Originally Posted by
Ldnn1
That’s exactly what airlines do. They can do deals on parking charges. Ad hoc take-offs/landings are always part of sorting out IRROPS.
Yes. But that is
sorting out IRROPS. Something that airlines have always had to do, whether or not there was an EC261/2004 dimension added or not.
To suggest, as you did, that airlines are now keeping aircraft out of service and positioning these spare aircraft randomly (how could it be targetted?) solely because of the added cost burden of EC261/2004, is a completely different proposition. Were you saying that they are now trying to "predict" where the next EC261/2004 blowout may occur, and already have a spare craft (and potentially spare crew) on standby there?
Originally Posted by
Ldnn1
Fleet under-utilisation is undesirable, but as I said above it can be offset by the savings incurred through having the standbys available. And selecting which airports are best to position which aircraft is part and parcel of the network and ops management job. Of course, decisions are always based on a number of factors and not all airlines will have standbys available some or all of the time, but many do.
So, again, you seem to be saying that aircraft are tactically deployed
specifically because of the cost of EC261/2004 failures, and therefore that aircraft may be deliberately sacrificed from being used to earn money for this "maybe we might save some compensation payout" game. Which I find to be ludicrous.
I think you are mistaking the "normal" downtime/slack that may exist in schedules - particularly for airlines that don't work their fleets as hard as some airlines do - and have mischaracterised it to be that airlines (which ones?) make "guesses" about when to have a spare aircraft based where.
Any airline that has a spare aircraft that can be used in an irrops situation will use that aircraft as and when they can. This was always the case.
Nothing has changed since EC261/2004 -
unless you are seriously suggesting that some airlines (which?) now deliberately keep a spare plane/spare planes deployed around their network at all times JUST to keep EC261/2004 costs down. Deliberate under-utilisation of the fleet like that is going to lose more money than it could potentially save.
Originally Posted by
Ldnn1
To give an example of a publicly available reference to standby aircraft just from a very quick google, the below is from
easyJet’s 2014 annual report, p.35. I wouldn't describe easyJet as a 'ropey' airline:
That goes nowhere near as far as how you initially characterised this "strategy".
For a start, it says "Tight operational controls". Each airline should run their operations in a way such that avoidable delays and cancellations are minimised to begin with. "availability of standby aircraft and crew to minimise the potential incidence of claims" does NOT mean that there is even always one aircraft sitting on the tarmac somewhere PURPOSELY to be avaialble to minimise EC261/2004 claims. You certainly are not saying, I presume, that prior to 2004, easyjet just shrugged its shoulders and left its stranded passengers to make their own way home?
A typical easyjet plane kept grounded for an entire day will have lost the company more in foregone potential revenue than it would save if it was able to be used to prevent paying out the typical EU shorthaul compensation for a cancelled full flight. And if it is based in the wrong place, it may not be able to be deployed quickly enough to prevent at least a partial compensation payout...so the strategy is certainly far from fool-proof.