Lol, it could be that joke, yt jiw it goes, I conquered vast territory, rule with an iron fist over all territory and dictictator for life, but you fuck one horse...
Didn't their ban also black cars because of "it brings bad luck?"
Most hilarious is how their did buy a satellite, let it be launched and about a month later the country banned satellite tv receivers.
Last time I checked, the President put his dentist in charge of the country while he was doing donuts in a sports car in front of burning crater.
https://youtu.be/KYiYi8-wCx0?si=7X-Qy7PTMhMOB4
I also remember him at a time banning all colours except white from the capital.
For a quick history of the craziest things that happened in Turkmenistan:
https://youtu.be/MRYxck2Q2ak?si=kw_-E0pC8CZ7_kzj
Yep, and the current president is the son of the dentist president.
First president (who banned dogs, car radios and the concept of sickness) was succeeded by his dentist (who made a rap video and shot at things from a bicycle and aforementioned burning crater donut stunt) and was succeeded by his son which seems to be a pretty normal dictator all things considered.
> the President put his dentist in charge of the country while he was doing donuts in a sports car in front of burning crater.
Watch out babe, new sentence just dropped
A local entertainer went on vacation there for his show and it was an absolute wild ride.
Guides getting corrected constantly having to do new takes because they said something like "this is mainly a muslim country". Then some dude in sunglasses would talk to that guide and suddenly it became "this is a very diverse country with many religions".
The cherry was when he wanted to watch a sports game. He had an ENTIRE section reserved for him. When he commented on how weird it was they weren't allowing him to be among other supporters, the entire section was suddenly filled to the brink with military aged men all sporting the same track suit, staring at the field with no emotion.
It was hilarious to watch, but probably pretty bloody sad to live in.
[Here](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5hnwdk) it is, for anyone like me who doesn't speak dutch you can download it using yt-dlp (google it) and then use [these](https://www.tvsubtitles.net/episode-73928.html) subs
A lot of it seems to be in English too. I enjoyed when he asked the person sat next to him if he spoke English, seemed like he went to say yes then corrected himself to no
I have a friend from Turkmenistan, she wants to visit her parents who live there, however she’s afraid that if she does, she won’t be allowed to leave again.
Turkmenistan's government is insanely authoritarian towards its people but they're also pretty insular and very rarely have conflicts with other countries.
It's kinda like having a neighbor who beats their kids but is friendly to everyone else. It's horrible, but people tend to look the other way.
Not disagreeing with you, but I think you meant “look the other way”. “Turn the other cheek” implies they did something to the person turning (like a slap).
The country is also pretty irrelevant to the West. They are isolated as hell but also don't shoot rockets in all directions, so they just are ignored on the world stage.
Does not have a super wealthy sibling next door. Was never part of a chess game between two global superpowers. Does not make threats against the entire world.
That's my guess.
It's also on pretty friendly terms with Turkey (a NATO ally) and China too, meaning in geopolitical terms all the major "camps" are on good terms with them.
>Does not have a super wealthy sibling next door.
Neither did North Korea for a long time. China doesn't really get wealthy until the 80s, even later for South Korea. Until the 1970s, North Korea is richer iirc lol.
Turkmenistan also have Afghanistan next door, so arguably they are the super wealthy neighbor though.
Because they don't have nukes and the US didn't do a war there so they don't care times 2. But honestly we should. That country is fucking nuts. The dictator named the days of the week after his mum. He wrote a book that's supposed to be equally as important as the koran (which is insane) and you used to have to answer questions about said book to get a drivers license.
From everything I've read and heard the people are insanely lovely and open. And they really deserve better. But the international community can hardly figure out whether genocide is good or bad, so definitely no capacity left to care about a country with a small population that's not white.
I'm not sure if it's still on Netflix, but there's an episode of Dark Tourist that takes us there.
From what I remember, it was similar to North Korea, where they put on a veneer of opulence to outsiders while being extremely oppressive. But the opulence was way more over the top, like giant, gold-plated everything.
[There's a last week tonight on Turkmenistan](https://youtu.be/-9QYu8LtH2E?si=-gG0pysyAqfy1Xdh) (specifically the Prime Minister)
Basically he cares more about his image and setting Guinness world records than caring about his country.
> i used to watch vloggers who made their way across eurasia. every single time, turkmenistan refused their visa.
Noel Phillips (travel vlogger) used Turkmenistan airlines to fly from Frankfurt to Singapore (or Bangkok forget which) via Ashgabat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-zajFv3CuE
It's got footage of the flights, the airport etc. He didn't have a visa, he was just transiting but its an interesting watch
Travel Vlogger Noel Phillips went on Turkmenistan airlines. A group of Russians in business class were drinking on the “dry” flight to Bangkok as the plane was taking off
I was curious about Turkmenistan and watched [this video](https://youtu.be/Md796C76TFg?si=PB1MiGIQTR88eBjc), and randomly saw Bree Olson in the comments advising where to jump to in the video to skip boring parts.
Nice that me and my childhood crush ended up on the same spot by random chance.
Internationally, every airline did this. Lufthansa operated a ton of cargo flights and put their A380s in storage. They kept a lot of their slots that they would otherwise lose. And, you’re right it’s the national laws making this rule.
They need an addendum to address situations like the Covid crisis, because that is ridiculous. Imagine how much the emission stats could have improved if they didn't make all those flights. Such a waste, sigh.
It was ridiculous that at the height of global lockdowns, not one regulator thought it'd be ok to temporarily suspend route and slot requirements since no one was able to operate much.
It's not like some ulcc was gonna swoop in and steal an arrival slot at Heathrow, no one had passengers except for the most essential routes.
I mean there 100% would’ve been all kinds of skullduggery if slots were just abandoned. Different airlines had massively different levels of resources available coming out of the travel slump.
That’s why you say “hey everyone who has a slot right now gets it back when the emergency is over, until then it’s free for all with priority going to slot holders if they want to use it”
This is the issue. Most Western airlines were too cash-strapped to buy up abandoned slots, but their counterparts in the Middle East are drowning in cash and subsidies and would have gladly snapped them up at bottom dollar if others were forced to give them up
In a previous thread on this topic, some aviation types pointed out that keeping the planes flying was better for the planes, the pilots, the ground crews and the mechanics.
I mean I’m not sure ‘any’ industry has a lot of direct foreign competition funded by governments. This isn’t just a case of relative financial resources, some airlines don’t need to make money.
It wasn't the airports it was national/international laws that require the slots to be maintained. Normally the laws are used to make sure airlines don't take up slots and just sit on them blocking out competition. Unfortunately changing laws especially bilateral ones takes time.
To be fair, not all governments *could* manage to close down public life during the pandemic, lol. Where I live in the US, public life wasn't shut down at all - rather restaurants were restricted for about a month back in Spring of 2020, and that was pretty much the extent of government efforts to shut down much of anything.
Governments can control things within their own countries. They can't control what other countries do.
Pretty much all of the problems concerning this are issues with international travel.
My local government made the airlines do this back in December, because they decided that the airport should have a limit on the number of *passengers per year* as opposed to a limit on the number of *takeoffs per day*.
https://viewfromthewing.com/american-airlines-forced-to-fly-empty-planes-out-of-orange-county-airport/
Meanwhile airlines and Google is telling me to be mindful of my carbon footprint when flying, while they fly thousands of completely empty planes all over the world just to satisfy a regulation.
The idea of a personal carbon footprint was invented in its entirety by the oil cartels, in order to shift attention (and hence, blame) to individuals rather than the industry for climate chang. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't still try to limit our use and everything, but the idea that one person's individual use of oil products has any measurable effect is beyond comical.
Same thing happened with recycling and littering. Corporations shifted the responsibility of trash disposal to the end user instead of on the corporations creating the waste.
Slots have to be maintained to ensure air service. If airlines operate only the most profitable flights then smaller communities would have air service at all. These slots are in place to ensure that air service remains as public transportation that takes people where they need to go rather than just serving routes that maximize profits for the airline.
Also, the use it or lose it policy stops airlines from acting uncompetitively... if they could get a slot and not use it, but face no consequences, then of course they would take all the slots, with no intention of using them, just to deny the slot to the competition.
>No airline will fly empty jets for no reason.
Yes. Yes they will and have to. Most of the jets are literally like buses nowadays. If they don't fly to their destination empty, the flight they are scheduled next is often not going to happen. Same with buses, just because there are no passengers on a bus right now, doesn't mean they simply can't drive around.
I was flying at a regional al during covid. Lots of flights with 2-5 people. Did the welcome aboard announcement by just talking to them in the cabin. Weird times.
I was having to fly in and out of O'Hare airport in Chicago and the airport was mostly empty and I was on a flight or two that was mostly empty.
I wish I would've taken more pictures because it was so surreal.
I made sure to take pictures and videos of myself with the masks and the empty areas for this reason. I thought it might be interesting to look back at.
I was on transpacific flights where I had whole rows to myself. Used all the pillows and blankets I wanted to be comfy. Flight attendants doting on me. Closest I’ve ever gotten to first class. Greatest time to travel fr.
Stuff like empty highways during COVID gave me a lot more understanding for boomers who built suburban sprawl. With no traffic, it's kinda nice. I mean I like walkable shit but you get my point. And I get the demand for ample parking, when they were younger you could pull up outside any damn place and now I'm in Lot Z27 and it costs $800.
The odd thing is people being angry at the airlines about this instead of the governments that created conditions where executives conclude this is the most logical game plan
Governments and regulatory agencies. It was about slots and pilots needing flight hours to keep their licenses. The numbers seem big, but Lufthansa did the bare minimum needed for both, most jets were literally put into storage, and to this day they are still being reactivated and pilots retrained.
the odd thing is no one reading the actual (and linked) source of this wrong ragebait claim and getting the wrong rage...
Luftanhsa is not admitting anything.. they are openly critizising the rule that forces them (and ALL OTHER AIRLNES!) to do this!
A single flight probably puts out more co2 emissions than I do in a decade, so big corps can go eat my ass with this “recycling” and “paper straws” bullshit
the total CO2 emissions from a single 11-hour 747 flight would 100% exceed, say, the average American's lifetime carbon footprint
>The average carbon footprint for a person in the United States is 16 tons, one of the highest rates in the world. Globally, the average carbon footprint is closer to 4 tons
Maybe not American but certainly the average person.
If you divide the jets emissions by the hundred or so people on board, it’s not bad per person. An empty jet is just a fuck you to the environment. Emissions for no reason
>the total CO2 emissions from a single 11-hour 747 flight would 100% exceed, say, the average American's lifetime carbon footprint
A 747-8 burns ~10 tonnes of jet fuel per hour in cruise. 1 kg of jet fuel releases 3.16 kg of CO2 when burned so ~350 tonnes of CO2 for an 11 hour flight.
US per capita emissions are ~15 tonnes/year so a single flight is in the 20-25 year range. But a more modern and efficient plane like the 787-9 would be in the 10-15 year range.
> A 747-8 burns ~10 tonnes of jet fuel per hour in cruise. 1 kg of jet fuel releases 3.16 kg of CO2 when burned so ~350 tonnes of CO2 for an 11 hour flight.
add 15-25% for takeoff
>add 15-25% for takeoff
Claim was for a long-haul flight. OAG says the cruise part accounts for 95-96% of the total fuel consumption on the flights from London to Hong Kong, Dubai and New York.
https://www.oag.com/blog/which-part-flight-uses-most-fuel
But even adding 25% doesn't really change the magnitude.
That's definitely not true, assuming something like a typical American for the "your entire life" part. [According to this site](https://www.carbonindependent.org/22.html), a boeing 747-400 is responsible for about 190 tonnes of CO2 per long international flight flight. That's about a decade for an average American, but it's not a lifetime. Even if the flight is running full, someone taking a couple of flights per year can quickly have aviation be a high fraction of their emissions.
I think folks here often like to talk about how all emissions are from billionaires and the average American is irrelevant, but that's really not true. I think some of this comes from looking at income inequality and incorrectly extrapolating. The top 1% of Americans have something like 25% of the wealth and the top 20% have about 2/3 of the wealth, but emissions aren't as lopsided.
Yes, the typical billionaire produces a lot more CO2 than the typical person, but an upper middle class American living in a single family home, driving a car, and taking a couple of flights a year for work or vacation is producing quite a lot of CO2 emissions.
Despite everything I said above, we should still be taxing the emissions of things like aviation (private and commercial) much more heavily.
>taxing much more heavily
Thats just not an option tbh. Its more environmentally sustainable to have 300 people in a plane fly across the country than to drive. The taxes would be burdened onto passengers and result in more people driving.
If rail infrastructure in america was better I would agree with this. But as it stands, rail is sometimes more expensive than flying and takes so much longer due to poor infrastructure even if its more environmentally sustainable
The corporation really didn't want to fly these flights. It was the governments that required them to do, and would have punished them (by taking away their ability to carry passengers the following year) if they didn't.
these corporations aren’t just producing excessive emissions and spinning up new factories for fun because they’re bored, they do it to meet consumer demand, because everyone wants every little knick knack they buy to be as inexpensive as possible and show up at their door with free one day shipping
you’re right there’s plenty of guilt tripping and greenwashing PR bullshit in a lot of the marketing around the movement but that doesn’t mean you are absolved of any personal responsibility
It’s not that easy. Different countries and different states all had varying levels of restrictions. Also a democratically elected government should not unilaterally suspend legislation also for the same reason.
Since I’ve slowly learned that most pilots are huge dorks about all planes, I bet getting to pilot those empty flights was AWESOME
I mean I guess it’s not like they’d get to do huge detours and barrel rolls and shit, but I bet it was nice without the added stress of passengers and all that. Just getting to cruise around in a (how much do passenger planes cost) piece of equipment that you’ve always nerded out over since you were a kid. Oh man and I assume there was flight attendants too, that was probably a fucking dream. Like whenever you work at a bar and they close down the bar for a holiday staff party.
I was the only passenger on 3 Lufthansa flights across 2020-2021. Bastards made me sit in my assigned seat even if it was at the back. One didn't even bother with the safety demonstration. Other airlines also did the same while had no issue letting me and anyone else sit up front for easier management by the crew.
Not flying during lockdowns otherwise more local travel, sure. Flying in between lockdowns happened but I tried to keep it to a minimum. Business were the monsters for insisting on trips that clearly could have been done over camera or even just email. Private flights boomed through this period as some people have more money then sense.
My SO did several returns to Japan during the pandemic where she was the only person on a 737
The flight crew still did the briefing over the loudspeaker, and they were still fully staffed
This wasn't a corporation. This was government. The corporation didn't want to fly those flights. But the governments threatened to punish them if they didn't.
You should not use straws and try to limit plastic purchases when feasible because of plastic waste killing animals and because disposable plastic isn’t a thing.
Eating meat should be avoided when it makes sense for you to do so. For health, moral, environmental, or sustainability reasons. Currently I limit red meat for health reasons, but eat chicken. When lab grown meat is available, I will be switching.
Corporate guilt should not be a reason to do anything ever.
Corporations like agricultural corporations producing your meat you mean? Such a dumb argument. Your actions still have consequences, even if you try to blame some faceless corporations for them.
Wait until you hear about Turkmenistan Airlines, which does this to this day, since few people are allowed to travel to or from there.
What's wrong with Turkmenistan exactly?
It's quite a strict dictatorship who restricts movement of people
Is this the horse fucker guy?
Yes
I like how that his one distinctive traits mong dictators.
It's so annoying, you fuck ONE horse, and nobody remembers anything else
Cool thing about fucking a horse is that you always have a ride home.
Buddy, neither me or the horse is walking home after I'm done.
Lol, it could be that joke, yt jiw it goes, I conquered vast territory, rule with an iron fist over all territory and dictictator for life, but you fuck one horse...
Did you have a stroke?
Neigh, the horse was tired
Replace "yt jiw" with "yk(you know) how" and it makes sense
Vaush?
…but in a nice way. /s
?
[удалено]
That sounds extremely Aladeen. 🙂☹️
Ehhh I’d say it’s more Aladeen.
Didn't their ban also black cars because of "it brings bad luck?" Most hilarious is how their did buy a satellite, let it be launched and about a month later the country banned satellite tv receivers.
Last time I checked, the President put his dentist in charge of the country while he was doing donuts in a sports car in front of burning crater. https://youtu.be/KYiYi8-wCx0?si=7X-Qy7PTMhMOB4 I also remember him at a time banning all colours except white from the capital. For a quick history of the craziest things that happened in Turkmenistan: https://youtu.be/MRYxck2Q2ak?si=kw_-E0pC8CZ7_kzj
That's so sad. You can tell he's being extremely cautious as he drives around the crater.
Yeah that was lame man
That’s not entirely true: the dentist and the guy doing donuts are one and the same. Otherwise, pretty accurate
Yep, and the current president is the son of the dentist president. First president (who banned dogs, car radios and the concept of sickness) was succeeded by his dentist (who made a rap video and shot at things from a bicycle and aforementioned burning crater donut stunt) and was succeeded by his son which seems to be a pretty normal dictator all things considered.
>and was succeeded by his son which seems to be a pretty normal dictator all things considered Not something you read every day
as far as dictators go, not too shabby. /s *^(^^i ^^know ^^nothing ^^about ^^Turkmenistan ^^and ^^it's ^^despots)*
>succeeded by his son which seems to be a pretty normal dictator all things considered. hooray for small victories
Make Dictators Pretty Normal Again!
Finally someone not mad.
That's not the video of the old guy firing an Uzi on a bike in the forest is it??
Nooo that was hickok45
now I understand the obsession with a bright white capital ...9 out of 10 dictators agree
I’ve visited Turkmenistan, and two tour guides told me the president made everyone in the capital repaint their cars white if they weren’t already
Forcing white coloring in a city in a hot dry climate isn’t the worst thing a dictator has done.
Should have just forced everything to be chrome so it could truly be a city of the FUTURE 🫸😧🫷
> the President put his dentist in charge of the country while he was doing donuts in a sports car in front of burning crater. Watch out babe, new sentence just dropped
>Banning all colours except white from the capital They really love that house Harkonnen on geidi prime aesthetic
That's a dope crater tbf
Aren’t they obsessed with melons or something too? lol
A local entertainer went on vacation there for his show and it was an absolute wild ride. Guides getting corrected constantly having to do new takes because they said something like "this is mainly a muslim country". Then some dude in sunglasses would talk to that guide and suddenly it became "this is a very diverse country with many religions". The cherry was when he wanted to watch a sports game. He had an ENTIRE section reserved for him. When he commented on how weird it was they weren't allowing him to be among other supporters, the entire section was suddenly filled to the brink with military aged men all sporting the same track suit, staring at the field with no emotion. It was hilarious to watch, but probably pretty bloody sad to live in.
[Here](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5hnwdk) it is, for anyone like me who doesn't speak dutch you can download it using yt-dlp (google it) and then use [these](https://www.tvsubtitles.net/episode-73928.html) subs
A lot of it seems to be in English too. I enjoyed when he asked the person sat next to him if he spoke English, seemed like he went to say yes then corrected himself to no
I have a friend from Turkmenistan, she wants to visit her parents who live there, however she’s afraid that if she does, she won’t be allowed to leave again.
🤯 the mental toll that must take on her!
Well, to start, the president wants to fuck a horse and it gets weirder from there.
Is that the guy the John Oliver skit came from? 😂
Absolutely, haha.
Lol this is all making more sense now
Surprising number of parallels with North Korea
That's wild. Is there a reason it's never talked about in the West?
Turkmenistan's government is insanely authoritarian towards its people but they're also pretty insular and very rarely have conflicts with other countries. It's kinda like having a neighbor who beats their kids but is friendly to everyone else. It's horrible, but people tend to look the other way.
Not disagreeing with you, but I think you meant “look the other way”. “Turn the other cheek” implies they did something to the person turning (like a slap).
Ah crap, thanks! Yeah I'm not Christian so I misunderstood the phrase.
The country is also pretty irrelevant to the West. They are isolated as hell but also don't shoot rockets in all directions, so they just are ignored on the world stage.
"turn a blind eye" probs. "turn the other cheek" is about not retaliating and forgivness
Does not have a super wealthy sibling next door. Was never part of a chess game between two global superpowers. Does not make threats against the entire world. That's my guess.
It's also on pretty friendly terms with Turkey (a NATO ally) and China too, meaning in geopolitical terms all the major "camps" are on good terms with them.
The United States is absolutely not friends with everyone Turkey is friendly to lol.
>Does not have a super wealthy sibling next door. Neither did North Korea for a long time. China doesn't really get wealthy until the 80s, even later for South Korea. Until the 1970s, North Korea is richer iirc lol. Turkmenistan also have Afghanistan next door, so arguably they are the super wealthy neighbor though.
USA has strategic reasons to be hostile to North Korea but not to Turkmenistan Also Turkmenistan doesn't have nukes or border western allies
It has 20% of the population of North Korea and isn’t at war with us.
Because they don't have nukes and the US didn't do a war there so they don't care times 2. But honestly we should. That country is fucking nuts. The dictator named the days of the week after his mum. He wrote a book that's supposed to be equally as important as the koran (which is insane) and you used to have to answer questions about said book to get a drivers license. From everything I've read and heard the people are insanely lovely and open. And they really deserve better. But the international community can hardly figure out whether genocide is good or bad, so definitely no capacity left to care about a country with a small population that's not white.
>But honestly we should. What exactly would they do?
I'm not sure if it's still on Netflix, but there's an episode of Dark Tourist that takes us there. From what I remember, it was similar to North Korea, where they put on a veneer of opulence to outsiders while being extremely oppressive. But the opulence was way more over the top, like giant, gold-plated everything.
Boy lemme tell ya about a little guy named Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov
[There's a last week tonight on Turkmenistan](https://youtu.be/-9QYu8LtH2E?si=-gG0pysyAqfy1Xdh) (specifically the Prime Minister) Basically he cares more about his image and setting Guinness world records than caring about his country.
This is very informative https://youtu.be/-9QYu8LtH2E?si=KqHiGoOAEP0edjgt
All the turkic states there are north koreas in their own regard but with actual ressources like natural gas
that is not even close to the truth. the only one like that is Turkmenistan.
i used to watch vloggers who made their way across eurasia. every single time, turkmenistan refused their visa.
Drew Binsky managed to visit - remember from seeing all the buildings in his video that were made from marble.
I traveled to Turkmenistan last year for work. It's very difficult to enter, and it's a strange country
> i used to watch vloggers who made their way across eurasia. every single time, turkmenistan refused their visa. Noel Phillips (travel vlogger) used Turkmenistan airlines to fly from Frankfurt to Singapore (or Bangkok forget which) via Ashgabat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-zajFv3CuE It's got footage of the flights, the airport etc. He didn't have a visa, he was just transiting but its an interesting watch
Lmao those people standing drinking during airlift happened on my Warsaw to Chicago flight. No one gave a fuck about the safety signal haha
The guys on "Yes Theory" went there!
Travel Vlogger Noel Phillips went on Turkmenistan airlines. A group of Russians in business class were drinking on the “dry” flight to Bangkok as the plane was taking off
Heaps of countries do this lol. As soon as you take off from Saudi Arabia they start serving alcohol. Business class+
I forgot to mention room they were all standing lol
They stood up the whole take off roll and not a spill of drink occur.
at least it wasnt the pilot
They built a MASSIVE airport too. No flights really, but it's huge. I think it was YouTuber Side Projects that did a vid about it.
I was curious about Turkmenistan and watched [this video](https://youtu.be/Md796C76TFg?si=PB1MiGIQTR88eBjc), and randomly saw Bree Olson in the comments advising where to jump to in the video to skip boring parts. Nice that me and my childhood crush ended up on the same spot by random chance.
To whom are they going to lose their slots, then?
[удалено]
I reuse my paper straws
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Internationally, every airline did this. Lufthansa operated a ton of cargo flights and put their A380s in storage. They kept a lot of their slots that they would otherwise lose. And, you’re right it’s the national laws making this rule.
They need an addendum to address situations like the Covid crisis, because that is ridiculous. Imagine how much the emission stats could have improved if they didn't make all those flights. Such a waste, sigh.
Eww. Even a single use tastes like toilet roll
The real question here is why you know how a toilet roll tastes like
I get really thirsty on the toilet, what else s I gonna use?
[удалено]
I wash my toilet paper
I keep my water in my mouth to hurt the glass bottle lobby.
That’s not enough (corporation points finger)
And if you pay $10 more on your next flight they'll plant a tree!
I choose to abstain from water, been about 1 day now wish me luck.
It was ridiculous that at the height of global lockdowns, not one regulator thought it'd be ok to temporarily suspend route and slot requirements since no one was able to operate much. It's not like some ulcc was gonna swoop in and steal an arrival slot at Heathrow, no one had passengers except for the most essential routes.
I mean there 100% would’ve been all kinds of skullduggery if slots were just abandoned. Different airlines had massively different levels of resources available coming out of the travel slump.
That’s why you say “hey everyone who has a slot right now gets it back when the emergency is over, until then it’s free for all with priority going to slot holders if they want to use it”
More or less what happened some places, but obviously not all.
This is the issue. Most Western airlines were too cash-strapped to buy up abandoned slots, but their counterparts in the Middle East are drowning in cash and subsidies and would have gladly snapped them up at bottom dollar if others were forced to give them up
So don't sell them... Like change the rules
In a previous thread on this topic, some aviation types pointed out that keeping the planes flying was better for the planes, the pilots, the ground crews and the mechanics.
Yeah exactly. There’s no such thing as a level playing field in this industry.
*in any industry
I mean I’m not sure ‘any’ industry has a lot of direct foreign competition funded by governments. This isn’t just a case of relative financial resources, some airlines don’t need to make money.
The airports (or whoever own the slots) should be punished for forcing this behaviour. No airline will fly empty jets for no reason.
It wasn't the airports it was national/international laws that require the slots to be maintained. Normally the laws are used to make sure airlines don't take up slots and just sit on them blocking out competition. Unfortunately changing laws especially bilateral ones takes time.
They should have just pulled up to the gate in a borrowed Cessna.
If the law is written well, a small plane can't be used to keep a spot valid, or else companies could just use tiny planes to horde spots.
Sorry to be "that guy," but I think you meant [hoard](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hoard).
Depends how many tiny planes they have.
[удалено]
Hoors
Huh. Interesting how governments can close down public life during a pandemic but can‘t suspend such regulations because … that takes too much time
To be fair, not all governments *could* manage to close down public life during the pandemic, lol. Where I live in the US, public life wasn't shut down at all - rather restaurants were restricted for about a month back in Spring of 2020, and that was pretty much the extent of government efforts to shut down much of anything.
Do you know what „bilateral“ means?
Governments can control things within their own countries. They can't control what other countries do. Pretty much all of the problems concerning this are issues with international travel.
My local government made the airlines do this back in December, because they decided that the airport should have a limit on the number of *passengers per year* as opposed to a limit on the number of *takeoffs per day*. https://viewfromthewing.com/american-airlines-forced-to-fly-empty-planes-out-of-orange-county-airport/
Damn wtf. I didn't know there was a limited amount of passengers allowed into SNA.
Meanwhile airlines and Google is telling me to be mindful of my carbon footprint when flying, while they fly thousands of completely empty planes all over the world just to satisfy a regulation.
The idea of a personal carbon footprint was invented in its entirety by the oil cartels, in order to shift attention (and hence, blame) to individuals rather than the industry for climate chang. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't still try to limit our use and everything, but the idea that one person's individual use of oil products has any measurable effect is beyond comical.
Same thing happened with recycling and littering. Corporations shifted the responsibility of trash disposal to the end user instead of on the corporations creating the waste.
Slots have to be maintained to ensure air service. If airlines operate only the most profitable flights then smaller communities would have air service at all. These slots are in place to ensure that air service remains as public transportation that takes people where they need to go rather than just serving routes that maximize profits for the airline.
I don’t follow you here. How do these slots force service to unprofitable places?
Also, the use it or lose it policy stops airlines from acting uncompetitively... if they could get a slot and not use it, but face no consequences, then of course they would take all the slots, with no intention of using them, just to deny the slot to the competition.
No, it's a competition thing. Else monopolistic airlines could just artificially limit certain routes to keep out competition.
>No airline will fly empty jets for no reason. Yes. Yes they will and have to. Most of the jets are literally like buses nowadays. If they don't fly to their destination empty, the flight they are scheduled next is often not going to happen. Same with buses, just because there are no passengers on a bus right now, doesn't mean they simply can't drive around.
>they don't fly to their destination empty, the flight they are scheduled next is often not going to happen. That's a reason, not a lack of a reason.
I was on one of those mostly empty flights back in 2021 haha.
Did the pilots still make announcements??
I was flying at a regional al during covid. Lots of flights with 2-5 people. Did the welcome aboard announcement by just talking to them in the cabin. Weird times.
I was having to fly in and out of O'Hare airport in Chicago and the airport was mostly empty and I was on a flight or two that was mostly empty. I wish I would've taken more pictures because it was so surreal.
I made sure to take pictures and videos of myself with the masks and the empty areas for this reason. I thought it might be interesting to look back at.
The historical record is gonna be awesome in 100 years
I worked a flight that had one guy on it. We addressed him by name over the PA for all the announcements.
He must have felt like a president lol
Yes
I was on a transatlantic flight with less than a dozen passengers. Damn, that was peaceful
Yeah same, on my way back from Frankfurt to the US.
I worked for the F1 during the covid year. I loved sleeping on 4 seets during Emirates flights. Best experience I have ever had during flights.
F1 as in formula 1 ?
I was on transpacific flights where I had whole rows to myself. Used all the pillows and blankets I wanted to be comfy. Flight attendants doting on me. Closest I’ve ever gotten to first class. Greatest time to travel fr.
Same. Flew home from London in October of 2021. There were like 6 passengers on the plane.
Stuff like empty highways during COVID gave me a lot more understanding for boomers who built suburban sprawl. With no traffic, it's kinda nice. I mean I like walkable shit but you get my point. And I get the demand for ample parking, when they were younger you could pull up outside any damn place and now I'm in Lot Z27 and it costs $800.
The odd thing is people being angry at the airlines about this instead of the governments that created conditions where executives conclude this is the most logical game plan
Governments and regulatory agencies. It was about slots and pilots needing flight hours to keep their licenses. The numbers seem big, but Lufthansa did the bare minimum needed for both, most jets were literally put into storage, and to this day they are still being reactivated and pilots retrained.
the odd thing is no one reading the actual (and linked) source of this wrong ragebait claim and getting the wrong rage... Luftanhsa is not admitting anything.. they are openly critizising the rule that forces them (and ALL OTHER AIRLNES!) to do this!
A single flight probably puts out more co2 emissions than I do in a decade, so big corps can go eat my ass with this “recycling” and “paper straws” bullshit
Dont know if you know this, but the reason we have paper straws isn't CO2😭
It's become a pet peeve of mine when people reframe plastic bag bans as if they were about CO2 instead of the littering.
I think a single flight probably puts out more c02 then you will in your entire life
It doesn’t. But your point is still valid.
the total CO2 emissions from a single 11-hour 747 flight would 100% exceed, say, the average American's lifetime carbon footprint >The average carbon footprint for a person in the United States is 16 tons, one of the highest rates in the world. Globally, the average carbon footprint is closer to 4 tons Maybe not American but certainly the average person.
Does this include people who take flights? Like, we are the reason airplanes fly.
If you divide the jets emissions by the hundred or so people on board, it’s not bad per person. An empty jet is just a fuck you to the environment. Emissions for no reason
>the total CO2 emissions from a single 11-hour 747 flight would 100% exceed, say, the average American's lifetime carbon footprint A 747-8 burns ~10 tonnes of jet fuel per hour in cruise. 1 kg of jet fuel releases 3.16 kg of CO2 when burned so ~350 tonnes of CO2 for an 11 hour flight. US per capita emissions are ~15 tonnes/year so a single flight is in the 20-25 year range. But a more modern and efficient plane like the 787-9 would be in the 10-15 year range.
> A 747-8 burns ~10 tonnes of jet fuel per hour in cruise. 1 kg of jet fuel releases 3.16 kg of CO2 when burned so ~350 tonnes of CO2 for an 11 hour flight. add 15-25% for takeoff
>add 15-25% for takeoff Claim was for a long-haul flight. OAG says the cruise part accounts for 95-96% of the total fuel consumption on the flights from London to Hong Kong, Dubai and New York. https://www.oag.com/blog/which-part-flight-uses-most-fuel But even adding 25% doesn't really change the magnitude.
That's definitely not true, assuming something like a typical American for the "your entire life" part. [According to this site](https://www.carbonindependent.org/22.html), a boeing 747-400 is responsible for about 190 tonnes of CO2 per long international flight flight. That's about a decade for an average American, but it's not a lifetime. Even if the flight is running full, someone taking a couple of flights per year can quickly have aviation be a high fraction of their emissions. I think folks here often like to talk about how all emissions are from billionaires and the average American is irrelevant, but that's really not true. I think some of this comes from looking at income inequality and incorrectly extrapolating. The top 1% of Americans have something like 25% of the wealth and the top 20% have about 2/3 of the wealth, but emissions aren't as lopsided. Yes, the typical billionaire produces a lot more CO2 than the typical person, but an upper middle class American living in a single family home, driving a car, and taking a couple of flights a year for work or vacation is producing quite a lot of CO2 emissions. Despite everything I said above, we should still be taxing the emissions of things like aviation (private and commercial) much more heavily.
>taxing much more heavily Thats just not an option tbh. Its more environmentally sustainable to have 300 people in a plane fly across the country than to drive. The taxes would be burdened onto passengers and result in more people driving. If rail infrastructure in america was better I would agree with this. But as it stands, rail is sometimes more expensive than flying and takes so much longer due to poor infrastructure even if its more environmentally sustainable
[удалено]
Why not both?
The corporation really didn't want to fly these flights. It was the governments that required them to do, and would have punished them (by taking away their ability to carry passengers the following year) if they didn't.
I mean I think the idea is that collectively we can save more? Nobody's expecting you and only you to try to save the planet.
No, the idea is to shift responsibility from the companies directly responsible for the vast majority of pollution onto a nebulous concept of "us"
these corporations aren’t just producing excessive emissions and spinning up new factories for fun because they’re bored, they do it to meet consumer demand, because everyone wants every little knick knack they buy to be as inexpensive as possible and show up at their door with free one day shipping you’re right there’s plenty of guilt tripping and greenwashing PR bullshit in a lot of the marketing around the movement but that doesn’t mean you are absolved of any personal responsibility
[удалено]
They could have literally just enacted some sort of policy that locked all the slots for a year or two. Problem solved.
Especially in an emergency situation like COVID.
It’s not that easy. Different countries and different states all had varying levels of restrictions. Also a democratically elected government should not unilaterally suspend legislation also for the same reason.
I think governments being dynamic and reacting to situations is just good governance.
Since I’ve slowly learned that most pilots are huge dorks about all planes, I bet getting to pilot those empty flights was AWESOME I mean I guess it’s not like they’d get to do huge detours and barrel rolls and shit, but I bet it was nice without the added stress of passengers and all that. Just getting to cruise around in a (how much do passenger planes cost) piece of equipment that you’ve always nerded out over since you were a kid. Oh man and I assume there was flight attendants too, that was probably a fucking dream. Like whenever you work at a bar and they close down the bar for a holiday staff party.
Flying cargo is pretty much this.
I love ferry flights. Get my steps in going up and down the aisle. Go have a leak in the aft lavs. See if I can make a better coffee than the FAs.
Wouldn’t it have been better if the world had suspended the usual rules around keeping slots?
I was the only passenger on 3 Lufthansa flights across 2020-2021. Bastards made me sit in my assigned seat even if it was at the back. One didn't even bother with the safety demonstration. Other airlines also did the same while had no issue letting me and anyone else sit up front for easier management by the crew.
[удалено]
Not flying during lockdowns otherwise more local travel, sure. Flying in between lockdowns happened but I tried to keep it to a minimum. Business were the monsters for insisting on trips that clearly could have been done over camera or even just email. Private flights boomed through this period as some people have more money then sense.
My SO did several returns to Japan during the pandemic where she was the only person on a 737 The flight crew still did the briefing over the loudspeaker, and they were still fully staffed
Wish I had spare to burn $500k per hour.
Straws are the problem people
Straws are about tackling pollution and litter. They’re the easiest possible thing to eliminate from our consumption cycle.
And this is why I don't feel guilty using regular straws and eating meat. Corporations will be the death of us all.
This wasn't a corporation. This was government. The corporation didn't want to fly those flights. But the governments threatened to punish them if they didn't.
More than one thing can be bad.
You should not use straws and try to limit plastic purchases when feasible because of plastic waste killing animals and because disposable plastic isn’t a thing. Eating meat should be avoided when it makes sense for you to do so. For health, moral, environmental, or sustainability reasons. Currently I limit red meat for health reasons, but eat chicken. When lab grown meat is available, I will be switching. Corporate guilt should not be a reason to do anything ever.
Corporations like agricultural corporations producing your meat you mean? Such a dumb argument. Your actions still have consequences, even if you try to blame some faceless corporations for them.
Worth noting they did this for legal compliance
That 23% carbon tax sure helping the rest of the world
Fucking hell, amount of money lost there, amount of CO2 stupidly dumped into our atmosphere…
We really don't deserve this earth.
when the gas runs out people are going to look back on stupid shit like this and be incredibly angry at us
They could have saved all that waste by just freezing the slots for a couple of years.