[Amaru]

Originally Posted by tool001

lol, this doesn't hold up now a days, as most airlines over sell flights. and a are pretty bitchy if u take those premium seats without paying. this was valid maybe 4-10 years ago..

Nonsense. Last I heard, the average was around 80% of capacity for North American carriers. That's 1 in 5 seats that are unfilled, on average... for large aircraft, that could be 75 seats left empty. Even on smaller planes, or when the plane is nearly full, there's a decent chance that one of the half dozen empty seats will be better than your assigned seat.

Occupancy varies dramatically be season (ie. fly to North Dakota in winter and you're the only one on the plane; fly to Hawaii at Spring Break and you'll be packed in that plane like canned sardines).

It also varies by airline. Charter operators like AirTransat and Condor -- as well as low-cost carriers like Southwest and EasyJet -- will pack every flight to the brim, because that's their business model: high passenger volumes, low overhead costs, and low margins. Legacy carriers tend to have higher margins per passenger (especially global ones like Emirates and Singapore) so they can still run in the black with only half the seats filled, while charter and low-cost carriers will lost money if they leave just a handful of seats unsold.

(If you are flying a low-cost airline, the tips I dished out in the OP are far less helpful, although they have worked a few times for me with charters.)

It varies by destination. Have you ever flown to a smaller city that really sucks?? These low-volume routes used to be served by national carriers like Air Canada simply because someone needed to provide a scheduled flight in and out of the town, but no company would willingly accept the route because it was a dog that could never be profitable. Not sure if this is still the case, but certainly the desirability of the destination his a big impact on how full the planes are on that route. Sometimes, for whatever reason, airlines choose (or are told to) serve routes that they can't fill.

Certain airports are also way more expensive and challenging to fly into (ie. a slot at Tokyo Haneda might cost $1mil initially and then tens of thousands of dollars per aircraft movement, whereas you might get a parking spot at Abbotsford Int'l in exchange for a dime bag). So the savings you gain from landing at a crap airport means you can fly with your planes less full.

And, finally, sometimes a carrier may serve a route just to feed passengers into the airline hub where they can profit from that passenger's connecting flights. This is extremely common with US legacy carriers, who love to send you to their big hubs via half-empty regional airline flights and then stuff you into large planes on high-profit hub-to-hub routes.

It varies by aircraft. Some planes cost more to fly than others. Quad engine jets, for example, are dying off quickly thanks to twin engine jets being able to offer equal performance at a lower fuel cost. Similarly, an A380 carrying 500 people has a far better 'economy of scale' than a Regional Jet would, meaning higher profits per head and less need for the airline to jam-pack each flight in order to break even.

It varies by flight duration. Commercial aircraft burn ridiculous amounts of fuel to reach cruising speed and altitude, as is the descent and landing proces. But modern airplanes are actually quite efficient when maintaining a constant high-altitude route, so the longer the route, the lower their fuel costs per mile travelled. It should come as no surprise that the world's most profitable airlines -- Qantas, Singapore, Emirates, etc -- dominate the long-haul Pacific routes.

Also, weight is a huge factor in aviation, and removing half the passengers on a plane could cut fuel burn by 20% or more. They may still be losing money on the flight, but they save on fuel, bringing it closer to the break-even point.

It varies by scheduling. Airlines only make money when their planes are flying, so most of their in-service aircraft will be operating many hours each day. The schedules of major airlines are developed by complex computer programs and mathematical algorithms, and aircraft are all over the map (literally) in a given week. That flight you just took to Chicago? Yeah, it probably started the day in Sacramento and made stops in Phoenix and Denver before your leg.

As a result of this complex scheduling, some routes are consistently nearly empty, because the other legs of that plane's schedule are profitable enough to compensate for the losses suffered in the low-demand transit routes. Or, along the same lines, a plane that's far too big for route A (and thus only half full) may be used because the next leg of its journey it will be packed to the brim. Same applies to return trips, where sometimes all the traffic is going one direction but the plane needs to make the return trip anyway but can't reach capacity on that half of the trip.

It varies by cargo. Commercial airlines carry a major portion of all freight moved by air around the world. If your airplanes regularly carry lots of cargo on a route, then you don't have to pack them as full with people to be profitable. Less cargo = less money = need more full planes.

It varies by ticket price. This is a tough one to judge, but generally speaking, commercial aviation demand is driven strictly by price. Buy the third-cheapest ticket on a given route (at an extra $40 per ticket, for example) and odds are good you'll see some empty seats. Book the dirt cheap flights, then you'll be joining the bargain-hunting masses.

Anyway, not sure why the fuck I just wrote all that ^^.... but your statement was quite inaccurate, as I think I have proven.