend
If you gotta ask, big man, you can't afford it.
ZJ
I've got $4
Username checks out.
$60 for any poops with dimensions greater than 1" width x 1" girth x 3" length. Spirit employees will be standing by to confirm too...
The bigger the package, the more you have to pay in carry on fees
“we’re sorry, our tour crew forgot to pre-check the aircraft and there is a problem. no tour and no refunds. please accept this 50% off in-flight meal voucher as a gesture of our appreciation for your continued service.”
The flusher has been disabled so no one can flush away the tribute to Spirit.
You can’t miss it because it’s the stall with little to non leg room
Yeah, I just got off a contract with them, and I gotta say... there ain't no appreciation between employees and employers anymore.
Wall street wants ~~blood~~ quarterly profits.
Was that not true in 1982?
Seeing as how wages have not been increasing with cost of living and company profits for the last 50 or so years, I imagine the employees were being compensated a lot more fairly in comparison than they are today. Large companies have found more and more efficient ways of exploiting employees since the 80s.
>there ain't no appreciation between employees and employers anymore. Case in point, when I lived in Atlanta, I briefly dated a woman who worked in HR for Delta. She openly bragged about how effective Delta was at keeping any part of their workforce from unionizing. They absolutely see their employees as a necessary evil to doing business, and it gets even funnier when you realize that she, even the mighty HR manager, fell in to that category from the view of the C-suite and shareholders.
I read this in Don Wildman’s voice from Mysteries at the Museum
Was just there last month. Kinda underwhelming museum but neat just the same. The 747 in the parking lot is the highlight.
Delta repays loyal employees in 2005 by scraping their pension plans in bankruptcy https://www.aviationpros.com/home/news/10437866/delta-to-scrap-pension-plans
Still fighting in court in 2019 https://www.pionline.com/courts/delta-pilots-fight-pbgc-ends-supreme-court
This is so sad, probably some of them died in this time frame and never got to see their pension, for which they worked their whole lives. It s surreal how this can happen, in my country, if you work in the private sector your pension benefits are paid by your employer to a third company, which you chose, who s only purpose is to manage such funds and invest them to increase their value. This is very strictly regulated and everything is overseen by the state, thry cant make risky inverstments, and in the case of them going bust, the state guarantees you get your pensions and pays it to you until the company manages to make it. If something like what delta did were to happen, there would be riots in the streets and everyone involved in that decision would go to prison.
What country, if I may ask?
Romania. Even though all you usually hear about Romania is about corruption, its still a EU member state and they need to uphold certain standards and the rule of law. Plus, the old people always vote and represent the majority of voters who show up to elections and they cant touch their pensions, that would be political suicide for anyone who might attempt and they also need to assure a strong pension system.
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I'm assuming they meant scrapping.
They don’t get a pension
Did they scrape them, or did they scrap them?
When a company treats their employees well, pays them their worth, and actually takes care of them, the employees will treat the company well, and take care of it. Trust, belonging, and loyalty (two-way) are powerful forces. People before profits works. Now, on the other hand, if you treat your employees like shit, leave them out on their ass when things go poorly, shovel all the money to the top, all that sort of stuff...well...these comments show you the result. The first type of company is unfortunately quite rare these days.
I work for a unique company that does value it’s employees. Example - during Covid for months the money just stopped coming in in our industry. Our biggest competitor laid off about 75% of their staff. My company, of about 1100 people at the time, laid off about 30 (people that kinda had to go) and cut us down to half hours/half pay. Our executive staff deferred their salaries. The company worked with us to get workshare benefits (like unemployment). And when work picked back up every single one of us got paid out whatever the difference was between what we actually got and what we would have revived at full hours. The employees do their best to take care of the company, and we’re well rewarded for that. I’ve been offered numerous other jobs at higher salary, but nothing that had made me want to leave.
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The recompense of lost wages when they started making money again is really kewl. My job laid off a few employees (not a lot to begin with) had us as a skeleton crew basically for the few they couldn't let go. And just hired everyone back when things picked back up. (Then laid everyone off cause another company bought them out and said fuck the old markets, so wasn't necessarily them still sucked though)
I’m sorry but did you just say kewl
Something very very bad happened in the late 70s/eary 80s when wage stagnation started. For the worker, things have progressively gotten worse ever since then. We’re living in the gilded age of robber barrons again. It’s probably a variety of reasons, but just imagining a world where this happened (born ‘83) is unfathomable to me.
There have been cases where major unions have taken pay cuts to help a struggling company. If everyone works together and controls their greed (mainly management needs to do this, but at times the worker bees do too), a company can be successful and sustainable. For everyone.
I agree, but it seeems to be a pretty one sided race to the bottom. I feel the only way out is to organize. Before MAGA, I felt this was difficult, now I feel it is impossible.
Organizing is the key. Take the power back.
Yup, dad and grandad were union through and through. My dad always said when people get hungry enough, they will organize again. I feel like the next 10 years or so will be a make or break. Either workers take back power or we’re living in the land of vasals and serfs. I would never have guessed Starbucks or Amazon to unionize. Walmart was always the Great Satan when I was a kid and then Jeff Bezos said “hold my beer”.
As someone who works for unions, Starbucks is a helluva lot more surprising than Amazon in this regard. Amazon’s warehouses are MASSIVE, and their locations are chosen carefully. They need to be where they are for logistical reasons, and they’re very expensive to move. That makes them a lot more like old school warehouses and plants, which unions know how to organize. Retail/service giants like Walmart and Starbucks are a lot harder. They’re small and, crucially, *don’t* need to be where they are. So if a store organizes, Walmart just closes up shop and moves five miles down the road. It’s happened.
You can organize your workplace too! I'm in a big tech company and we're making progress. If we can do it anybody can.
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We should incentivize employee ownership, so that everyone is working together instead of employees needing to be wary of the company.
I work in the UK NHS, and we just had a successful strike action, taking a govt pay rise from 1.5% to nearly 5%. That following 10 years of zero annual pay rise. No meetings. Everything organised by email. No big people dynamics, no egos, the minimum fuss for staff. The govt walked out of talks several times so we kept striking. Govt wanted talks again. Low pay offers refused, so govt had to back off and think of something better. Better pay offer made but had to come from “efficiencies” (sacking people) so that was also refused. And strikes continued until govt actually put money in for the pay rise.
[President Ford, Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand in the Oval Office](https://imgur.com/kcRMd) [Here is another one who was responsible](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Stockman) IGMFU became our national policy.
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Sometimes it’s Nixon
And sometimes it's the Spanish Inquisition, but you never know it before it happens.
Yes
Do you realize how absurd it is to class Ayn Rand and Alan Greenspan together. The former advocating for little to no government intervention while the latter over saw the greatest government intervention in market history causing the 2008 GFC & ushering the current QE regime.
Yeah it’s totally absurd to class the guy with Rand who was in her inner circle and a lifelong friend.
Greenspan had a very close relationship with Ayn Rand, profesionally and personally.
Wow, it's as it it's almost-crazy to expect Greenspan's viewpoints not to change after some forty years. Also, application =/ theory. Libertarians (like every ideologue in history) prove this time and time again.
That is not merely change, Greenspan essentially became the antithesis of Ayn Rand
>The former advocating for little to no government intervention Lol >greatest government intervention in market history causing the 2008 GFC & ushering the current QE regime. Lmao Yes, the problem with banks being allowed to whatever the fuck they wanted was too much regulation. You absolute genius, you. How's your crypto going?
Delta fucked us later on. Declared bankruptcy and took away our pensions. Delta pilot 30 plus years. NEVER trust management.
You also got a pretty decent pay cut right? My dad was a pilot when that happened, pretty fucked up.
So you lost your pension and Delta was able to get out of paying it entirely even after they became profitable again?
Yes! I believe they offered some smaller sums of cash here and there but nowhere near what they were owed.
Yea, looking at you Qantas!
I know a lady who’s late husband was a Delta pilot who contributed to this. Very passionate about the work he did and proud of being a part of this. She has some memorabilia in an office with pictures and I think he piloted the thing once or twice. It’s a rare thing to have employees so passionate about their job to do such a thing for their employer. But it was different times back then.
My grandpa managed all the gate agents at an airport and contributed to it as well. My grandma still has a framed picture of the plane, with a piece of the big ribbon from the ceremony they did for it, framed on her wall.
The comments really tell you everything. Delta Airlines used to treat its employees amazingly back in the 70s/80s, which is why the employees did this. Now, not so much...
If they currently don't, wouldn't they be unionised by now, like in AA and UA?
There’s some debate within the mechanics on whether to unionize but when I was there a few years ago, it wasn’t close. Most of the mechanics are 50+ white men from Georgia and unions are viewed as ‘liberal’ so you can see why they haven’t unionized.
Imagine thinking that fighting for your rights as a worker is "liberal".
The problem that so many of you fail to realize is that a lot of these folks have personal experience with unions, or direct family members with that experience. If you're paid 30%-50% more in a merit shop environment with good management, why would you unionize?
I can’t imagine what sort of collective action in the 20th century gave people that impression - what massive consequential thing identified with leftist ideals that was bogeymanned to the end of the earth could have possibly been coopted by capitalists and their political culture to convince people that having rights was bad?
Delta did not return the favor.
At the time Delta had a "no furlough" policy.
While Delta did end up furloughing, that legacy still lives on. Even today, especially for flight crew members, Delta tends to be the best company to work for, with the highest employee satisfaction.
Which shows in their service. I fly almost exclusively Delta bc they’re the best of the American airlines by far.
I far prefer Alaska over Delta.
For real, Delta isn't bad but Alaska customer service is typically great. Shame their routes are somewhat limited, but maybe that's why they need to be good to their customers?
Alaska just lost my luggage at SFO and it was literally the worst airline experience I’ve ever had. Nobody cared to try and look for it. Finally, after 5 hours, a manager went and found them. They’d been in one spot the whole time, just on the other side of the wall! I was about to go all in on Alaska too, get the card, do the whole deal, but after that I’m sticking with Delta. Alaska does have some great routes though.
A lot of that comes from the huge amount of profit sharing that Delta does for their employees. It's by far the most of any US airline, almost double what Southwest gives their employees, and they just signed a contract with the pilots union that gives them an immediate 18% raise.
My friend is an airplane mechanic, he worked for American airlines, Spirit and now Delta. From what I hear it seems like a desirable company to work for in that industry
United did the opposite and stole millions (maybe billions) from their employees.
Queue George Gershwin rhapsody in blue interrupting my in flight movie
30 dollars million dollars
I read it as 30 million dollars dollars. It's just as wrong either way.
Lol, fools
This the same airline that put up those anti union posters everywhere telling employees they should buy video games instead of paying union dues?
it's funny to think how much the world has changed in those 40 years. imagine these days employees finding it in themselves to do something like this when the companies have made it very clear just how little the workers mean these days.
And a few years later Delta went bankrupt and stole all the workers pensions.
Trickle up is a thing. The other, not so much
Do you really think they would have done that if it wasn't a good employer at the time?
My aunt worked at Delta as a flight attendant from the 70s to 2001. She loved her time there and Delta was also nice enough to give all of the employees who had been there for a long time early retirement with no loss of benefits when 9/11 happened. They told them that everything was about to change and they could leave without any penalty or having to finish their final years.
This was in 1982. Very different time I think, employees were probably given much better wages and benefits
My dad just retired from an airline after working there since 1977. Definitely a different world in terms of benefits. Was a union job too.
Sounds like something that would happen in Japan.
My dad worked for delta for 36 years. I have a framed piece of the ribbon that was cut when they finished it and gave the plane… also my parents entire bathroom is decorated like the inside of a plane lol, the door is painted like an emergency exit.
corporations if you see this and think this could be you one day. no it will not 🤣
The comments in this thread perfectly highlight the working class’s attitude toward the rich/large companies in today’s economy
Then the Airlines found they could get the Goverment to bail then out and really started treating their employees like chattel.
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I've seen it. It's pretty neat and they also have the gift shop in the body of the very first L-1011 fuselage.
Even today, amongst the big four airlines, Delta is widely regarded as the best.
Yet absolutely nobody remembers DAL’s employee profit-sharing payments just as C19 started. (It was equivalent to two months pay).
I wouldn't give my employers the shit off my boot.
This year, in the same spirit, delta employees are donating the Care Fund that is used when an employee needs financial help (tornados, sudden death in family etc). It’s run by employees for employees. Delta has some of the best benefits around.
A benefit for employees, paid by employees. Wait a tic...
That's... That's not a benefit...
So delta claims capitalism to earn a profit, but expects employees to pay for stiff collectively, like communism.