Originally Posted by
jsloan
But you can't have it both ways. If they have to have lower fares in order to fill the planes at night, that indicates that there's less demand for those flights than there is for daytime departures.
The only thing I know for sure is that a plane is
not making any profit idling on the ground. Less demand doesn't necessarily mean a profit cannot be made, although I'm not sure how this plays out in reality. As I demonstrated with an example above, demand can be "manufactured" by an airline to a certain degree. Actual profit much less though!
Anyway, the point mainly was that a significant portion of the infrastructure sits around underutilized several hours during the day for artificial reasons. Airlines pointing at congestion is airlines finding an excuse in a problem they created themselves. The capacity is there, it's just not utilized efficiently.
Originally Posted by
jsloan
The amortized cost of adding another daytime flight is much lower than the cost of adding a 3 AM flight would be. You've got to hire extra staff, and probably pay them more; most people don't want to work the graveyard shift. .
Other costs
may be lower during the night. As pointed out above, there is significantly less congestion at night, resulting in less wasted fuel on the ground and in the air. A night bank can provide relief for displaced passengers of the preceding day, avoiding the need to get them rebooked on "more profitable" daytime flights the next day, and saving on hotel vouchers. Much like Walmart, an airline could
probably get away with significantly reduced service at night: only one club open instead of several, only a few concession stands, only one TSA checkpoint, etc. But I have no clue how it would balance out in the end.
Originally Posted by
jsloan
Oh, and you might want to tell Southwest that AA has a monopoly there.
Right, dominant, but not a monopoly (luckily!).