Originally Posted by
irishguy28
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?
Why would it be random? Standby aircraft are typically positioned at bases, obviously. The choice of which bases and whether they warrant a standby aircraft is, as a I said, a matter for ops. Some may position an aircraft at a particular base for one period and then move it to another base for another period, depending on where they think it will be most useful.
Originally Posted by
irishguy28
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.
I’m not mistaking anything. I know what standby aircraft are. Shorthaul airilnes typically don’t have much downtime/slack in their schedules at all. They have high utilisation, so they need to make a business decision as to whether it’s worth having standby aircraft as backup or not.
Originally Posted by
irishguy28
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.
Of course airlines may well have used standby aircraft before to mitigate IRROPS. But I find it bizarre that you think that EU261 hasn’t changed anything. Consider it very simply as follows:
- Predicted cost of IRROPS excl. EU261 = X
- Predicted cost of IRROPS incl. EU261 = X + Y
- Predicted cost of keeping an aircraft on standby = Z
It may well be that Z > X, but Z < X+Y. In that case, there was no business case for a particular standby aircraft before EU261, but EU261 swings the business case in favour of the standby. This is not fanciful. These business cases have been made and are real.
Originally Posted by
irishguy28
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.
No strategy is fool-proof. But yes I am saying that many airlines do indeed have aircraft that sit around – potentially all day – waiting to be deployed in the event that they’re needed. Not at every airport, not necessarily all season or every season, but yes, airlines do do this.