The debate: Planes 'fly empty' to keep airport slots

Is Bmi right to fly near-empty flights in order to keep its valuable take-off and landing slots at Heathrow, as The Times reports today?

Environmentalists think not. Responding to the news that Britain's third-largest airline will fly "ghost flights" to keep the multi-million pound slots amid an expected passenger slump this autumn, Richard Dyer, an aviation campaigner at Friends of the Earth, lashed out at what he described as "environmental vandalism".

"Flying near-empty planes across Britain simply to preserve airport take-off slots would be environmental vandalism," he said. "The Government must intervene to prevent this kind of gratuitous climate-wrecking from taking place - and stand firm on its plans to switch to an aviation tax based on planes, not passengers."

The practice will of course be highly uneconomical, particularly in this time of rocketing fuel prices. The cost of running a flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh, for example, is approximately £60,000 - a figure that could swell considerably if fuel costs continue to soar, as is projected.

But you can understand the airlines' quandary. Under the "use-it-or-lose it" rules that govern the allocation of slots at Heathrow, airlines must use their slots 80 per cent of the time or forfeit them - at £25 to 30 million apiece, according to financial services firm Deloitte. As the credit crunch bites and passenger demand drops, using these slots efficiently may often be impossible.

Facing such maths, what is an airline to do? As David Robertson, Times travel commentator, says today: "It is better for a carrier such as Bmi to lose £20,000 per flight than to give up a £30 million slot."

Some aviation analysts believe that the system of slot allocation should be reformed so that the slots belong to the State and are rented to the highest bidder - which would theoretically encourage fuller, more profitable flights.

Theresa May, the Shadow Transport Secretary, touched on this idea, telling The Times: "It is imperative that the system for running slots does nothing to push the airlines into flying empty planes. Besides damaging the environment, it makes absolutely no economic sense."

However the system is reformed, it does appear that this is the nub of the problem.

Readers, your thoughts please...

Comments

[PM]

It's good to see so many comments from people who really, really know how airlines work.
It's a simple point, but how do you get the plane back with passengers, if it didn't go there in the first place? If there are no passengers going, then it will be empty no matter how many are coming back.
Why on earth would bmi or any other airline happily burn all that fuel just because they can? If you have scheduled flights, you're going to get empty flights sooner or later. The airlines don't want this any more than anyone else. Have you never seen an empty bus or train? They are hamstrung by the slot situation at Heathrow but it would happen anyway to a lesser extent.
And as for the "flying is a low-morality choice" comment, well, really. Stabbing people is low-morality, child-trafficking, cocaine production, counterfeit medicines etc, etc are low-morality. Get some perspective, please.
Flying is public transport and for many it is the only available or best available option.

[O Rimes]

There are obviously too many flights and not enough demand.. at least at certain times. Flights should be scheduled for every other day by certain airlines as long as there is another flight to the same place from a nearby airport by a different airline. On a different note BMI are the most un-transparent airline I've ever booked with.. I mean since when has booking a seat been an extra??!!

[Matthew]

The question is: are the planes empty or near empty? If even only one person has booked on the flight then the airline has a legal obligation to fly, or at the least get the person there by the time they said they would in the comfort payed for.

[Richard Simmonds]

Would you like to be waiting at the other end for your flight? Then told it was cancelled because there was nobody to fly in on it?

[Angela K]

By and large, flying is a low-morality choice. To fly aircraft with no passengers on board, with all the detriment to the environment, the biosphere and people living below the flight paths, is criminal.

[maggie]

its ridiculous.
brown must step in and strip the companies of their slots.

it wont happen because he lacks the leaderships skills.

the planet is stuffed!

[Bob]

If not for the government regulations the problem would take care of itself. The airlines would be able to fill the plane by lowering prices (making air travel more democratic), by subletting its slots, by having creative promotions (one 'cigar-smoking' promotion and I would bet the flight would be full at full price!! It would be a smoking cruise in the air!!). It is the government, not the airlines that are to blame.

Bobby

[Glynis]

The chances of airlines adopting eco-friendly operating procedures are as likely as 'Porkine Airlines' obtaining a slot at Heathrow.

The government should impose a tax on every un-occupied seat, which should apply to all planes landing on British soil. They should also prevent carriers from passing this tax on to customers. We would quickly see full flights and, possibly, lower fares. Whilst this would not discourage passengers from flying, at least carriers would start to develop more socially responsible policies.

[Pete]

You cant blame BMI. "Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it does"

What I dont understand is why BMI arent following Ryan-air's previous strategy of selling off seats for almost nothing - at least to build the brand loyalty and cash in on the "extras"

Perhaps to put pressure on the system to change. Which is no bad choice by them.

A sub-let system, or perhaps a system whereby a plane has to carry a minimum load factor for the slot to count as "used" could be one way forward.

Bring on the day when a low emission air fuel is standard! I like to fly!

[rwmiller]

Amazing people are calling BMI irresponsible and that it is all about the money as if what they are doing is something that they want to do. No company let alone an airline in todays market wants to waste money on a needless flight. But the current system of slot allocation forces them to do it. Also, people seem to forget that travel is not always equal in both directions and sometimes it makes sense to send out a nearly empty plane if there are passengers to be picked up at the other end.

Stop blaming the airlines for doing what they need to do to stay in business when the problem is entirely the fault of the system that has been setup that they are forced to use.

[Jo]

Totally irresponsible on the part of BMI, of course its all about money as always though. When environmental concerns are high on the agenda, such blatant disregard for them is astounding.

[George Edwards]

>.Government regulation, ...... inevitably triggers the law of unintended consequences.<< The consequences are seldom unintended. The government have TEAMS of advisers looking into regulations and laws, and advising them of what might happen. They KNEW the "unintended" consequences of say, landfill tax, deregulation of parking, and even 10p tax abolition, they accepted them. They knew the slots mechanisms would produce these situations; but didn't care. We really need to stop thinking of our politicians as basically good guys who make some unexpected mistakes; they will have calculated the risks (and profits to be made) on ghost flights to a tenner, and "intended" to take the money.

[Albert]

Government regulation, carried out for both publicly stated and for hidden reasons, inevitably triggers the law of unintended consequences. These demand more intervention, etc.

The resulting apparent nonsenses attract all sorts of un- and ill-informed comment, with the usual eco-taliban and doomsday mongers prominent.

I would guess that in this case some judicious removal of possibly just one or two legacy regulations, whose original aims (overt and hidden) may be long forgotten, would remove the need for such apparently wasteful behaviour as empty flights. Of course, the ecos, doomsdayers and associated opportunists want more government regulation, not less.

Just remember the law of unintended consequences. "You can never do only one thing." A. Einstein.

[bill g]

If the flight is empty then it is in the best interests of Heathrow, or the British Tourism Office that the slot be redirected to bring people in from another airport where there is a demand. That slot could be sold today for a nice profit. It is like passive smoking, this empty pollluting flight should not be tolerated.

[Adrian]

If Heathrow had a third runway it wouldn't be neccersary to fly empty flights as there would be plenty of slots. Also it would improve the environment by gettin planes into land quicker so there isn't the need to stack over London and have planes queing to take off for up to an hour with engines running burning fuel.

[Simon]

Not sure which of these comments wins the prize for the maddest, but I think that "God gave us dominion over the earth to do as we liked with it" is in with a shout. You have no right to drill a hole under your seat in a boat when I am in the boat with you.

[Mark]

Q. Define 'Irony'.

A. Read the above article.

[Peter Mc]

These planes create noise pollution, spent fuel pollution and create enourmous choking traffic jams around Heathrow already. How is Government justified in expanding Heathrow, concentrating this pollution onto an area of London, when the demand isn't there and fossil fuel is on the out? Short gains - Brown's taxes of course. Also the area of Heathrow has law abiding, peaceful British Asian demographic.

[jonathan rose]

strange i would love to be able to connect to the bmi local flights to exeter, but they only seem to offer one way flight??Going to heathrow?
I just hate all waste, and this is annoying, so ghost flight goes back to exeter?
I am sure others like myself would pay to go from heathrow to exeter thereby saveing a 5 hr journey, especially as offers are 10 quid to go to heathrow. This shows that the slot option has to go if we want to make sense, and our carbon footprint as low as possible.

[gary, west yorkshire]

once agian the 'government' using any old excuse to put up taxis.... another nu-labia con job methinks

[Alfred T Mahan]

What this shows is a bottleneck in airport capacity - otherwise slots wouldn't be so valuable. We need to do what Hong Kong so wisely did, and build a whole new island airport in the Thames Estuary. That is what government 'investment' should be about - not the usual Brown piffle 'investing in services'. Oh, sorry - Brown has already spent all our money so there's none to spare.

[wendy, cheam]

even if we are destroying the earth (which we aren,t) god gave us dominion over the earth to do as we liked with it... read your bibles people!!

[Mr DG]

There is no man-made climate catastrophe looming.
The 'average' temperature of the entire planet has altered by less than a degree in the past century.
Hysteria, paranoia......and taxes!

[Oli]

Crazy policy, crazy actions. but this will change pretty quickly once the airlines start going bust which they will, soon.

[Adrian K]

Now that we are introduced to the notion of 'slots' and their value, perhaps this Newspaper could educate the public a little further. I would like to know exactly what the system is that causes this Catch-22 of paying millions of dollars for a slot, then being 'forced' to use it or lose it.

[Juvenal]

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, it's not just a question of the flight that the plane takes with no passengers - there's also the small matter of every subsequent flight that the plane makes that day.

Take as an example an aeroplane flying from Glasgow to CDG Paris and then making the return journey. The outward flight has to be made - passengers or not - to get a plane to CDG for the return trip.

[m wilson]

Use the empty planes to fly illegal immigrants back to where they came from.

[hardy]

Sell some of the £30 million slots. Invest it back in the company to provide customers a better service. I think the days of cost cutting by the airlines/poor service is coming to an end. Air travel has gone crazy, about time it regained a sensible track.

[Paul]

As a frequent flyer I sympathise with the airlines. It is not as easy as to say don't fly. These are businesses we depend on for our travel, they provide a wonderful service and have seen there core cost 'fuel' rise 50% in a year. Before they cut back flights they should be given guarantees they can keep those slots if customer demand returns. Swift action is thus needed to give them this right. We need to act like the Americans i.e. quickly.

[Paul]

As a frequent flyer I sympathise with the airlines. It is not as easy as to say don't fly. These are businesses we depend on for our travel, they provide a wonderful service and have seen there core cost 'fuel' rise 50% in a year. Before they cut back flights they should be given guarantees they can keep those slots if customer demand returns. Swift action is thus needed to give them this right. We need to act like the Americans i.e. quickly.

[stephen Bull]

Theresa May, the Shadow Transport Secretary, touched on this idea, telling The Times: "It is imperative that the system for running slots does nothing to push the airlines into flying empty planes. Besides damaging the environment, it makes absolutely no economic sense."
Mrs May is right in the first assertion and wrong in the second. The system is wrong all right but the airlines are trying to optimise their outcome given the existing regulations.

[Leo]

I once took a BMI Heathrow to Leeds flight on which I was literally the only passenger. That's probably the first and last time I'll ever have my own private jet! Even though it was only an ERJ-135 the takeoff roll was terrific - you were seriously kicked in the back and we must have been off the ground in 15 seconds or so.

[Derek Power]

Empty planes certainly makes a nonsense of the runway 3 / terminal 6 debate.
And as for the idea of extending the operating hours for take off and landing at Heathrow - why?

[m wilson]

BMI should make the flights to jeddah a one way ticket, but don't tell the customers.

[Jesus Pascual]

'Ghost' flights are another reason why carbon credit schemes make sense and should be implemented sooner, not later. Aviation should pay the environmental cost of using fossil fuels. Since I work for an airframe manufacturer, I am probably shooting myself in the foot - but jobs are aplenty, while we only have one planet.

[Dave in Notts?]

So what? It's BMI's money.

As for then environmentalists, well get them building new roads if they've got time and energy spare to spend their lives moaning.

[Louise Allan]

It certainly wouldn't be on the Edinburgh/Heathrow route. The capacity on most of these flight looks pretty acceptable. They certainly sell out of their cheap tickets quick enough!
The "use or lose" rule is surely lunacy in the current economic climate. Is there really a long list of other airlines queuing up to goble up spare slots anymore?

[John B]

£60k a flight - with say 150 seats on the plane that would mean a single ticket price of £400 LHR to Edinburgh just to cover costs methinks someones figures are incorrect.

Rather than fly empty give the airline the option to pay a fee to keep the slot and BAA can do a short term rent to another airline of the slot. Everyone a winner BAA gets passengers, BMI keeps its routes , another airline gets an opportunity to grow pity about the environment though

I cant understand this BMI logic. I am ( and may be many others are) trying to book a seat to travel to Jeddah between 30Aug -4Sep, but been told flights are full. Why not runs the extra/empty flights toward Jeddah during the pilgrimage period.

[Charles Morgan]

Today, Spanair announced that is sacking 30 % of its labour force of about 3,000 employees and mothballing 15 aircraft. Why can´t BMI do the same or is that scheduled for the autumn?

[David Iliff]

I think the logic is that forcing the airlines to actually use the slots stops them from financially starving their competitors out of business. Large airlines with significant capital reserves would see the payment for slots as an investment if it resulted in crippling their competitors who were unable to get a slot because none were available. But when the slots cost more than runnning empty flights, then they're not really achieving anything.

[Joe]

How about the airlines paying the cost of a "ghost flight" to fund environmental research instead of operating the flight?

[Ian Griffiths]

I'm not clear why the airlines can't just sublet the slots when they need to. If anyone hears of ghost flights from Liverpool to anywhere sunny, you now have my email address.

[Bill Atkins]

If the slots are theirs (having paid the huge money), then what is the possible logic of losing them if they aren't used ??