Why Heathrow Airport Had Empty Flights to Nowhere
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited to show that empty slot-keeping flights predate COVID and Lufthansa's recent practice.
What it is
Half as Interesting explains why airlines flew empty 'ghost flights' out of Heathrow to keep their landing slots under use-it-or-lose-it rules.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2020 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Cites gh02t · 2020-01 · on “If Everyone Hates Spirit Airlines, How Is It Making So Much Money?”
Probably filling seats on unpopular routes that they would have to fly anyway. Perhaps in a similar situation to what's described in [this video] , where an airline was flying empty planes to hold their slot at Heathrow.
Cites scrollaway · 2020-03 · on “Airlines flying empty planes to keep flight slots during coronavirus outbreak”
Yep. Featured on HAI a year ago, it's not a new practice it's just been exacerbated due to COVID-19. [this video]
Cites lathiat · 2022-01 · on “Lufthansa confirmed that 18k flights had been flown empty to keep slots”
This existed pre-COVID but is more of a thing now. See Half as Interesting - Why Heathrow Airport Had Empty Flights to Nowhere (3 years ago, pre-covid) [this video] RealLifeLore2 also covered the same topic as the original submission: [LINK]