© Paul Yeung/Bloomberg
Plenty of seats available.
Plenty of seats available.
With travelers scarce, some carriers are turning to a troubling practice, the Times of London reports: flying planes with no passengers, in order to hang on to take-off and landing slots. On Thursday, the U.K.'s Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps, posted a letter he sent to air travel regulators after learning of airlines operating "ghost flights" during the global outbreak. "Bad news for the environment, airlines & passengers," he tweeted.
The custom stems from the way airports manage their limited runway capacity. More than 200 of the world's busiest airports allocate specific time slots to airlines, which often pay top dollar for them. To manage demand, airlines are required to use their slots at least 80 percent of the time, or risk losing them to a competitor.
In order to maintain that 80/20 ratio, flying empty jets around is not an entirely uncommon industry practice, nor is it illegal. But given the growing scrutiny of air travel's climate toll, it is frowned upon, especially by U.K. regulators. Several British carriers that have since gone extinct, including British Mediterranean Airways, BMI, and Flybe (which declared bankruptcy this week amid plummeting demand for air travel), have all been reported to fly empty or mostly empty planes from London Heathrow in the past.
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