The Reasons Airlines Might Fly Empty Planes
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- Опубликовано: 5 май 2024
- A commercial passenger airline's number one commodity is the seats on their planes. While some seats might need to remain unfilled for performance reasons on certain flights, airlines want to fill every seat on every departure with a fare-paying passenger. This desire has even led to the practice of overbooking, with carriers betting on enough no-shows and missed connections to balance things out.
But, as counterintuitive as it may be, major airlines will fly sectors without any passengers - and it might even happen daily! There are many reasons for this - and if you’re into aviation- you’ll probably know some of these reasons. But some are lesser known than others.
Article: simpleflying.com/why-do-airli...
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Emptiest flight ive been on was in 2020, flew from LAX to Heathrow on an American 777-223 and shared the plane with only 17 other passengers. Was quite the experience to say boarding was complete and the nearest seat neighbour was like 10 rows away in any direction!
Bliss!
When in 2020 (before or after the shutdown?)
@@jjnawrot3950 before, it was February 2020
Emptiest I’ve ever been in is that last midnight Turkish airlines flight of the day in 2016 with less than 10 people on a A330 Manchester to Istanbul. They had 3 flights a day with last one always been quiet due to lack of overnight connections, no wonder they now only fly A321neos across Europe whilst keeping 3x daily flights. Bonus was business class food served by a literal chef who had the full uniform with a hat on. Great experience.
Flying during pandemic if and when it was possible, resulted me taking some bizzarely empty flights. Two flights I had with A220 in 145 seat configuration had only 9 total passengers on board plus 5 cabin crew. It felt almost like taking a big private jet
Delta 777 in the Thumbnail. RIP 😢
2 engineers, 1 cabin crew, 3 pilots and a dispatcher on an A330-300, epic day
I flew American back to the States from Heathrow a few years ago. Very few people on board and excellent service from the crew.
Some flights may also fly with an empty cabin, but full of cargo in the belly.
I have been on a after maintenance test flight on Concord from Heathrow and Prestwick and back
A really well-written episode!
The emptiest flight i have ever been on was an American eagle ATR-72 from Miami to Jacksonville. I was the only pax.
Repatriation flights are usually made empty, or near that, one way. My father did a lot of those in the 70's in 747's, they were ghost towns one way and packed full to the limit the other way.
During the COVID peak, repatriation were also common.
Aegean Air Athens to Mykonos evening flight, at the height of the Greek financial crisis. We were the only passengers on their A320.
I've been on an SQ flight (2011) between KUL and SIN on an A332 with ~25 pax...
You can sometimes see an empty British Airways widebody flight from Gatwick to Heathrow for a repositioning.
The emptiest flight I ever flew on was during covid. There was less than 50 people on a 777 going from DBX to AKL.
i once booked and bought an unscheduled flight, the flight was showing on the airline website for departure one day before its official launch (later i learned it was a bug and they fix it few minutes after i bought my ticket), the flight was a connection flight from country B to a country C, when i arrived their hub (coming from country A to country B), they were astonished how i was holding a boarding pass for a non existing flight, they then book me on another flight to a nearby country D, then the next day they took me on board of their repurpose flight from country D to country C, i was the only passenger on that flight
I flew once Swiss B777 from PRG to ZRH.
The plane was almost empty. Usually the fly A220
or Similar size plane on this rout.
But at the time the B777 was new on the Swiss
fleet so the used it on this short haul flights so
so the crew could practice take off and landings.
Also, a sort of positioning flight, in a way, when a plane is sent to storage or retirement, those fly empty.
I once flew on Emirates from Islamabad to Nairobi with a layover in Dubai. The Dubai to Nairobi Flight had 50-80 passengers as it was on a week day
Like here at TUI on our Dreamliner fleet as we are a holiday airline we would fly the aircraft empty back after dropping the first load of holiday makers off and also vice versa to it being the end of the season we would go to the destination empty and come back full.
Soon to happen with Phuket, Puerto Vallarta and Liberia.
Since you missed touching on promotional/demonstration flights, why don't you dedicate a video to the topic! I wonder who pilots the flights, how their filmed, when there done, etc.
Hong Kong to Bangkok on an A320. Only around 30 people onboard. Great flight.
Another thing during covid was flights that were empty or near empty for passengers but were carrying freight. A surprising amount of freight travels in the holds of passenger planes. This meant flights had to operate just to get freight around. There were even planes that were carrying essential freight like PPE, test kits and vaccines in the cabins.
17 people on a B737 was pretty empty! That’s my least full flight I think
Pan am from Hawaii to Guam, I had a good 15 rows to myself, I slept most of the way sacked out across a whole row of seats, and could sit in the window seat anywhere I wanted.
Emptiest flight I’ve been on is Munich to Birmingham during Covid. Five passengers on board in total.
I WAS ON A BOEING 727 FROM MILWAUKEE TO NEW YORK WITH 7 PASSENGERS ON BOARD ,THIS 727 SEATED 178 PASSENGERS SEE WHEN FULL A RATTELY NOISEY RIDE A TAKE OFF AND LANDING SEATS VIBRATED AND SHOOK NOTHING TO WAIT THE SEATS DOWN !!
I took a United 777-200 from EWR to LAX with 42 passengers. It was so great, almost everyone had their own row to lay out. It also got insanely cold, probably because a lot of the heat comes from just having a cabin full of people.
The emptiest flight I can recall was a Pan Am 747 from Rio de Janeiro to New York. I don't know how many passengers were on the flight, but there were a lot of empty seats. I remember being able to stretch out across three or four seats during the overnight flight. It was in the mid 1970s.
I will always remember a flight while my ship was in Philadelphia Naval Shipyard (PNSY). I was going to surprise someone, and the only ride I could catch (from a friend) got me to the Philly Airport before 6am.
Having a several hour wait for my scheduled flight to Atlanta wasn't going to the "most enjoyable experience", so I asked the Delta Agent if there was any chance of getting an earlier flight, and he asked: "How fast can you run?" I asked if I had to run with my Seabag he said he would make sure it got on the plane....
I made the flight, by about 90 seconds.
It was a L-1011 (yes that long ago) with a Cabin Crew of 10 and 6 passengers! My only guess is that the plane last flight of the day got into Philly and its first "real" flight was out of Atlanta so they would sell whatever tickets they could just to cover some of the fuel and crew costs....
We were treated better than a normal first class passengers. Especially myself and two other sailors.....
Another reason for repositioning flights is if a plane has to divert to another airport. Often that plane needs to be flown back to the original destination airport for it's next flight.
As a normal line pilot i do on average around 2 to 3 ferry flights a year, flights without fare paying passengers. Some of those will have cabin crew on board, but officially those are passengers (we can carry up to 19 passengers, which does include company personnel, on ferry flights).
During the pandemic my company decided not to put the aircraft into long term storage, but rather to keep them parked, ready for an immediate ramp up if needed. However, if parked the aircraft have to be flown once every 28 days. As a result i had to do quite a few traffic patterns under IFR rules to keep those planes airworthy. Both fun and stress, as it actually takes quite a bit of time to wake up a plane from cold, get it ready to fly, and then put it back to sleep afterwards. 15 minutes of flight and over an hour of work for it. Usually had to do it for 2 or 3 planes during a day, and quite often we had to do write ups as well as planes do not like to be on the ground for a long time.
I once took a Flybe flight from Leeds/Bradford to London Heathrow and there were only two passengers. The crew outnumbered us!
I once flew to Austin to visit my neice who was going to grad school at UT. Departing, I flew Southwest Airlines from Austin to GSP (Greenville, SC) via Nashville. Literally every passenger got off the plane in Nashville, leaving me and my sister the remaining passengers. Yep, we were the only non-music industry passengers. Sadly, I can neither sing nor play the guitar.
No I have never been on any empty flights. And because it reduces other fellow passengers on the flights
7:23 shows why I can't completely hate Boeing.
Ok now I no why Delta send there 757s here and park them in the back of the airport
On a b 747 400 with northwest back in sars virus from Detroit to Japan about 30 passengers on board pretty strange thanks for the video 😁
Watching bc I just flew my airlines empty airplane yesterday
I flew from DTW-MCO early in the morning on an A330 which only at most had 50 people which was the most empty flight I’ve been on was a weird feeling
Around a dozen or less passengers A320 Cebu Pacific's last flight for the day Bacolod to Manila a week before COVID lockdown
Two times, once empty and one very lightly loaded.
First was a repositioning flight between Kansas City and Indianapolis on, I think, Southwest, I flew from Seattle to KC late at night. That flight got in about 20 minutes late and my flight to Indy had a tight connection. Ran to my gate that was fairly far away. I was told by one of the flight attendants that had I not took off so quickly to get to the Indy gate I would have to told not to worry about making the flight. I was the only one on the flight so they would wait for me.
Second was on a 747 from London to NYC. I want to say it was a Northwest flight. There was some sort of big International event going on in London so there were more 747s than usually. Very cheap flight with less than 75 people on board.
Somewhat related. Amtrak would run a late night train from Chicago to its Beech Grove Shop outside of Indy a couple of times a week. If they had cars on it that could take passengers, Amtrak would schedule it as a Special. I took it about five times during college. Interesting looking trains since the cars attached could be damn near anything that needed repair. One notable trip included three maintenance-of-way cars, four luggage cars, two private Pullmans and gaggle of Amtrak passenger cars.of various sizes.
Even through my couple flights during the pandemic I’ve never been on a flight with more than a handful of seats unoccupied. While I fly very little honestly I can count on one hand the number of open seats I’ve sat next to! lol
Some will be reposition flights ✈️
the emptiest flight i been was always full
All flight's I've ever been on have been full or somewhat full, however I do remember watching an Emirates flight taking off back in 2013, I knew it wasn't an entirely empty flight, but it was a light one it did not have any freight, just baggage, it was a bit windy that day and my jaw dropped as it did the shortest takeoff I've ever seen a B777-300ER do, the takeoff was about the same as a small Twin Otter aircraft with passengers, it shot up that day and I regretted leaving my phone in my bag that day, would have been an awesome jaw dropping shot. It was totally unexpected and caught me by surprise. I don't know if this EK pilot on that particular day watches simple flying and whether he/she will ever see this. But KUDOS to him/her and well done. Awesome👍
ROYL brunie 18 passenger German to bkk best flight I have had
I was flying on a Northwest Orient flight in 1979 or 1980 from Tampa, Florida to Chicago on a 747. I don't think that the plane was more than 10% filled!!! I'm not sure why a 747 was used, but I flew on the same flight a number of times, and it was usually a 727!!!!
Overbooking ought to be outlawed.
I agree 1000%, but in the past the airlines have argued that they would have to raise airfares if that practice was no longer allowed. That rings hollow with the post-Covid travel boom, though.
Mexicana airline is flying empty airplanes all the time!
During Covid I flew dozens of flights without passengers in 77W’s.
I hope this empty flight nonsense will be stopped. It can't be too difficult to find a better solution for reserving slots and flights.
You must be into aviation to understand why we do this. Watch plenty more videos to understand.
@@269KID1 It seems you didn't even get my point. Empty flights to reserve a slot at an airport are completely unnecessary. This can be done in different ways, without having to waste fuel and personnel.
The airline could pay the airport for the slot. Be it a compensation payment or something else. The slot could be given to a pool several airlines would share. There are many options.
No need to increase pilot shortage for this nonsense either. The COVID crisis has shown it too that it can be done without.
Obviously you don't understand much about aviation to even understand what I referred to.
@@jantjarks7946 Sadly politics, economics and stupidity all together prevent better solutions.
idk what to say
second
Why don’t you just say nice video Simple Flying or some such thing
@@Rasscasse ok
firstt
At 2210 on 22 April in the eastern daylight time or GMT -4 zone this episode says it was posted 14 hours ago. Why in the hell are all the people in these videos wearing those stupid useless Covid diapers on their face?