[notahacker]

> I also hate the argument that the free market should solve the pricing problem.

It's odd that in his rush to point the finger at the government monopoly, he seems to have missed that a free market where customers select flights mostly on price naturally tends towards airlines operating lower cruise speeds for better operating economy, and not allowing loads of wiggle room in their schedules to make up for delays.

The idea that actually the real reason why aircraft are operating more slowly and delayed more is because there aren't enough ATCs in position doesn't pass the sniff test at all for anyone that knows the slightest thing about commercial aviation

[labcomputer]

> The idea that actually the real reason why aircraft are operating more slowly and delayed more is because there aren't enough ATCs in position doesn't pass the sniff test at all for anyone that knows the slightest thing about commercial aviation

Well... I mean, objectively, there are not enough ATCs. Staff are being scheduled 6 days a week. Towers at small airports are operating on reduced hours because there aren't enough people, and towers are some airports are being operated with less than full staff (so each person is working multiple tasks).

Whether or not the very real staff shortage is what is causing the delays is not 100% clear. My intuition is that it is, but I don't have any actual data to support that.

[dghlsakjg]

Pilot here:

Ground delays due to ATC staffing shortages are real. It’s not a secret, statistics about it are kept.

Off the top of my head, it is has affected Austin, Newark and most major destinations in Canada this year. That is not an exhaustive list by any means.

[notahacker]

They're real and tracked, but they're also not the main reason why airlines aren't on time, or any sort of reason for lower cruise speeds.

We've got percentages for delays attributed to the National Aviation System (including those for reasons other than ATC understaffing, like congestion management) here[1], it's less than half of those attributed to the carrier, with a slight trend fall. That doesn't mean ATC understaffing isn't a problem (patching gaps in shift patterns is bad for a whole bunch of safety related reasons, for a start), it means that the author is dead wrong that airlines won't do anything to jeopardise on time performance and government must be the only bottleneck. [1]https://www.bts.gov/browse-statistical-products-and-data/inf...

[dghlsakjg]

The author did not claim that the entire or the main reason for longer flight times was ATC delays. He wouldn’t be dead wrong if he had made that claim since as you note, ATC delays are higher than they were in the 90s. But he didn’t make the claim that ATC was the full and only cause of delays.

His conclusion is that there are a multitude of causes, among them, ATC staffing delays.

[notahacker]

The author explicitly dismissed the idea of "greedy airlines" as not passing his "sniff test" whilst the data shows their own actions are a more frequent culprit for delays than aviation services (be they ATC shortages or congestion, which combined only account for <20% of the delays; unlikely to cause of a fourfold increase in long delays by themselves never mind be a reason for slower cruising speeds).

I doubt an economist a little less enthusiastic about the ability of markets to give people exactly what they want than Max would have missed the obvious dynamic that when airlines are competing mainly on price in a thin-margin capital-intensive industry they absolutely can capture market share (from paying customers, not just points collectors) by accepting the risk of degraded service.

[Ekaros]

Lower speeds to save on fuel as closing on sound barrier has somewhat sharp increase in air resistance.

Also I think in general increasing utilization of aeroplanes increases revenues and thus makes things more profitable as money is not made while not flying. Easiest way to achieve this is to remove slack like shortening turnover times. Which then results in cascading delays as planes simply are not available at times.

[dghlsakjg]

ATC shortage delays are very common and the big ones get reported on nationally.

What happens is typically that they hold you on the ground or at the gate until they can appropriately release your flight plan.