© Paul Yeung/Bloomberg
Plenty of seats available.
As coronavirus infections rise around the globe, demand for air travel is projected to hits its lowest point since the last financial crisis.
Airlines around the world could lose up to $113 billion in revenue this year if COVID-19 continues to spread, the International Air Transport Association forecast on Thursday.
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.
Comment: That this could make it to air, with no one in the long line of 'fact-checkers' realizing the math was wrong, something an 8-year-old child could have done, just goes to show the level of journalism we're exposed to. The people who are feeding news and opinions to the largely undiscerning public are unable to think. If MSNBC and the New York Times aren't able to do basic math, think about all the other topics they're reporting on and how very wrong it more than likely is.
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