nsx --

Definately having a lot of airplanes sitting on the ground not being used is inefficient. Yet, the airlines are currently faced with that, except that they are sitting in Arizona in mothballs instead of at the airline's hub locations. That was one of my questions -- does it cost significantly more to have an aircraft at a hub, ready to go, compared to sealed up tight in Arizona? It would seem to me that the biggest portion of the cost is interest or lease payments. The cost to make a plane operational has got to be pretty small compared to the lease payments.

As business rebounds, it would become more and more difficult to have any spare airplanes, but, by then the airlines would be profitable under the current model.

Also, I would think, with good scheduling, it might be possible to have extra flights just on Monday and Friday, the two busiest days. Yet, the flights would be added just "as needed" rather than promising increased service. Thus, if flight 123 goes from DEN to ORD at 3pm, on Monday and Friday, there would be a flight 8123 added at the same time. The airline would have to get that worked out with the FAA and the ATC system, but I would think that FAA/ATC would be very helpful given the difficult times the airlines currently are in.

I will agree that the scheduling is exceptionally complex and that you have to have the right aircraft positioned in the right place all the way down the line for the entire day. However, "down the line" usually is a hub city every stop or two, when aircraft can be substituted. Some hub cities (e.g. DEN) might be better suited to storing extra aircraft than others (e.g. SFO). Indeed complex, but, aren't the complex problems the main way that business today is squeezing out extra profit? Consider Wal-Mart, who makes its suppliers work with Wal-Mart's computers to ensure the proper inventory and stock is available at each of their stores. Using this type of technology, they squeeze out extra profit by keeping their costs down. They build customer loyality by having the lowest price most/all of the time. Computer time is pretty cheap compared to flying an airplane across the country only 25% full.

Maybe it is too complex to do... Maybe it is because of the complexities added by some of the union contracts. Maybe instead of big pay cuts, the unions take smaller pay cuts and give some more flexibility?

I personally love complex programming challenges, and this would certainly be one of the most complex. If a computer could sit there and "hum" on the problem and crank out $100,000 or $1m per day in cost savings, it would be worth it.