gsoltso

At our airport we have Haeco, they do tons of work/service on aircraft from all over the world, and many times a week, they will have planes go up and loop around, doing touch and go runs. Most of these are testing repairs, telemetry, calibrating instruments, etc. We also have other planes show up that do practice runs, landing, taking off, taxiing around, learning the ropes and getting practice on a specific airport. I can't speak to your airport specifically, but if the flights are not going to a different location, then they are probably not actual flights, but something else like maintenance/training.

Bglad2uk

Thanks for the reply!
So, since these planes are effecfively grounded for probably a month minimum, they are likely maintaining them and it may have nothing to do specifically with the Covid-19 enforced grounding (i.e. necessity to keep the engines etc. going at least once a day)? I'd guess Ryanair have about 15 planes based at BGY, and it will be interesting to see if this is a daily routine.

EqualOpp

Not sure if there's been discussion on this....

A new (temporary) business model for airlines.

- Quit jamming people in planes and maximizing load factors.
- Charge higher fares (And explain why)
- Target 50% load factor (Or something like that) with 1 empty row between all groups in economy
- Same for business class too, unless there's lots of space between folks...

???

JDiver

Spend $45 billion on share buy backs, build up massive debt service obligations; ask the government for $58 billion in unrestricted bailout money when things go wrong

EqualOpp

Well...learning the hard way, pyramid systems ALWAYS collapse...the bones are now called tourist sites and World Heritage sites. Egypt, Mayan, Feudal Japan, etc....biggest pyramid is now the social one.

"We" don't take to heart, we are only as strong as our weakest links....someday we'll learn...but that day is many years away....

I'll support a bailout, if all the senior mgmt gets ZERO stock options, and all their pay drops dramatically (not 15-20%...at least 2x, maybe 3x, 4x for the higher ups)....and stays that way. Flatten the curve?

Flatten the distance between the top and bottom paid. But this won't happen..so it will be a slow drawn out pyramidal collapse. If not from CV, other things...

84fiero

The air travel market will be disrupted and in a state of flux for awhile clearly. I suspect though, that it will be some time before the dust settles enough for anyone to know what changes will be needed, or successful, for the different airlines. And there could be a number of adjustments over the near term. Far too soon to say.

rickg523

Is it really an "era"?

EqualOpp

Got a better term?

Personally...think it will dimish in summer in most places (Not all)...and come back as an annual event. Thus...ongoing. Some places will handle better than others. If it just "dies out" like SARS then I'll eat my words. Wouldn't be the first time, won't be the last....but every time I eat crow, it means one less crow I will be eating in the future! Then when all the crows attack like in Resident Evil - Extinction....I'll be home free, so to speak! Better to eat one crow at a time, rather than getting force fed and suffocating!

chipmaster

If they had instead put the money in the bank what would their stock holders have said?

I am not debating what happened, but question if they had NOT done the buy back boosting the stock the CEO/CFO and board would likely have been replaced

EqualOpp

Maybe we need to reconsider the fundamentals of the whole system....

well...only when a greater force comes and puts EVERYONE in their place will that happen...until then the momentum of the pyramid system continues...it's been happening since the Ziggurat days of Sumeria....

chipmaster

The tide was rising, really was the COVID19 tidal wave incoming, now the tide has pulled back and many systems that allowed leaky boats and silly captains in worth and unworthy boats rise are being exposed.

History has shown when good times come again, memory is short and greed always take the front seat.

TravelingZoomer

Without making a judgement of its virtue or vice, this is exactly the intended consequence of capitalism, specifically the type that is closer to the unregulated version than the regulated version (or dare I say, democratic socialism).

Any CEO that didn't authorize stock buybacks would be doing a disservice to shareholders in the strict interpretation of their role as "person to make the most boatloads of money the fastest".

TopGunner

Actually, it might be an intresting theory to sue management and board that authorized the buybacks and thus increasing the leverage of the company and making it riskier. If I get wiped out as a shareholder when that cash could've been used to pay for expenses and establish a cushion for tougher times. The industry has priors and Pandemics are not a new phenomena, especially for global transporters. The issue is executive and director greed and incompetence, part of being a fiduciary to shareholders is not blowing up their holdings. Share buybacks are an accounting trick and merely rewarded those selling into the buyback (mainly the execs) not existing shareholders beyond paper wealth that is no substitute for cash on the balance sheet.

It will be fool hardy to just write blank checks without fundamentally implementing some changes that acknowledge the full faith and credit of the taxpayers saved the companies from their useless executives. I mean how many quarterly calls did we hear that ancillary fees...blah...xx billion/yr ......blah...we will never lose money again (c) Copyright Doug Parker. They certainly do not deserve anything like a free-market, and fail miserably each time they have a sniff on their own, in that context. Secure consumer friendly concessions, like no change fees or at least varies by time to flight, de-miserablizing economy cabins

GUWonder

I see no good reason why US airlines should get a big bailout from the US Government without it being highly-conditioned and coming in the form of American taxpayers getting lots of equity from the airlines taking American taxpayer bailout money and getting in on it at the prevailing open market prices for the shares.

After nearly a decade of the biggest US airlines making mega-profits off the backs of the American consumers and granted so many governmental waivers and favors over the years so as to very extensively exploit consumers in the main, my sympathy for the US3 airlines' management, airline shareholders and the airline industry lobbyists is limited. I would rather see the bailout money directed at being able to help people with inadequate or no medical insurance and no paid sick leave insurance to be able to get such coverage so as to not become part of the problem more than is already the case.

largeeyes

Obviously any bailout would now need to wipeout the shareholders and also likely many bondholders. Company can stick around, but no way anyone should make a profit of this.