[HN Gopher] Qatar Airways flying near-empty planes in Australia ...
___________________________________________________________________
Qatar Airways flying near-empty planes in Australia to exploit
legal loophole
Author : isaacfrond
Score : 86 points
Date : 2023-10-02 13:09 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| civilized wrote:
| The problem here is more "no price on carbon emissions" than
| "people game regulations" in my opinion.
| phantom784 wrote:
| I'm not sure how that would help here. The costs of tickets
| would go up proportionally, but the incentives to run the ghost
| flights would still be there.
| civilized wrote:
| It would make ghost flights more costly. This cost can't be
| recouped by increasing ticket prices because almost no one is
| on these flights, and it's unlikely that the few who take
| them will accept arbitrarily large fares.
| phantom784 wrote:
| The ghost flight already loses money. It exists to enable
| the flight to Melbourne to exist - it is essentially an
| additional cost to run that flight.
|
| The increased cost would be passed on to the ticket prices
| of the Melbourne flight. The ghost flight would only be
| eliminated if the increased prices lower demand enough that
| the Melbourne flight (including the cost of running the
| ghost flight after it) becomes unprofitable.
| civilized wrote:
| From what I can see here, we agree that carbon pricing
| would make it harder to run ghost flights, it's just we
| can't be sure whether it would become impossible. That
| depends on the details.
|
| But going back to my OP, I'm not that interested in ghost
| flights per se. I'm interested in the unnecessary CO2
| they emit, and even there, mainly as a symptom of the
| broader problem of an unregulated, untaxed externality. I
| think this is the real reason to care about ghost
| flights.
|
| Someone could also care about ghost flights out of
| aesthetic opposition to waste or regulatory arbitrage,
| but I'm not interested in that.
| adamsb6 wrote:
| Is that even a loophole? "You only get 28 flights with a final
| destination of Melbourne, and no cap on flights connecting
| through it" seems like it was designed to encourage this
| behavior.
| mannykannot wrote:
| It's a loophole, without any intent to encourage such behavior,
| if one of these rules was approved without anyone involved in
| the approval noticing that an existing rule allowed an
| exploitable workaround, or if it was assumed it would not be
| taken.
|
| A great many security breaches and other errors come about this
| way, and one cannot automatically assume intent from it
| happening, though one can ask "what were you thinking?" if the
| possibility was noticed but dismissed.
| ctippett wrote:
| All airports have capacity constraints, there's the limit to how
| many planes can take-off/land, but also with how many gates and
| maintenance facilities they have. I actually support the idea of
| shifting some of this capacity to nearby airports, especially if
| it results in lower fares for passengers.
|
| If I'm generous with their intentions, Australia were probably
| trying encourage tourism to smaller cities, bring business to
| local economies, increase competition on quieter routes, etc.
| Unfortunately it seems Qatar thought it easier/cheaper to fly the
| last leg empty instead of marketing tickets to the final
| destination.
|
| For what it's worth, I actually flew London-Melbourne-Adelaide
| earlier this year. I booked a separate flight for MEL-ADL since
| it was cheaper than booking the whole trip through a single
| carrier.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Besides the environmental impact, I worry about these rules
| around "keeping slots" impacting competitiveness of the market.
| It sounds like incumbents keeping a slot is the default. How can
| a new competitor come in, be innovative and put real pressure on
| incumbents? Does this slot system make that easier or harder?
| curiousObject wrote:
| > _it's on the aviation industry to rethink its policies on how
| airlines can keep their airport slots without causing further
| damage to the planet_
|
| With insane regulations, like those that forced airlines to
| schedule tens of thousands of empty flights to keep their airport
| slots during Covid?
|
| No, it's on regulators, not on the industry
|
| > _Lufthansa said it ran 18,000 empty flights in the winter of
| 2021-2022 to ensure it didn't lose lucrative deals that gave its
| planes spots at major airports._
| runarberg wrote:
| I agree this is on regulators, but you are still victimizing
| the exploiter. Nobody forced the airline to do this, rather
| they found this loophole and decided to exploit it. It is
| entirely their fault as the primary actor.
|
| Of course you can also blame regulators for not being thorough
| enough (but honestly I would rather blame a lack of carbon
| pricing here)
| gruez wrote:
| >but honestly I would rather blame a lack of carbon pricing
| here
|
| Why? Even if there was a carbon tax, and the carbon tax fully
| covered the cost of the the carbon emissions, the regulation
| in question is still actively harmful. It's encouraging
| resources to be used for no useful purpose, no different than
| regulation that encourages people to dig holes only to have
| them be filled back.
| rhaps0dy wrote:
| The price of flights to Melbourne has to be _very_ high to
| make it profitable to also fly to Adelaide with <10% seats.
| You could say the people really demanded it.
|
| I agree that this loophole should be closed, but maybe the
| way to close it is to just allow flights? I don't have a
| strong take, the original regulation must have been put into
| place for some reason; but it has a very real cost (which the
| passengers are happy to pony up for).
| flandish wrote:
| > deals
|
| This is the problem. Capitalism will always choose "deals" and
| profit over important priorities like the environment and
| worker pay, safety, and lives.
|
| I say, instead of less regulation, we nationalize all airline
| industry. Pull profit out of the equation.
| fallingknife wrote:
| You want to solve the problem of stupid rules and procedures
| that result in massive inefficiency by putting _government
| bureaucrats_ in charge?
| alexb_ wrote:
| > Capitalism will always choose "deals" and profit over
| important priorities like the environment and worker pay,
| safety, and lives.
|
| > I say, instead of less regulation, we nationalize all
| airline industry. Pull profit out of the equation.
|
| Humans do not give a shit about anything other than their own
| incentives. Yes, even you and me. If you hand control to
| politicians, people will still act according to their
| incentives. There is absolutely nothing about capitalism that
| changes human behavior to be greedy - humans _are_ greedy,
| whether it be for money or for social status.
| [deleted]
| aaomidi wrote:
| > There is absolutely nothing about capitalism that changes
| human behavior to be greedy - humans are greedy, whether it
| be for money or for social status.
|
| For the vast majority of human history, humans have been
| cooperative and not greedy.
|
| You're making a spectacular claim without a source.
|
| There's plenty written on this:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781880/
| gruez wrote:
| >You're making a spectacular claim without a source.
|
| Hilarious since you also made a claim without a source in
| the prior sentence.
| jonhohle wrote:
| We're arguably living in one of the most peaceful periods
| in history[0]. There are wars, but there is literally a
| political body where 193 of 195 countries regularly
| discuss issues with physical violence. Assuming violence
| is a proxy for greed, it's quite a time to be alive
| (we'll see how long it lasts).
|
| 0 - https://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8832311/war-
| casualties-600-yea...
| aaomidi wrote:
| Look at where that graph started.
| isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote:
| So are you.
| runarberg wrote:
| Perhaps you are right, but this point is irrelevant.
| Capitalism incentivizes and rewards this behavior, so you
| can expect more of it. A democratic government has
| different incentives and are rewarded for an entirely
| different set of behaviors.
|
| Capitalism may not change the behavior of a single
| individual. But does certainly put the greediest to the top
| of society, and in aggregate you see more greediness among
| those that have the power to change things.
| gruez wrote:
| >Capitalism incentivizes and rewards this behavior, so
| you can expect more of it. A democratic government has
| different incentives and are rewarded for an entirely
| different set of behaviors.
|
| Wait but is Australia not a democratic government? cue
| the inevitable "but it's not true
| [democracy/communism/capitalism]!"
| runarberg wrote:
| Yes, Australia is a democratic government. I don't
| understand where I'm claiming it isn't. However the
| airline industry is not run by the Australian government,
| instead it is run by a for profit capitalist company (in
| this case the Qatar government), who's intensive is to
| maximize the profit for their shareholder. The
| Austrialian government doesn't even own the majority
| shares of the airline in question.
| amelius wrote:
| Please speak for yourself.
|
| Most people don't want to be assholes. Companies however
| don't care and most of them are acting as assholes.
| jonhohle wrote:
| Unfortunately, the people who weasel their way into
| power, more often than not, don't have the same
| convictions as you regardless of whether it's private or
| public sector.
|
| At least I don't have to be a customer of the private
| sector. Once things are nationalized, the same jerks are
| running the show based on incentives that are only
| aligned with their own prosperity, but now impact an
| entire constituency. Every time you hear a public servant
| talk about a problem with metrics that make no sense to
| solving the actual issues, their incentives become more
| obvious.
| amelius wrote:
| There's one difference though: in the case of public
| servants, we (the electorate) still have power over them.
| gruez wrote:
| 1. how well did that work in 2016?
|
| 2. Companies are also subject to laws and regulations,
| which are enacted by public servants
| fallingknife wrote:
| Then why is it that when I had a problem with the IRS
| that it was an absolute nightmare to solve. Even getting
| a person on the phone was difficult. But when I have a
| problem with an Amazon order, I can get a refund in a few
| clicks.
|
| Turns out my power to choose to not be a customer gives
| me infinitely more power over a company than my right to
| vote gives me over a company.
| amelius wrote:
| Did you write a letter to the ombudsman?
|
| Anyway, the rule of law should protect individual
| citizens. Government institutions or officials shouldn't
| get special treatment or protection. In case they do,
| then _there 's_ your problem. Not with the government
| entirely, but with the legislative branch (which
| companies are also subjected to).
| fallingknife wrote:
| The people making the rules will always get special
| treatment because having the power to make the rules
| requires having the power to grant oneself special
| treatment under them. And for the same reason, this is
| not a problem solvable by rules.
|
| I don't care that Jeff Bezos gets better customer service
| from Amazon than me, or that some senators son can pick
| up the phone and talk to the head of the IRS. What I care
| about is that the service I get from the IRS is horrible
| and the service that I get from Amazon is good.
| xyzelement wrote:
| Will the planes fly?
| vxNsr wrote:
| Ah yes, because operating it as a national service is really
| gonna make it sooo much better...
|
| Removing all incentives is surely gonna make people want to
| do their best.
|
| You know many counties originally had only a single or two
| nationalized airline and all of them were such money drains
| that the governments were all forced to privatize them to
| keep them afloat.
| brvsft wrote:
| The "deal" is mandated by a regulation. These companies
| couldn't choose the deal if the regulation putting forth the
| deal did not exist at all. As a sibling commenter noted,
| people (and organizations) respond to incentives.
|
| When you make a regulation that incentivizes these companies
| to use up slots, they're going to do it simply because they
| know the competition will also do it, and if they do not,
| they lose. These rules were poorly planned, as they did not
| account for the incentives or the unintended consequences in
| the event that these flights did not actually have to occur.
| And after this happens, they're attempting to blame
| businesses for responding to the incentive.
|
| Say I were to go into a crowded room and announce that I will
| give $10,000 to whoever breaks some specific person's nose.
| Who's to blame? Yeah, probably some combination of the people
| who took the money and _especially_ me, who put forward the
| idea or "deal" that resulted in people taking action when
| they otherwise would not have done anything like this.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Or we could tax carbon and internalized the negative
| externality.
|
| If you think that without capitalism we suddenly would take
| care of the environment, compare the destruction of the
| environment in communist countries to capitalist ones. Soviet
| Russia had a "nuclear lake" they just dumped nuclear waste
| into, Bitterfeld in the GDR was known for having it's creeks
| discolored from the chemicals dumped into them, the amount of
| smoke coming out of old, massive rural Chinese factories is
| hard to imagine if you haven't seen it; The Trabant spewed
| out orders of magnitude more exhausted than any western car.
| The problem isn't capitalism, but resource constraints.
| esotericimpl wrote:
| [dead]
| lwhi wrote:
| > According to The National, German airline Lufthansa said it
| ran 18,000 empty flights in the winter of 2021-2022 to ensure
| it didn't lose lucrative deals that gave its planes spots at
| major airports.
|
| This is scandalous.
| phantom784 wrote:
| The airlines should be allowed to pay a fee equivalent to the
| cost of running the flight (or slightly less), rather than
| having to actually fly an empty plane.
| chii wrote:
| But then competitors would say that they would've paid a
| higher fee, in order to take those slots.
|
| So in the end, there would be some bidding, and the cost of
| those slots would increase to their actual value, which
| removes the worth of those slots.
|
| It "solves" the problem, but the airline who currently own
| the slot do not like this solution.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| If the competitor thought they could actually fill the
| flights, they could probably offer slightly less.
| Passengers probably represent a net profit for airports,
| so an airline sitting on slots and not using them
| represents an opportunity cost.
| Retric wrote:
| The 80/20 use-it-or-lose-it rule was relaxed in March 2020 in
| the US. Various countries handled things differently.
|
| Airports and airlines are different industries. The Airports
| very much want companies to give up slots if they're not going
| to fly those routes. As such these regulations are more a
| compromise between groups than something external.
| NeoTar wrote:
| > "no ticket sales were permitted for domestic passengers to
| board the plane from Melbourne to Adelaide"
|
| Isn't that relatively normal? I mean I think there are plenty of
| circumstances where an airline is permitted to fly
| internationally to a country, but it not permitted to operate
| (i.e sell tickets for) internal routes.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Yes - it's relatively normal - consecutive cabotage (aka
| "eighth freedom") means carrying passengers or cargo between
| two places in another country having started (or intending to
| end) the flight in your own country. So the MEL-ADL leg would
| have DOH-DEL-ADL would be an example of that for a Qatari flag
| carrier.
|
| Cabotage as a whole is pretty unusual outside of integrated
| aviation markets like Europe. I would be very surprised if
| Qatar and Australia had an agreement that permitted it. In that
| absence of such an agreement, it would probably be illegal for
| QR to sell those tickets.
| kalleboo wrote:
| These rules are called the Freedoms of the air if you want to
| read more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedoms_of_the_air
| rootsudo wrote:
| Very normal, it's protectionism so that local carriers e.g.
| quantas/jetstar have those locked down and not have foreign
| competition. Though Jet star is partially owned/operated by JAL
| and Quantas.
| stephen_g wrote:
| That last bit isn't correct, Jetstar itself is a wholly owned
| subsidiary of Qantas. There is a smaller and separate
| 'Jetstar Japan' (a bit more than a quarter of the fleet size)
| that is partly owned by Qantas along with JAL and some other
| groups (including Mitsubishi Corporation) but that airline
| only flies domestically in Japan and internationally to a few
| countries in the area (Hong Kong, Phillipines, China,
| Taiwan).
| isaacfrond wrote:
| tl;dr
|
| For example, one flight from Doha, Qatar, to Melbourne had an
| additional stop in the Australian city of Adelaide, which was
| registered as the final destination. Passengers would disembark
| the aircraft in Melbourne, but a few would remain in the terminal
| to make the final leg to Adelaide. (...)
|
| In this case, Qatar Airways was making these extra journeys to
| avoid caps that allow it to make only 28 weekly trips to
| Australia's major airports, which includes Melbourne. Landing at
| Adelaide Airport, which is not among that list, as the final
| destination enabled the airline to make additional journeys to
| Melbourne, as there were no limits on flights to non-major
| airports.
| daft_pink wrote:
| They are turning the international air travel treaty on it's
| head. This is the country's regulators fault not the carriers
| fault.
|
| Australia bans carriers from flying domestic flights to protect
| their local carriers, but international carriers are allowed to
| make one connecting flight by treaty all over the world.
|
| Presumably the flights are profitable or they wouldn't run them,
| but it's Australia's fault that you can't buy a ticket not the
| airline's fault.
| demondemidi wrote:
| Loopholes are both parties' fault. The regulators for
| forgetting or lacking foresight. And the perp's for being
| slimy. Unfortunately being slimy isn't illegal.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| I don't think optimizing revenues legally is slimy. If flying
| from wherever to Adelaide with a stop in Melbourne where most
| people deplane is both legal and profitable I'd hardly
| consider them slimy for doing it. Stupid regulations like the
| one necessitating this drive costs up for passengers.
| fallingknife wrote:
| This practice is not slimy by the airline because everyone is
| getting exactly what they paid for. The passengers to
| Melbourne are getting a flight to Melbourne. The passengers
| to Adelaide are getting a flight to Adelaide.
|
| The government is getting the industry protection from
| international competition that it wanted by banning the
| airlines from selling flights from Melbourne to Adelaide to
| fill the seats.
|
| The airline wants to minimize empty seats and the government
| wants to allow domestic airlines to extract excess profit by
| protecting domestic airlines from competition but DGAF about
| empty seats. Therefore it is the governments fault that there
| are empty seats.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Only part I don't understand is why not sell tickets if you're
| making that flight anyway? There are several direct flights
| between those two cities every day so there's at least some
| demand. Some people are flying that leg so you're still doing
| all the stuff you do when you do a commercial flight. Surely a
| little extra boarding/deplaning time is worth the fares you'd
| get.
|
| Why not pack the plane and get the sales? I am sure there's a
| reason (it's too obvious to not have occurred to an airline to
| sell tickets on a flight) why they think it's not worth it, I
| am just curious what it is.
| floydian10 wrote:
| I'm guessing they don't need a crew for these ghost flights
| if there are no passengers.
| gruez wrote:
| But the article mentions that there's a few passengers, not
| zero.
| laverya wrote:
| You can't legally sell domestic flights in a foreign country.
| (for these purposes, the EU is one country)
|
| This is true for Australia, for India, for the USA, for the
| EU - an airline like Delta can fly to Sydney from LA but not
| sell domestic flights from Sydney to Melbourne. (Or, for that
| matter, international flights between Sydney and Singapore)
|
| However, there is a catch! Airliners did not used to have
| quite the range they do today, and so the treaties allow
| things like refueling stops. And they (sometimes!) allow
| passengers to embark/disembark at those stops - but those
| passengers still have to be flying the international leg, or
| else it would be a domestic flight.
|
| There's a Wendover video from years ago that's relevant:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thqbjA2DC-E
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Oh I see. So the few people on that last leg are just ones
| who booked a flight to Adelaide and they're not allowed to
| sell more. I did not understand what parent meant about
| that but thanks that makes sense.
| gruez wrote:
| The wording in the article suggests that they're now selling
| tickets
|
| >I mean, they weren't even selling tickets [to Adelaide] for
| the first few weeks. They were taking the p** out of the
| industry and the laws."
|
| which implies after the "first few weeks" they were selling
| tickets
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Right which I took to mean it must be legal since they do
| it now.
| tennis_80 wrote:
| The article says a few passengers continue on to the final
| destination, so they're not saving much in terms of crew /
| logistics.
|
| Maybe it's an attempt to avoid drawing too much attention
| from the regulator? If they started offering internal flights
| in Australia they'd be stepping even more on Qantas toes.
| elmerfud wrote:
| The article seems to believe that only passengers are what fly on
| passenger airplanes. Many times on domestic routes cargo on these
| planes is more valuable than passengers. Occasionally even on
| international routes cargo is more valuable than passengers. I
| don't know about this specific case but clearly they were trying
| to get around the weekly cap but that doesn't mean the additional
| leg was a complete waste of resources because there's value in
| transporting cargo quickly from one area to another.
|
| I was actually taking a Delta flight internationally and they
| were bumping passengers to make room for additional cargo. Due to
| the length of the flight and the takeoff weight restrictions that
| cargo was more valuable than the cheap seats that were paid for.
| gumby wrote:
| The article actually gives a completely different explanation:
| as a loophole to get around the cap on flights to Melb. Which
| is orthogonal to cargo vs passengers.
| kalleboo wrote:
| Don't the freedoms of the air that disallow the foreign airline
| from taking passengers boarding from Melbourne to Adelaide also
| disallow cargo on the same route? It seems unlikely that there
| is that big a discrepancy between passengers and cargo to a
| specific international connecting destination.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedoms_of_the_air#Eighth_fre...
| onionisafruit wrote:
| This page claims that Qatar is facing a backlash but never
| describes any backlash.
| hluska wrote:
| That's because the link points to yahoo.com but the actual
| source is the Guardian. I can't prove this but I suspect that
| yahoo.com uses a very primitive LLM to summarize articles from
| other pubs.
|
| Here is the guardian story. There are paragraphs about the
| backlash:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/09/ghost-flights-...
|
| As kind of a general rule, if you see yahoo.com dig for the
| source publication and then google:
|
| Source_publication + yahoos_title
| expertentipp wrote:
| They literally prefer to fly empty jets than to fly people
| cheaper. Still caressing your frequent flyer miles?
| toast0 wrote:
| Flying the mostly empty legs allows them to fly more times on
| the routes people want to go. Increasing supply on those routes
| should reduce passenger cost, even if the extra flight
| increases the airline cost.
| CYR1X wrote:
| Question: What's the profitability to passenger ratio
| generally? Like is it linear? If so then this really isn't an
| airline problem it's a policy and customer problem. They are
| offering the flights as they are allowed by policy, which means
| it has to go to Adelaide, but customers don't want to fly
| there, so the plane is largely empty. If the customer demand
| was there then would the airline be so against selling more
| tickets like the article implies?
|
| If it's not linear, and like 30% capacity is less profitable
| than both a full plane or a near empty plane, then sure the
| airline could be abusing policy loopholes. I wonder if the
| policy penalizes cancellations then? Like what if the airline
| wanted to cancel these "ghost flights" for the sake of being
| more green? So they just always canceled the last leg.
| calfuris wrote:
| Not many people want to fly Doha to Melbourne to Adelaide
| with a six hour layover when a direct flight from Doha to
| Adelaide is available.
| [deleted]
| compsciphd wrote:
| wonder what the airline feels about skiplagging? seems very
| similar.
| Zigurd wrote:
| The word "skiplagging" feels like a word coined to make the
| practice seem dubious and plausibly illegal. Like "jaywalking."
|
| Airlines exploit their customers, fail to disclose customer
| rights, and bend laws to their convenience all the time. The
| public would lose nothing if airlines were not bailed out every
| time there is a crisis. All the assets: The planes, the pilots,
| etc. could be subsidized through a crisis and acquired by new
| airlines and those wise enough to be be to survive a crisis.
| TBTF and "flag carriers" are welfare capitalism.
| Havoc wrote:
| This undermines entire public mindset too.
|
| I've seen multiple instance of memes on social media along the
| lines of "1000s empty flights. Good thing I recycled that empty
| tomato can!".
| Simulacra wrote:
| Hollywood celebrities do this, Michael Bloomberg does this,
| they preach environmentalism and then get in their private
| jets, and fly around the world.
| hfuyf65 wrote:
| That is ok though. He offset ( current magic word indicating
| its all good ).
| cmiller1 wrote:
| Seems like a poor argument against environmentalism though.
| "That guy who said we should be nice to each other was mean
| to someone! Therefore being nice is stupid and we should
| all be as cruel as possible!"
| hfuyf65 wrote:
| You are right about the argument in itself. It is poor.
| But the argument is not in meat of the argument, but in
| optics. The perception of things as 'rules for me but not
| for thee' almost immediately overrules even basic logic.
| In other words, make pain even across the board and
| people might listen.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| You're speaking from the perspective of someone for whom
| the virtue of making personal sacrifices for
| environmental reasons is already obvious. Try putting
| yourself in the shoes of someone who doubts this. To
| those people, rich jetset climate activists come across
| like politicians who agitate against gay people then get
| caught having anonymous gay sex in airport bathrooms.
| Their hypocrisy is seen to invalidate the authenticity of
| their message.
| brookst wrote:
| This doesn't bother me as much as it seems to bother others.
| I guess I just never got into the "only people who never do
| something wrong can advocate against wrongdoing" mindset.
|
| Is it hypocritical? Sure, though I expect he has lots of
| reasons why it's not. But is it better than not even giving
| lip service to the issue? Sure it is. But the fact that
| action isn't _good enough_ doesn't mean it's _bad_.
| josephcsible wrote:
| No, it is bad. He's basically saying "you peasants should
| give up the little you have so that we can save the planet
| without me having to give up anything".
| gruez wrote:
| I agree that the optics of that situation aren't great, but
| what would you rather have him do? _not_ preach
| environmentalism? If all rich people are chastised for
| supporting environmental movements, isn 't that going to be
| worse for the environmental movement as a whole? The ideal
| scenario is that rich people both preach environmentalism and
| move to a zero impact permaculture commune, but that's not an
| unrealistic expectation. We can barely get environmental
| measures passed today, and that's with billionaires
| supporting the movement. I doubt shaming billionaires for
| supporting the movement is going to make things better.
| krisoft wrote:
| > what would you rather have him do?
|
| Not fly with a private jet? It is not an unrealistic
| expectation. Plenty of people manage to not fly with
| private jets on the regular.
| RobKohr wrote:
| The rich have both security and privacy concerns that
| make regular air travel problematic. Bill Gates sitting
| in an airport terminal is a danger to him, those around
| him, and is also a hassle to him and those around him.
|
| There is the secondary factor of their time being too
| valuable as well, and having a direct flight to anywhere
| in the world making a big difference in how much time
| they spend.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| I promise you Michael Bloomberg's time is not more
| valuable than anyone else on planet Earth, I don't care
| how big his bank account is.
|
| This is just-so reasoning.
| gruez wrote:
| The core problem is that you're making it harder to be an
| environment supporter. It's the equivalent telling the
| average Joe that if he supports the environment but still
| eats meat daily he's a hypocrite and should feel bad. The
| environmental impact of raising meat is well known, so
| advocating for environmental measures while not taking
| the trivial effort of not eating meat one day per week is
| pretty hypocritical as well. I'm not sure about you, but
| I'd rather have as broad support base as possible to get
| environmental measures promoted and passed, than a
| smaller group of diehard activists each trying to police
| each other on ideological purity.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > would you rather have him do?
|
| Fly commercial instead of private.
| currymj wrote:
| some combination of using aviation biofuel (which in
| principle can be produced in a nearly carbon-neutral way)
| and buying non-fake carbon offsets (i.e., actually taking
| physical carbon out of the air) would probably be good
| enough.
|
| this would further absurdly increase the cost of operating
| a private jet, but billionaires could still afford it.
| danaris wrote:
| Turn that around.
|
| The intention of many of these campaigns (like paper straws and
| paying attention to your individual carbon footprint) is, at
| least in part, to instill the idea that environmentalism should
| be all about individual action, rather than holding large
| companies to account for their role in pollution and
| environmental destruction.
|
| Recycling at a personal level is a good idea--but it can only
| ever be a small part of a solution, and it also requires that
| recycling be taken seriously by the places that actually take
| the recyclables away--that they genuinely recycle the stuff,
| rather than just sending it to a landfill in some other
| country.
| expertentipp wrote:
| My favourite meme by now is with sad Keanu sitting on the bench
| "that's me looking at a paper straw seeping and turning useless
| while an (almost) empty jet leaves a trail up on the blue sky"
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| I'm doing it again - this is another lazy repackaged piece of
| "journalism". It's a bunch of links to other publications which
| did the actual heavy lifting, with some limp commentary thrown
| in. The "Bloomberg reported" link doesn't even go to the
| Bloomberg story (it goes to the Guardian... because its actually
| from the Guardian). The "according to Greenpeace" bit also
| straight up quotes it wrong (Yahoo says Greenpeace says yearly
| ghost flights cause pollution equivalent to 1.4 million cars, the
| Greenpeace headline says yearly ghost flights _in the EU_ cause
| pollution equivalent to 1.4 million cars).
|
| It's also funny because by fusing together a bunch of semi-
| unrelated stories, you end up bizarre combinations. The majority
| of the article isn't about airlines flying empty flights to keep
| their slots, it's about Qatar straight up avoiding taking up
| 'slots' (of sorts), but the call to action is about slot
| preserving ghost flights.
|
| Finally, it's a completely limp call to action, because the
| obvious solution (increase carbon taxes) is almost certainly
| unpalatable to the typical target audience of this article.
| esotericimpl wrote:
| [dead]
| hluska wrote:
| Would you mind humouring me for a moment? I have a strong
| suspicion (that I can't prove) that this article was created by
| a primitive LLM.
|
| I believe that because:
|
| 1.) The article presents 'facts' that are completely wrong with
| complete confidence. This alone really seriously smells like an
| LLM.
|
| 2.) Those 'facts' are based off of misread quotes from the
| source pubs. The misreading seems to relate back to words being
| removed entirely from analysis or else assigned the wrong
| definition.
|
| I see few signs of human intelligence. What do you think? And
| for fun, assume the LLM is an adversary. How do we beat it?
| dang wrote:
| Yes, https://news.yahoo.com/major-airline-faces-backlash-
| using-22... was quite a crap article. I've changed the URL
| above to the guardian.com report it points to.
|
| Submitters: " _Please submit the original source. If a post
| reports on something found on another site, submit the latter._
| " - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| pdx_flyer wrote:
| All while Qantas exploits their near monopoly over the market.
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