Inside the Airline Industry's Meltdown
September 29, 2020 5:19 AM Subscribe
In a year of boneyards and bails outs - Guardian longread recounting the immediate problems facing the airline industry in 2020 and looking at how flight trends may change as a result.
The "boneyard" is a vivid image in Don DeLillo's Underworld. Of course those planes are painted in brilliant colors as part of an art project. This is a closer look at the biggest one in the world.
posted by chavenet at 6:27 AM on September 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 6:27 AM on September 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
Very good details here.
For emissions context - the carbon price impact of taxing emissions consistent with net zero by 2050 would add £30 to £60 to the cost of a flight London-NYC in the 2020s rising to about £100 to pay for negative emissions in the 2040s onwards. If you're thinking, "that sounds a lot easier than converting planes to run on hydrogen," that's because you get a tremendous bang for your carbon taxation buck on things like home insulation, wind turbines lower on the marginal abatement curve.
posted by atrazine at 7:01 AM on September 29, 2020 [8 favorites]
For emissions context - the carbon price impact of taxing emissions consistent with net zero by 2050 would add £30 to £60 to the cost of a flight London-NYC in the 2020s rising to about £100 to pay for negative emissions in the 2040s onwards. If you're thinking, "that sounds a lot easier than converting planes to run on hydrogen," that's because you get a tremendous bang for your carbon taxation buck on things like home insulation, wind turbines lower on the marginal abatement curve.
posted by atrazine at 7:01 AM on September 29, 2020 [8 favorites]
The pattern planes make parked in a boneyard is very pleasing to look at. I imagine future archeologists, after a post-apocalypse era so long that flight has been forgotten, finding one and trying to imagine what it is—these odd-shaped structures, arranged in a careful pattern, full of the tattered remains of seats all facing the same direction. Did they have a ritual use? Were they, somehow, homes? How could the surrounding area support a population so large? A great mystery for future civilizations.
I appreciated the detail in this piece as well. As with many other things, I am curious to see how the pandemic changes, or doesn't, our behavior afterward. I have friends in Canada who love to travel who will be, I imagine, first in line for a European vacation, but it will be interesting to see if, as the article mentions, businesses do cut back. As impossible as it is to predict the course and end of the pandemic, it is just as impossible to imagine the aftermath—and just as impossible to resist trying anyway.
I just read Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, which has a very good, evocative scene that takes place on the day before Britain declared war on Germany in WWII. The feeling of knowing that everything is going to change, and they don't know exactly how, and they don't know for how long, was very strongly evoked, and felt kind of familiar. Likewise, I felt like I had a new sympathy for characters living through the Blitz, trapped in this excruciating new normal with no idea when it will end. (At the same time, I was grateful that our strange new normal is at least better than nightly bombardment.)
posted by Orlop at 7:16 AM on September 29, 2020 [10 favorites]
I appreciated the detail in this piece as well. As with many other things, I am curious to see how the pandemic changes, or doesn't, our behavior afterward. I have friends in Canada who love to travel who will be, I imagine, first in line for a European vacation, but it will be interesting to see if, as the article mentions, businesses do cut back. As impossible as it is to predict the course and end of the pandemic, it is just as impossible to imagine the aftermath—and just as impossible to resist trying anyway.
I just read Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, which has a very good, evocative scene that takes place on the day before Britain declared war on Germany in WWII. The feeling of knowing that everything is going to change, and they don't know exactly how, and they don't know for how long, was very strongly evoked, and felt kind of familiar. Likewise, I felt like I had a new sympathy for characters living through the Blitz, trapped in this excruciating new normal with no idea when it will end. (At the same time, I was grateful that our strange new normal is at least better than nightly bombardment.)
posted by Orlop at 7:16 AM on September 29, 2020 [10 favorites]
As with many other things, I am curious to see how the pandemic changes, or doesn't, our behavior afterward.
I can see one of two scenarios happening. The first is the mundane one - as soon as the danger of pandemic has past, life goes basically back to the way it was. It may take a few years, but people will start to relax, executives will start wondering aloud "How come I can't see my employees working," office buildings will fill back up, and travel will resume as usual. There will probably be a minor impact to leisure travel as folks who could maybe afford to fly to visit family once a year have become victims of another recession and lose even more discretionary income and probably never fully recover from the financial toll the pandemic caused.
Second scenario, much less likely - complete bifurcation of the air travel system due to the recession causing a further widening of the wealth gap and lingering distrust of public spaces. People who used to fly first class instead will charter private aircraft, and there will be growth in the "air taxi" segment. Small jets that seat 6-12 can take small numbers of strangers to a common destination, but it's going to be out of reach financially for most people (think $1,000+ to get from New York to Chicago). More airlines remove first class amenities, but the recession causes so much disruption that even efforts like that don't bring coach-paying customers back. People (er, "normal" people) drive where they can or don't travel at all. Like a lot of other aspects of society, the middle of the tourism/travel industry collapses in favor of services that cater to the extremely wealthy or lower income.
Personally, I think with gas prices being historically low and people desperate to return to some semblance of normalcy, once the all clear is sounded there's going to be a fire sale on cheap airline tickets to anywhere and they're going to get gobbled up.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:36 AM on September 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
I can see one of two scenarios happening. The first is the mundane one - as soon as the danger of pandemic has past, life goes basically back to the way it was. It may take a few years, but people will start to relax, executives will start wondering aloud "How come I can't see my employees working," office buildings will fill back up, and travel will resume as usual. There will probably be a minor impact to leisure travel as folks who could maybe afford to fly to visit family once a year have become victims of another recession and lose even more discretionary income and probably never fully recover from the financial toll the pandemic caused.
Second scenario, much less likely - complete bifurcation of the air travel system due to the recession causing a further widening of the wealth gap and lingering distrust of public spaces. People who used to fly first class instead will charter private aircraft, and there will be growth in the "air taxi" segment. Small jets that seat 6-12 can take small numbers of strangers to a common destination, but it's going to be out of reach financially for most people (think $1,000+ to get from New York to Chicago). More airlines remove first class amenities, but the recession causes so much disruption that even efforts like that don't bring coach-paying customers back. People (er, "normal" people) drive where they can or don't travel at all. Like a lot of other aspects of society, the middle of the tourism/travel industry collapses in favor of services that cater to the extremely wealthy or lower income.
Personally, I think with gas prices being historically low and people desperate to return to some semblance of normalcy, once the all clear is sounded there's going to be a fire sale on cheap airline tickets to anywhere and they're going to get gobbled up.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:36 AM on September 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
In both the US and Europe, where growth was already slowing, the prompt and full return of customers isn’t at all a sure thing. This is especially true of business flyers. “Covid gives companies a reason to rethink travel expenses,” said Jeff Pelletier, who runs Airline Data, an analysis firm based in Houston.
My sister-in-law works in sales, and the days of her company (which sells distance-learning tools, so it's boom times for them) sending her all over North America to, in her words, "give a couple of PowerPoint presentations," are done, as I would imagine they are for a lot of business travelers.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:59 AM on September 29, 2020 [8 favorites]
My sister-in-law works in sales, and the days of her company (which sells distance-learning tools, so it's boom times for them) sending her all over North America to, in her words, "give a couple of PowerPoint presentations," are done, as I would imagine they are for a lot of business travelers.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:59 AM on September 29, 2020 [8 favorites]
The 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) boneyard is quite a fun scroll. I like the bits where only the shadows of planes remain.
posted by scruss at 8:00 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by scruss at 8:00 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm intrigued by this group of planes in your link, scruss. They all seem to be falling apart in very precisely the same way, and I can't figure out if they are being disassembled into those pieces or if those are the points of failure / stress in the construction.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:07 AM on September 29, 2020
posted by jacquilynne at 8:07 AM on September 29, 2020
What amazed me in the article was the completely blase - I guess that's Europe, with its reasonable vacation policies - mention of a cheap flight for a "stag weekend in Bratislava" or "the seconds it takes to book a ticket on an app".
When I flew for business, it was planned weeks in advance, to assure compliance with corporate travel policies.
When I've flown for personal travel, it's been planned months in advance!
The idea of travel on a moment's notice is just so foreign to me. I guess I can be smug that my flyover-country insularity, in this case, is better (in terms of damage to the planet) than the elevated personal fulfillment of Europeans?
posted by notsnot at 8:08 AM on September 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
When I flew for business, it was planned weeks in advance, to assure compliance with corporate travel policies.
When I've flown for personal travel, it's been planned months in advance!
The idea of travel on a moment's notice is just so foreign to me. I guess I can be smug that my flyover-country insularity, in this case, is better (in terms of damage to the planet) than the elevated personal fulfillment of Europeans?
posted by notsnot at 8:08 AM on September 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
Jacquilynne, they were most likely partially broken up to save space. They may also have had to be dismantled to some extent specifically to satisfy arms treaties. You'll notice that the tail and wings are all disconnected. On older planes with direct hydraulic control of the control surfaces, you'd need to re-route all fresh lines to get those birds back in flying shape.
posted by notsnot at 8:11 AM on September 29, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by notsnot at 8:11 AM on September 29, 2020 [6 favorites]
jacquilynne, those look to be strategic bombers that have been disassembled in compliance with treaty terms, and have been laid out so they can be seen by Russian satellites to say "look, we have rendered this inoperable and unreparable".
posted by scolbath at 8:11 AM on September 29, 2020 [15 favorites]
posted by scolbath at 8:11 AM on September 29, 2020 [15 favorites]
guess that's Europe, with its reasonable vacation policies - mention of a cheap flight for a "stag weekend in Bratislava" or "the seconds it takes to book a ticket on an app".
A huge part of it is the small size and open borders of the EU. London to Bratislava sounds like an exotic, country hopping vacation to far off lands, but Bratislava is closer to London than St. Louis is to Las Vegas and plenty of people from all over the US go to Las Vegas for the weekend.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:27 AM on September 29, 2020 [21 favorites]
A huge part of it is the small size and open borders of the EU. London to Bratislava sounds like an exotic, country hopping vacation to far off lands, but Bratislava is closer to London than St. Louis is to Las Vegas and plenty of people from all over the US go to Las Vegas for the weekend.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:27 AM on September 29, 2020 [21 favorites]
In Europe, you also have a renaissance in rail travel, partly motivated by awareness of the environmental cost of cheap flights. One consequence of this in the past few years has been an about-turn on overnight trains; a few years ago, they were being scrapped for being economically unviable (Deutsche Bahn abolished its entire CityNightLine service, and France scrapped most if not all of its overnight trains), and now they're being brought back. The Austrian state railway's NightJet service bought up a lot of ex-DB rolling stock and has been expanding anywhere contiguous to Austria, the Netherlands are talking about overnight routes east from Amsterdam, and more recently, Sweden's government (led by Social Democrats, with the green party in the minority) has put out a tender for overnight routes between Stockholm and Hamburg and Malmö and Brussels. (This is distinct from a privately-run service between Stockholm/Malmö and Berlin which is already running, and was going to expand before the 'rona hit.) Meanwhile, there are proposals at the EU level to relaunch the Trans-Europe Express network, which ceased running in the mid-90s. I suspect that, with this and perhaps some building out of high-speed lines, a lot of cheap flight routes won't be coming back.
posted by acb at 8:27 AM on September 29, 2020 [18 favorites]
posted by acb at 8:27 AM on September 29, 2020 [18 favorites]
My sister-in-law works in sales, and the days of her company (which sells distance-learning tools, so it's boom times for them) sending her all over North America to, in her words, "give a couple of PowerPoint presentations," are done, as I would imagine they are for a lot of business travelers.
Can confirm. I work in sales, and while the teams I manage are working within a small geography (usually a state, or part of a state), a fair number of other folks in the org are (or were) your typical high-status road warriors. Jetting in for a 2-hour whiteboard/PPT session is almost certainly a thing of the past. Ditto for 3-day returns to HQ in the PNW "just for meetings" or offsite "management retreats" for the C-suite.
Locally, there is a strong desire to get back to in-person meetings and away from Zooms, but most customers just aren't gathering in offices yet and if they are, they're not allowing outsiders into the building.
posted by jquinby at 8:42 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
Can confirm. I work in sales, and while the teams I manage are working within a small geography (usually a state, or part of a state), a fair number of other folks in the org are (or were) your typical high-status road warriors. Jetting in for a 2-hour whiteboard/PPT session is almost certainly a thing of the past. Ditto for 3-day returns to HQ in the PNW "just for meetings" or offsite "management retreats" for the C-suite.
Locally, there is a strong desire to get back to in-person meetings and away from Zooms, but most customers just aren't gathering in offices yet and if they are, they're not allowing outsiders into the building.
posted by jquinby at 8:42 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
backseatpilot: While I agree the safe bet is that things return to normal since there's a lot of vested interests pushing us toward that, the longer the pandemic extends, the more people are learning new habits and technology. At least in the UK, a lot of offices will be staying shut for another six months, which means an entire year of working from home – or more.
As The Card Cheat says, there's a whole swathe of business travel that will be cut as a result, and I don't know anyone in the business will really regret that. For our part, we used to record a lot of audio in studios in London, and we've been forced to up our remote-recording game in the past few months. It was a steep learning curve but the results are really impressive and there have been some huge benefits, like being able to access a much wider pool of talent, including more diverse actors across the world.
If we stop recording in person, or at least do a lot more remote-recording, that's a lot of trains and hotel rooms and car journeys just vanished.
posted by adrianhon at 8:45 AM on September 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
As The Card Cheat says, there's a whole swathe of business travel that will be cut as a result, and I don't know anyone in the business will really regret that. For our part, we used to record a lot of audio in studios in London, and we've been forced to up our remote-recording game in the past few months. It was a steep learning curve but the results are really impressive and there have been some huge benefits, like being able to access a much wider pool of talent, including more diverse actors across the world.
If we stop recording in person, or at least do a lot more remote-recording, that's a lot of trains and hotel rooms and car journeys just vanished.
posted by adrianhon at 8:45 AM on September 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
For emissions context - the carbon price impact of taxing emissions consistent with net zero by 2050 would add £30 to £60 to the cost of a flight London-NYC in the 2020s rising to about £100 to pay for negative emissions in the 2040s onwards. If you're thinking, "that sounds a lot easier than converting planes to run on hydrogen," that's because you get a tremendous bang for your carbon taxation buck on things like home insulation, wind turbines lower on the marginal abatement curve.
Except we don't have the technology to actually do negative emissions now and we have no idea if we will in 2040. And you can call your carbon tax consistent with whatever you like, but if your tax doesn't actually reduce emissions, then it doesn't actually work and isn't consistent with averting the worst of climate change. Carbon taxes only work if they drive real change on the ground, so if you're whole conceit is doing the exact same thing, but with a carbon tax, then that fundamentally won't work (carbon offsets from planting trees or what not being pretty widely debunked at this point, which is even noted in the article). Carbon taxes are tools, not magical erasers for carbon emissions.
posted by ssg at 8:53 AM on September 29, 2020 [6 favorites]
Except we don't have the technology to actually do negative emissions now and we have no idea if we will in 2040. And you can call your carbon tax consistent with whatever you like, but if your tax doesn't actually reduce emissions, then it doesn't actually work and isn't consistent with averting the worst of climate change. Carbon taxes only work if they drive real change on the ground, so if you're whole conceit is doing the exact same thing, but with a carbon tax, then that fundamentally won't work (carbon offsets from planting trees or what not being pretty widely debunked at this point, which is even noted in the article). Carbon taxes are tools, not magical erasers for carbon emissions.
posted by ssg at 8:53 AM on September 29, 2020 [6 favorites]
the longer the pandemic extends, the more people are learning new habits and technology. At least in the UK, a lot of offices will be staying shut for another six months, which means an entire year of working from home – or more.
I few weeks ago I went on a holiday that involved (smug electric vehicle) drive from Scotland to the south of France and back. It was a great trip - but also 3 days out and 3 days back - which cuts into time on the sun-lounger on a standard length vacation. With a train we could have cut it down to 4 days of travel. With a flight we could have made an early start and arrived for a late breakfast - both ways. With all that in mind there is the idea that the pandemic might act as a catalyst for the encouragement of longer, slower holidays. The Guardian have also written this week about "the Rise of the Half tourist" - who combines a holiday with remote working. At the moment all that sounds very "life of the elite" to me - but circumstances may change to the point where employers would be happy for somebody who only comes into the office occasionally anyway - to de-camp somewhere else for 3 months while continuing to work.
posted by rongorongo at 9:12 AM on September 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
I few weeks ago I went on a holiday that involved (smug electric vehicle) drive from Scotland to the south of France and back. It was a great trip - but also 3 days out and 3 days back - which cuts into time on the sun-lounger on a standard length vacation. With a train we could have cut it down to 4 days of travel. With a flight we could have made an early start and arrived for a late breakfast - both ways. With all that in mind there is the idea that the pandemic might act as a catalyst for the encouragement of longer, slower holidays. The Guardian have also written this week about "the Rise of the Half tourist" - who combines a holiday with remote working. At the moment all that sounds very "life of the elite" to me - but circumstances may change to the point where employers would be happy for somebody who only comes into the office occasionally anyway - to de-camp somewhere else for 3 months while continuing to work.
posted by rongorongo at 9:12 AM on September 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
Jacquilynne, just to add some concrete links, those are B-52 strategic bombers (according to Wikipedia, B-52Gs), and they've been destroyed and visibly displayed to satisfy the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
I used to fly sailplanes out of El Tiro (E68) in the desert north of Tucson. There's another boneyard/maintenance facility at Pinal Airpark just north of Marana, with an interesting history of ties to the intelligence community.
posted by Alterscape at 9:25 AM on September 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
I used to fly sailplanes out of El Tiro (E68) in the desert north of Tucson. There's another boneyard/maintenance facility at Pinal Airpark just north of Marana, with an interesting history of ties to the intelligence community.
posted by Alterscape at 9:25 AM on September 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
Interesting times ahead for aviation. It's possible -- perhaps even likely -- that things bounce back, more or less status quo ante virus five years from now.
But I remember reading in Matt Levine's column a couple of months ago that investment bankers who were road warriors making a two hour presentation in Boston on Monday, Chicago on Tuesday, LA on Wednesday and Dallas on Thursday were forced to work virtually. And they've discovered that while being there in person to see the whites of their eyes is still better than a Zoom call, there's an efficiency in being able to present to Boston at 8 AM, Chicago at 10 AM, Dallas at 1 PM and LA at 4 PM, and tuck your kids into bed that night. And maybe that helps makes up for not seeing the whites of their eyes.
And as the article points out, the front 15% of the plane provides 75% of the revenues. If the business class empties, then the back of the plane needs to ante up more. And while it might be worth it to have your kneecaps crushed to fly to Vegas for $99, once they need to start charging $320 for the flight, people might expect some more creature comforts.
And that gets into other operations. The article talks about the shift from hub-and-spoke to point-to-point as if it's just a decision made by airlines; and it is, in part. But it's also dependent on rising passenger volumes. If you have 200 people a day flying from Portland (PDX) to each of Boston, Philly, Baltimore, DC and 600 to New York, you can do 200 person direct flights to all of those destinations. But if half of your traffic goes away because prices went up and you only have 700 people total flying to the East Coast, you can't support a bunch of half empty flights just because people prefer point-to-point; you keep New York and maybe DC and everybody else has to connect there or somewhere else, like Chicago, to get to their final destination.
The article talks about Atlanta being made a hub just to get Delta more money -- and that's not wrong -- but there's also a shitload of mid-size cities in the southeast, like Asheville and Huntsville and Knoxville and Greensville and Gainesville and both Fayettevilles that just don't have enough passengers to warrant more than a few flights a day and sending them all through Atlanta gets them a one-hop connection to every decent sized city in the US and every major region of the world.
There's positive feedback in shared transportation systems like aviation -- as more people take them, there are more flights which means more frequency or more direct routes. And more frequent, direct service brings more people and the spiral reinforces itself. But it can go the other way, too. Even if you are willing to pay the new, higher price for the flight, the fact that there's no longer a direct (or there used to be three flights a day and now there's one and so you have to stay an extra night) means people will think twice.
Aviation in the future could look increasingly like aviation in the past.
posted by Superilla at 9:30 AM on September 29, 2020 [13 favorites]
But I remember reading in Matt Levine's column a couple of months ago that investment bankers who were road warriors making a two hour presentation in Boston on Monday, Chicago on Tuesday, LA on Wednesday and Dallas on Thursday were forced to work virtually. And they've discovered that while being there in person to see the whites of their eyes is still better than a Zoom call, there's an efficiency in being able to present to Boston at 8 AM, Chicago at 10 AM, Dallas at 1 PM and LA at 4 PM, and tuck your kids into bed that night. And maybe that helps makes up for not seeing the whites of their eyes.
And as the article points out, the front 15% of the plane provides 75% of the revenues. If the business class empties, then the back of the plane needs to ante up more. And while it might be worth it to have your kneecaps crushed to fly to Vegas for $99, once they need to start charging $320 for the flight, people might expect some more creature comforts.
And that gets into other operations. The article talks about the shift from hub-and-spoke to point-to-point as if it's just a decision made by airlines; and it is, in part. But it's also dependent on rising passenger volumes. If you have 200 people a day flying from Portland (PDX) to each of Boston, Philly, Baltimore, DC and 600 to New York, you can do 200 person direct flights to all of those destinations. But if half of your traffic goes away because prices went up and you only have 700 people total flying to the East Coast, you can't support a bunch of half empty flights just because people prefer point-to-point; you keep New York and maybe DC and everybody else has to connect there or somewhere else, like Chicago, to get to their final destination.
The article talks about Atlanta being made a hub just to get Delta more money -- and that's not wrong -- but there's also a shitload of mid-size cities in the southeast, like Asheville and Huntsville and Knoxville and Greensville and Gainesville and both Fayettevilles that just don't have enough passengers to warrant more than a few flights a day and sending them all through Atlanta gets them a one-hop connection to every decent sized city in the US and every major region of the world.
There's positive feedback in shared transportation systems like aviation -- as more people take them, there are more flights which means more frequency or more direct routes. And more frequent, direct service brings more people and the spiral reinforces itself. But it can go the other way, too. Even if you are willing to pay the new, higher price for the flight, the fact that there's no longer a direct (or there used to be three flights a day and now there's one and so you have to stay an extra night) means people will think twice.
Aviation in the future could look increasingly like aviation in the past.
posted by Superilla at 9:30 AM on September 29, 2020 [13 favorites]
As we are doing pull quotes:
“Sustainability in the US is marginally more important than keeping enough toner in the fax machine”
Very good article and good of KLM to open up to him.
The figures are really brutal. Passenger numbers dropped by 95%, from 9 million in the first quarter of the year to 500,000 in the second.
Regarding boneyards I'm wondering why N. Africa isn't considered more by the European Airlines, maybe it is but didn't get a mention.
posted by adamvasco at 9:31 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
“Sustainability in the US is marginally more important than keeping enough toner in the fax machine”
Very good article and good of KLM to open up to him.
The figures are really brutal. Passenger numbers dropped by 95%, from 9 million in the first quarter of the year to 500,000 in the second.
Regarding boneyards I'm wondering why N. Africa isn't considered more by the European Airlines, maybe it is but didn't get a mention.
posted by adamvasco at 9:31 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
...investment bankers who were road warriors making a two hour presentation in Boston on Monday, Chicago on Tuesday, LA on Wednesday and Dallas on Thursday were forced to work virtually
This is basically the plot of Up in the Air.
posted by oulipian at 9:52 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
This is basically the plot of Up in the Air.
posted by oulipian at 9:52 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
Ctrl-F "nationalize"
0 results found
This may be the Keynesian in me but this should be seriously considered. Make the investors eat it. If the airlines can't cope, nationalize them. Pay out all the shareholders, at a haircut if necessary, and take full ownership. Lay nobody off, cut management salaries to the bone, pay everyone from government general revenue. Then when the demand returns in late 21/22 and revenues look stronger, float it back into private ownership and take the dividend from that.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:53 AM on September 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
0 results found
This may be the Keynesian in me but this should be seriously considered. Make the investors eat it. If the airlines can't cope, nationalize them. Pay out all the shareholders, at a haircut if necessary, and take full ownership. Lay nobody off, cut management salaries to the bone, pay everyone from government general revenue. Then when the demand returns in late 21/22 and revenues look stronger, float it back into private ownership and take the dividend from that.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:53 AM on September 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
Metafilter: look, we have rendered this inoperable and unreparable
posted by eckeric at 10:05 AM on September 29, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by eckeric at 10:05 AM on September 29, 2020 [9 favorites]
If you want to look at planes that are boneyard adjacent, the Pima Air & Space Museum has street view views of a lot of the outside exhibits.
posted by eckeric at 10:19 AM on September 29, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by eckeric at 10:19 AM on September 29, 2020 [3 favorites]
Re the effect on railroads, I found this Railway Age article interesting - talks about the impacts of the 1918 Flu on railway travel.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:45 AM on September 29, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by aspersioncast at 10:45 AM on September 29, 2020 [3 favorites]
Aviation in the future could look increasingly like aviation in the past.
That's what I'm thinking about increased air taxi usage. Anecdotally, the reliever airports around here are as busy as ever - and it's not Delta lining up at the runway, it's NetJets. Airlines and the TSA have made flying commercial so unpleasant and onerous as it is, I can totally see a certain subset of people (with more means than me) looking at what chartering even a "modest" Phenom or Falcon might cost, thinking about the time and expense of getting a family of four into a United first class cabin, and deciding it's worth paying 2 or even 5 times that to have a relatively safer environment to travel in that eliminates the time pressures of getting to the local hub airport two hours early.
I don't think the math works out quite yet (maybe it won't ever, I don't know), but I can totally see demand rising for more services like an expanded Linear Air, which do "semi-scheduled" runs between small airports in small planes.
posted by backseatpilot at 10:46 AM on September 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
That's what I'm thinking about increased air taxi usage. Anecdotally, the reliever airports around here are as busy as ever - and it's not Delta lining up at the runway, it's NetJets. Airlines and the TSA have made flying commercial so unpleasant and onerous as it is, I can totally see a certain subset of people (with more means than me) looking at what chartering even a "modest" Phenom or Falcon might cost, thinking about the time and expense of getting a family of four into a United first class cabin, and deciding it's worth paying 2 or even 5 times that to have a relatively safer environment to travel in that eliminates the time pressures of getting to the local hub airport two hours early.
I don't think the math works out quite yet (maybe it won't ever, I don't know), but I can totally see demand rising for more services like an expanded Linear Air, which do "semi-scheduled" runs between small airports in small planes.
posted by backseatpilot at 10:46 AM on September 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
Would it also be easier to convert smaller planes to electricity? That seems like another way forward...more small planes, get rid of volatile fuel costs.
Of course riding in small planes is more likely to get you airsick...
posted by emjaybee at 10:53 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
Of course riding in small planes is more likely to get you airsick...
posted by emjaybee at 10:53 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
My kid likes to plane spot so we were out at KRFD (Rockford, IL) this past weekend. What really spooked me was discovering a large amount of United 737s and A320s all parked out there and wrapped up for storage. There had to be 20 or so. And I've seen about as many stacked up at O'Hare.
The weather here is turning colder and wetter... so are these planes expected to be back in service soon? Otherwise they'd be in Arizona, right?
posted by mookoz at 11:00 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
The weather here is turning colder and wetter... so are these planes expected to be back in service soon? Otherwise they'd be in Arizona, right?
posted by mookoz at 11:00 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
Would it also be easier to convert smaller planes to electricity?
We’re not there yet - batteries still weigh too much relative to jet fuel. The prototypes are operating near max weight with a cabin full of batteries and no passengers, and still only able to make short flights.
posted by cardboard at 11:07 AM on September 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
We’re not there yet - batteries still weigh too much relative to jet fuel. The prototypes are operating near max weight with a cabin full of batteries and no passengers, and still only able to make short flights.
posted by cardboard at 11:07 AM on September 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
I'm intrigued by this group of planes in your link, scruss.
As others have noted, those are B-52s destroyed under arms control agreements.
They aren't disassembled; they're chopped up with a big guillotine or torn apart with construction equipment so as to render the chunks completely useless for anything except scrap.
Guillotine
Excavator
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:16 AM on September 29, 2020 [9 favorites]
As others have noted, those are B-52s destroyed under arms control agreements.
They aren't disassembled; they're chopped up with a big guillotine or torn apart with construction equipment so as to render the chunks completely useless for anything except scrap.
Guillotine
Excavator
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:16 AM on September 29, 2020 [9 favorites]
A similar thing we do is weld certain ICBM missile silos open so the Russians can peak inside any time they want, via satellite, to confirm there isn't a missile there.
posted by sideshow at 11:43 AM on September 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by sideshow at 11:43 AM on September 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
It made me nervous reading that they cover up the sensors when they planes are boneyarded. I hope they remember to uncover them before flying again!
posted by chavenet at 11:55 AM on September 29, 2020
posted by chavenet at 11:55 AM on September 29, 2020
We’re not there yet - batteries still weigh too much relative to jet fuel.
In last weeks Battery Investment day (13 minutes in to Q&A) Musk speculated that an energy density of 400 watt hours per kilogram would be the point where medium range commercial flight on electrical aircraft might become feasible. Tesla are maybe 2 or 3 years away from that point. There are, no doubt other issues to solve - but a anybody selling something like a renewable powered 737 will become rich.
posted by rongorongo at 12:06 PM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
In last weeks Battery Investment day (13 minutes in to Q&A) Musk speculated that an energy density of 400 watt hours per kilogram would be the point where medium range commercial flight on electrical aircraft might become feasible. Tesla are maybe 2 or 3 years away from that point. There are, no doubt other issues to solve - but a anybody selling something like a renewable powered 737 will become rich.
posted by rongorongo at 12:06 PM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
Compare that to the gasoline watt-hours per kilogram of 12,500, and perhaps you might start to see the issue of why trying to use battery power for airplane flight is... challenging.
posted by notoriety public at 12:55 PM on September 29, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by notoriety public at 12:55 PM on September 29, 2020 [6 favorites]
Would it also be easier to convert smaller planes to electricity?
One small airline already has a small test plane in the air (it is the same size as the planes they normally use). Their flights are very short and the range is only about 160km (which apparently covers 5% of flights worldwide), but still, that's something.
posted by ssg at 1:03 PM on September 29, 2020
One small airline already has a small test plane in the air (it is the same size as the planes they normally use). Their flights are very short and the range is only about 160km (which apparently covers 5% of flights worldwide), but still, that's something.
posted by ssg at 1:03 PM on September 29, 2020
Compare that to the gasoline watt-hours per kilogram of 12,500, and perhaps you might start to see the issue of why trying to use battery power for airplane flight is... challenging.
Also, if Musk says "2-3 years away" you might as well just write "2030 or later" and circle it.
posted by sideshow at 3:34 PM on September 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
Also, if Musk says "2-3 years away" you might as well just write "2030 or later" and circle it.
posted by sideshow at 3:34 PM on September 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
When I've flown for personal travel, it's been planned months in advance! The idea of travel on a moment's notice is just so foreign to me.
I once bought a ticket on a flight that was already open for check in. Admittedly the circumstances were unusual. It was a one-way ticket and I paid cash so I wonder if I ended up on any watch lists.
Anyway, it remains extremely strange to drive past my local airport and see absolutely no planes.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 3:41 PM on September 29, 2020
I once bought a ticket on a flight that was already open for check in. Admittedly the circumstances were unusual. It was a one-way ticket and I paid cash so I wonder if I ended up on any watch lists.
Anyway, it remains extremely strange to drive past my local airport and see absolutely no planes.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 3:41 PM on September 29, 2020
Airbus is all in on hydrogen which makes sense because the turbines only need minimal changes to cope with the new fuel source. The wonderful thing about turbine engines is that they can typically burn just about anything that can be reasonably atomized. Fuel will get slightly heavier but will be offset by volume. The zeroe line looks really cool. The wings are really thin and placed back since the fuel tank is now in the back of the fuselage rather than the wings.
Having a narrow body transatlantic hydrogen powered by hydrogen in 2030 should help decarbonize the industry pretty rapidly.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 3:59 PM on September 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
Having a narrow body transatlantic hydrogen powered by hydrogen in 2030 should help decarbonize the industry pretty rapidly.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 3:59 PM on September 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
With the exception of one short hop from Orlando to ATL and onward to Birmingham in 1997, my tenure in the USAF cured me of flying anywhere forever. A woman on the Orlando leg in the center seat changed her baby's poopy diaper on the tray table next to me, and the steward didn't bat an eyelash. I haven't given an airline a dime in 25 years, nor is it likely.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 6:30 PM on September 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by halfbuckaroo at 6:30 PM on September 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
("Inside Engineering" produced an episode "Are Electric Planes Possible?" has lots of figures to illustrate the problem: basic answer is that something the size of an electric Cesna or air taxi is feasible; something like and Airbus A320 is not. Curious Droid has a companion video "Is Hydrogen the future of Flight?" - hydrogen planes have been around as research prototypes for more than 30 years, the fuel has great energy density and is bulky but light, it could be made from electrolysis using renewable sources. The biggest obstacle to its adoption is that it has been considered OK to use oil to date - and it is much cheaper to stay with the status quo. It is possible that the Covid pandemic disruption could provide the impetus to finally force a changeover - the impediment seems to be more political than technical at this point.)
posted by rongorongo at 12:04 AM on September 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by rongorongo at 12:04 AM on September 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
Hydrogen run planes are likely to be very expensive to run and won't necessarily be much cleaner than gasoline.
the impediment seems to be more political than technical at this point.
That's true only in the sense that because it is so expensive to build and maintain the infrastructure, the only willing investors are gullible (in my opinion) taxpayers. Certainly the only time you see private industry developing hydrogen transportation solutions is if taxpayers are paying all the expenses.
There might be some technical solutions (liquid hydrogen?), but I think batteries for short flights and biofuels for longer flights are more realistic solutions. Heck, you can convert hydrogen into biofuel.
posted by eye of newt at 1:32 AM on September 30, 2020
the impediment seems to be more political than technical at this point.
That's true only in the sense that because it is so expensive to build and maintain the infrastructure, the only willing investors are gullible (in my opinion) taxpayers. Certainly the only time you see private industry developing hydrogen transportation solutions is if taxpayers are paying all the expenses.
There might be some technical solutions (liquid hydrogen?), but I think batteries for short flights and biofuels for longer flights are more realistic solutions. Heck, you can convert hydrogen into biofuel.
posted by eye of newt at 1:32 AM on September 30, 2020
Except we don't have the technology to actually do negative emissions now and we have no idea if we will in 2040. And you can call your carbon tax consistent with whatever you like, but if your tax doesn't actually reduce emissions, then it doesn't actually work and isn't consistent with averting the worst of climate change. Carbon taxes only work if they drive real change on the ground, so if you're whole conceit is doing the exact same thing, but with a carbon tax, then that fundamentally won't work (carbon offsets from planting trees or what not being pretty widely debunked at this point, which is even noted in the article). Carbon taxes are tools, not magical erasers for carbon emissions.
We don't have the technology to do direct air capture type "magic", we absolutely do have the technology to absorb a great deal of our carbon emissions to-date through land use change though as you note, that cannot be done through fly by night Plant-some-trees-oops-they-died operations but require state power to make work.
Obviously if everyone just paid a carbon tax and did exactly the same thing then it wouldn't reduce emissions. The point is that it will be cheaper for people to change their consumption behaviour.
Flying is a special case because unlike domestic energy use, driving, and consumption of food and manufactured goods where there are much lower CO2e equivalents which deliver the same outputs and are often only marginally more expensive before the cost of carbon for aviation there is not a reduced emissions alternative that is substantially the same and therefore there are two alternatives: behavioural change away from flying and development of new technology like ultra-dense batteries (unlikely for reasons of basic chemistry) and conversion to artificial liquid or H2 fuels (expensive, given the complexity of aircraft engines but definitely possible).
I happen to think that the Paris agreement is not nearly ambitious enough and that we will need carbon taxation to rise to the mid-£100s much earlier than trajectories proposed to meet Paris but I still think that we will see a substantial amount of flying on oil derived fuels well after the point where petrol and diesel fueled passenger cars are collectors items.
posted by atrazine at 2:25 AM on September 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
We don't have the technology to do direct air capture type "magic", we absolutely do have the technology to absorb a great deal of our carbon emissions to-date through land use change though as you note, that cannot be done through fly by night Plant-some-trees-oops-they-died operations but require state power to make work.
Obviously if everyone just paid a carbon tax and did exactly the same thing then it wouldn't reduce emissions. The point is that it will be cheaper for people to change their consumption behaviour.
Flying is a special case because unlike domestic energy use, driving, and consumption of food and manufactured goods where there are much lower CO2e equivalents which deliver the same outputs and are often only marginally more expensive before the cost of carbon for aviation there is not a reduced emissions alternative that is substantially the same and therefore there are two alternatives: behavioural change away from flying and development of new technology like ultra-dense batteries (unlikely for reasons of basic chemistry) and conversion to artificial liquid or H2 fuels (expensive, given the complexity of aircraft engines but definitely possible).
I happen to think that the Paris agreement is not nearly ambitious enough and that we will need carbon taxation to rise to the mid-£100s much earlier than trajectories proposed to meet Paris but I still think that we will see a substantial amount of flying on oil derived fuels well after the point where petrol and diesel fueled passenger cars are collectors items.
posted by atrazine at 2:25 AM on September 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
Technically, a maglev train is a very low-flying aircraft.
posted by acb at 2:56 AM on September 30, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by acb at 2:56 AM on September 30, 2020 [5 favorites]
Hydrogen run planes are likely to be very expensive to run and won't necessarily be much cleaner than gasoline.
These is not particular reason why the electrolysis needed to create hydrogen should not be entirely powered by renewables (wikipedia suggests that the most efficient methods of doing so could give us a kilo of hydrogen with 142 Mj of energy - for an electrical expenditure of 180 to 200 Mj). The way we then turn that hydrogen into forward propulsion varies - maybe a hydrogen fuel cell to convert it to electricity (only by-products being water and heat) - or we could just burn off the hydrogen in a jet - which does produce some other emissions but would probably let us go faster.
posted by rongorongo at 4:45 AM on September 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
These is not particular reason why the electrolysis needed to create hydrogen should not be entirely powered by renewables (wikipedia suggests that the most efficient methods of doing so could give us a kilo of hydrogen with 142 Mj of energy - for an electrical expenditure of 180 to 200 Mj). The way we then turn that hydrogen into forward propulsion varies - maybe a hydrogen fuel cell to convert it to electricity (only by-products being water and heat) - or we could just burn off the hydrogen in a jet - which does produce some other emissions but would probably let us go faster.
posted by rongorongo at 4:45 AM on September 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
→
Better that they do, or they risk the fate of Birgenair Flight 301, 189 people killed because of mud dauber wasp nests in the airspeed indicator.
posted by scruss at 8:11 AM on September 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
It made me nervous reading that they cover up the sensors when they planes are boneyarded
Better that they do, or they risk the fate of Birgenair Flight 301, 189 people killed because of mud dauber wasp nests in the airspeed indicator.
posted by scruss at 8:11 AM on September 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
Superilla: ... there's an efficiency in being able to present to Boston at 8 AM, Chicago at 10 AM, Dallas at 1 PM and LA at 4 PM, and tuck your kids into bed that night.
I know someone in a business adjacent to insurance underwriting. Where a group of employees used to go on-site for a couple of weeks at a time, several times, the company now sends a solitary employee to the site once, at the beginning of the engagement to ensure it's actually there. After that all the services are provided remotely.
The techs are still 100% on that client during the egngagement, but they're not wasting work days flying there & back, and not wasting money on plane ticket or hotels. The company's doing great business, and my friend loves working from a lounger with his bare feet up.
I can't see any business loving its Good Ol' Days so much that it returns to a more-wasteful, less-profitable model.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:14 PM on September 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
I know someone in a business adjacent to insurance underwriting. Where a group of employees used to go on-site for a couple of weeks at a time, several times, the company now sends a solitary employee to the site once, at the beginning of the engagement to ensure it's actually there. After that all the services are provided remotely.
The techs are still 100% on that client during the egngagement, but they're not wasting work days flying there & back, and not wasting money on plane ticket or hotels. The company's doing great business, and my friend loves working from a lounger with his bare feet up.
I can't see any business loving its Good Ol' Days so much that it returns to a more-wasteful, less-profitable model.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:14 PM on September 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
And they've discovered that while being there in person to see the whites of their eyes is still better than a Zoom call, there's an efficiency in being able to present to Boston at 8 AM, Chicago at 10 AM, Dallas at 1 PM and LA at 4 PM, and tuck your kids into bed that night. And maybe that helps makes up for not seeing the whites of their eyes.
What do they do in person that they can't do in a Zoom call? (Is it that there are technical limitations that could be eliminated by improvements in presentation technology? Or is it that people sell better to other people when they can touch and smell each other?)
posted by pracowity at 12:46 PM on September 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
What do they do in person that they can't do in a Zoom call? (Is it that there are technical limitations that could be eliminated by improvements in presentation technology? Or is it that people sell better to other people when they can touch and smell each other?)
posted by pracowity at 12:46 PM on September 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
Bring doughnuts/swag/meals.
Or in some cases, physically examine an item or facility to satisfy due diligence requirements.
posted by wenestvedt at 4:41 PM on September 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
Or in some cases, physically examine an item or facility to satisfy due diligence requirements.
posted by wenestvedt at 4:41 PM on September 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
And you can call your carbon tax consistent with whatever you like, but if your tax doesn't actually reduce emissions, then it doesn't actually work and isn't consistent with averting the worst of climate change. Carbon taxes only work if they drive real change on the ground, so if you're whole conceit is doing the exact same thing, but with a carbon tax, then that fundamentally won't work.
Part of the point of a carbon tax is that it is a carbon tax (ie on the actual problem) rather than an aviation tax, a car tax, an insulation tax and so on. If done properly, then you won't get 30% CO2 reduction by every part of the economy producing 30% less CO2 each; you get one sector producing 10% less, one producing 40% less, one producing 80% less, one producing 50% more -- depending on how easy it is to substitute -- and together, the aggregate effect is a 30% reduction, which is good because aggregate emissions are the only thing that matter, and it means that the easy stuff gets prioritized.
What do they do in person that they can't do in a Zoom call? (Is it that there are technical limitations that could be eliminated by improvements in presentation technology? Or is it that people sell better to other people when they can touch and smell each other?)
The article I was handwaving towards was around investment banking, which is a very relationship-based business as I understand.
Personally, as a transportation engineer who primarily works remotely (but who also historically makes trips to visit clients), my experience is that the limitations with remote working are:
1). There are a lot of subtle signals around things like posture, body language and so on. It's hard to notice a lot of that through a video, especially when presenting to many people. The palpable chill that goes through a boardroom when you say something dumb is a lot harder to catch in 10 little pixelated windows, especially when you're also looking at your slides. In my case, I'm usually showing my screen so I have limited scope for viewing other people's video windows (we usually don't use video).
2). There's a lot of relationship building that takes place outside of the meeting proper. Even just the small talk before a meeting or seeing something cool on someone's desk or trying their favourite food or whatever, it's hard to do that online, especially in a large group. You don't have a breakout session in a group meeting to talk about how Nick Foles is playing well for the Bears with someone, or whatever. I don't know if it gets us more business, but it's nice to work with people you know a little.
3). In my case, since I work in transportation, it's incredibly valuable to be on site even a little. There's a perspective you get from the ground that you can't get from Google Earth or from data or whatever. It's one thing to see that the ridership at some stop is low, it's another thing to take the train there, and see it sit for a couple of minutes on a platform with nobody coming on or off.
posted by Superilla at 9:37 PM on September 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
Part of the point of a carbon tax is that it is a carbon tax (ie on the actual problem) rather than an aviation tax, a car tax, an insulation tax and so on. If done properly, then you won't get 30% CO2 reduction by every part of the economy producing 30% less CO2 each; you get one sector producing 10% less, one producing 40% less, one producing 80% less, one producing 50% more -- depending on how easy it is to substitute -- and together, the aggregate effect is a 30% reduction, which is good because aggregate emissions are the only thing that matter, and it means that the easy stuff gets prioritized.
What do they do in person that they can't do in a Zoom call? (Is it that there are technical limitations that could be eliminated by improvements in presentation technology? Or is it that people sell better to other people when they can touch and smell each other?)
The article I was handwaving towards was around investment banking, which is a very relationship-based business as I understand.
Personally, as a transportation engineer who primarily works remotely (but who also historically makes trips to visit clients), my experience is that the limitations with remote working are:
1). There are a lot of subtle signals around things like posture, body language and so on. It's hard to notice a lot of that through a video, especially when presenting to many people. The palpable chill that goes through a boardroom when you say something dumb is a lot harder to catch in 10 little pixelated windows, especially when you're also looking at your slides. In my case, I'm usually showing my screen so I have limited scope for viewing other people's video windows (we usually don't use video).
2). There's a lot of relationship building that takes place outside of the meeting proper. Even just the small talk before a meeting or seeing something cool on someone's desk or trying their favourite food or whatever, it's hard to do that online, especially in a large group. You don't have a breakout session in a group meeting to talk about how Nick Foles is playing well for the Bears with someone, or whatever. I don't know if it gets us more business, but it's nice to work with people you know a little.
3). In my case, since I work in transportation, it's incredibly valuable to be on site even a little. There's a perspective you get from the ground that you can't get from Google Earth or from data or whatever. It's one thing to see that the ridership at some stop is low, it's another thing to take the train there, and see it sit for a couple of minutes on a platform with nobody coming on or off.
posted by Superilla at 9:37 PM on September 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
Re Hydrogen: On September 21st Airbus announced the development of ZeroE: three concept planes which it plans to put into commercial use by 2035. Mentaur Pilot reviews this release and talks about how this might come to happen. Airbus would like a working demonstrator of one of its 3 candidate designs by 2025 and to have that design certified to be introduced for commercial use fifteen years later. They will need a lot of support from governments and from other players in the industry.
posted by rongorongo at 11:12 PM on September 30, 2020
posted by rongorongo at 11:12 PM on September 30, 2020
Bring doughnuts/swag/meals.
So maybe the key to people more widely adopting remote sales meetings is to have stuff locally delivered at meeting time. Then you can pig out and look at your swag while the person on the screen gives you the talk. Sounds like a business waiting to be started.
posted by pracowity at 2:34 AM on October 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
So maybe the key to people more widely adopting remote sales meetings is to have stuff locally delivered at meeting time. Then you can pig out and look at your swag while the person on the screen gives you the talk. Sounds like a business waiting to be started.
posted by pracowity at 2:34 AM on October 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
pracowity: ...the key to people more widely adopting remote sales meetings is to have stuff locally delivered at meeting time.
I work in IT and this year I have seen a ton of cold-call emails that offer to send me a $25 to $50 food delivery service gift card since they can't bring me lunch. (One company offered a full $150 food gift card for half an hour with a VP-level IT executive)
I haven't accepted any since none of them have been in my area (and while a free lunch is nice, I am too honest to waste all their time and mine), but I do see them a lot. The footers of the messages reveal that a third party handles it, and they're always different -- so a whole market has sprung up to do this!
Plenty of companies now mail out promotional swag and not just cheap junk. Two video surveillance/monitoring companies -- Verkada and Rhombus -- send out a pricy Yeti mug or a fancy water bottle, and so far have spent over a million bucks on the effort!
posted by wenestvedt at 10:24 AM on October 1, 2020
I work in IT and this year I have seen a ton of cold-call emails that offer to send me a $25 to $50 food delivery service gift card since they can't bring me lunch. (One company offered a full $150 food gift card for half an hour with a VP-level IT executive)
I haven't accepted any since none of them have been in my area (and while a free lunch is nice, I am too honest to waste all their time and mine), but I do see them a lot. The footers of the messages reveal that a third party handles it, and they're always different -- so a whole market has sprung up to do this!
Plenty of companies now mail out promotional swag and not just cheap junk. Two video surveillance/monitoring companies -- Verkada and Rhombus -- send out a pricy Yeti mug or a fancy water bottle, and so far have spent over a million bucks on the effort!
posted by wenestvedt at 10:24 AM on October 1, 2020
I come here to recommend the book Following Fish by the author of the Guardian article. One of those books that is so good I buy and gift it to friends,
posted by thaths at 3:03 PM on October 8, 2020
posted by thaths at 3:03 PM on October 8, 2020
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posted by adrianhon at 6:22 AM on September 29, 2020 [5 favorites]