**Official** COVID-19 Discussion

[AndyZaltzHair]

Cathay pacific is my favourite for long haul flights. Awesome food and atmosphere. I don’t know why I hate to travel by Emirates. May be because they have always overpacked crowd, lines and the economy class is too commercial.

 

[Burgey]

It's an airline though. How is it anything other than commercial?

Cathay are very good though

 

[Burgey]

But if it was all privatised, wouldn't airfare just be significantly more expensive and hinder business and tourism?

No because it depends o the market. The US has a huge population and a largely private airline fleet. As Spark said, the airfares there are cheaper than elsewhere.

By contrast, living on an island as we do here, having >1 airline is a pretty ****ing good idea, because if QANTAS gets its way as a monopoly, you'll be paying a thousand bucks to fly Sydney-GC. Regional airfares here are already enormously expensive owing to lack of competition. If there's one domestic airline it'll be a cluster ****. I can still remember what happened after Ansett went under (and Compass, come to that). So from a competitive pov, I thinkt he govt needs to do something to stop Virgin going under, whether it's an equity stake or a massive loan, i do not know.

 

[GIMH]

No because it depends o the market. The US has a huge population and a largely private airline fleet. As Spark said, the airfares there are cheaper than elsewhere.

By contrast, living on an island as we do here, having >1 airline is a pretty ****ing good idea, because if QANTAS gets its way as a monopoly, you'll be paying a thousand bucks to fly Sydney-GC. Regional airfares here are already enormously expensive owing to lack of competition. If there's one domestic airline it'll be a cluster ****. .

tory bastard

 

[Burgey]

No, a Tory bastard would let Virgin go broke and have a monopoly because they dgaf about people being able to afford to travel. The idea of propping up Virgin is, at the corporate level anti-free market as they've gone bust. So you'd say stiff **** in your world to the 10k plus staff and the traveling public. Yet at the consumer level the decision to prop up is pro-market (well, pro-choice) as it gives punters a say in who they fly with

So it depends where you want your regulation, I guess.

 

[GIMH]

 

[Flem274*]

can we not make the hb a thing?

 

[Spark]

I mean if you had true open-market-competition for airfares in this country with no restrictions on who is allowed to operate routes other than who can buy airport slots and get certified (this is entirely unrealistic for a whole bunch of reasons, some related to the fact that this goes well beyond business economics and well into international relations, but roll with me, pretend that every relatively reputable airline gets 8th/9th freedoms), then I 100% guarantee that Singapore, Emirates, Qatar would all be running domestic flights in this country. Hell you might even see some of the the US big three (United especially) showing interest in it. The Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane triangle of routes are some of the most lucrative in the entire world, they would love to get in on that action. No doubt that that's part of why they're invested in VA in the first place.

No, a Tory bastard would let Virgin go broke and have a monopoly because they dgaf about people being able to afford to travel. The idea of propping up Virgin is, at the corporate level anti-free market as they've gone bust. So you'd say stiff **** in your world to the 10k plus staff and the traveling public. Yet at the consumer level the decision to prop up is pro-market (well, pro-choice) as it gives punters a say in who they fly with

So it depends where you want your regulation, I guess.

I think you have to be careful about it though. Bail out the workers, save the corporate and brand infrastructure and let the airline nominally survive so you still have a second airline with actual workers and actual planes and an actual company able to fly people around. The problem is that a simple bailout would not (only) do that, but most of that money would end up in the pockets of the shareholders, and again I don't see the pressing national interest in propping up Singapore Airlines.

 

[honestbharani]

can we not make the hb a thing?

Sorry, had to.

 

[Bolo.]

I mean if you had true open-market-competition for airfares in this country with no restrictions on who is allowed to operate routes other than who can buy airport slots and get certified (this is entirely unrealistic for a whole bunch of reasons, some related to the fact that this goes well beyond business economics and well into international relations, but roll with me, pretend that every relatively reputable airline gets 8th/9th freedoms), then I 100% guarantee that Singapore, Emirates, Qatar would all be running domestic flights in this country. Hell you might even see some of the the US big three (United especially) showing interest in it. The Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane triangle of routes are some of the most lucrative in the entire world, they would love to get in on that action. No doubt that that's part of why they're invested in VA in the first place.



I think you have to be careful about it though. Bail out the workers, save the corporate and brand infrastructure and let the airline nominally survive so you still have a second airline with actual workers and actual planes and an actual company able to fly people around. The problem is that a simple bailout would not (only) do that, but most of that money would end up in the pockets of the shareholders, and again I don't see the pressing national interest in propping up Singapore Airlines.

True open market ways of dealing with this dont exist. There is a pretty well established way of dealing with this. It doesnt really work (easily) in a number of industries that involve free competition, but in something as heavily regulated as air travel, no reason not to do it.

Set up an AUS registered subsidiary of eg Ethiad. Hence completely subject to AUS laws, or they dont get a licence. If not enough, regulate repatration of money. No problem. You are now basically running an AUS company, but more effieciently than the garbage that is Qantas etc, and keeping profits in AUS.

I dont think this is an appropriate strategy in most industries, at least not if you buy into the economic concepts of efficiency of markets and... blah blah blah. But in an industry that is already so regulated, it has its advantages

 

[Magrat Garlick]

The Swedish authorities just released a study based on an SEIR model that suggested most people (between 25 and 35 %) in Stockholm have already been infected with the virus, on the basis of 2.5 % having returned a positive test in the first week of April.

Can that be right? Can you stick the percentage of positive tests into the 'infected' part of a SEIR model like that and expect a sensible answer?

 

[silentstriker]

https://apnews.com/a5077c7227b8eb8b0dc23423c0bbe2b2

Shocking that you probably shouldn’t listen to an orange haired orangutang for your medical advice.

(All the data is still not in - one way or another).

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Please don't disparage the entrepreneurial brain of the president who is trying to look at this problem from a different angle.

 

[Shady Slim]

while spark is right that in an unrealistic theoretical scenario that sort of airline market would work imo the australian domestic market is far too small in terms of people, and infrastructure is far too poor (airports etc) to sustain any market structure beyond a tight oligopoly, and as such, it's important to keep it heavily regulated and really make moves to ensure we don't slip in to monopoly territory which would be disastrous, though if it were an unregulated oligopoly it could well be just as bad - so we for sure need multiple airlines, and given the market as it is in practice probably can not handle too many, we need to maintain the strong regulations to make sure the airlines don't get away with murder, or even a common assault

and don't get me started on badgery's creek airport, which is an absolutely torrid white elephant of an investment, it's done so so unfathomably poorly for so many reasons

 

[Bolo.]

while spark is right that in an unrealistic theoretical scenario that sort of airline market would work imo the australian domestic market is far too small in terms of people, and infrastructure is far too poor (airports etc) to sustain any market structure beyond a tight oligopoly, and as such, it's important to keep it heavily regulated and really make moves to ensure we don't slip in to monopoly territory which would be disastrous, though if it were an unregulated oligopoly it could well be just as bad - so we for sure need multiple airlines, and given the market as it is in practice probably can not handle too many, we need to maintain the strong regulations to make sure the airlines don't get away with murder, or even a common assault

and don't get me started on badgery's creek airport, which is an absolutely torrid white elephant of an investment, it's done so so unfathomably poorly for so many reasons

Oligopolies do not necessarily result in higher prices. See Boeing/airbus

 

[smalishah84]

Oligopolies do not necessarily result in higher prices. See Boeing/airbus

Didn't they try to keep away bombardier and embraer from the market so they could maintain their oligopolistic profits?

 

[Chewie]

Bombardier and embraer target a different segment of the market (though admittedly I think both have had investment by Airbus/Boeing now). Comac is probably going to be the closest competitor

 

[Spark]

True open market ways of dealing with this dont exist. There is a pretty well established way of dealing with this. It doesnt really work (easily) in a number of industries that involve free competition, but in something as heavily regulated as air travel, no reason not to do it.

Set up an AUS registered subsidiary of eg Ethiad. Hence completely subject to AUS laws, or they dont get a licence. If not enough, regulate repatration of money. No problem. You are now basically running an AUS company, but more effieciently than the garbage that is Qantas etc, and keeping profits in AUS.

I dont think this is an appropriate strategy in most industries, at least not if you buy into the economic concepts of efficiency of markets and... blah blah blah. But in an industry that is already so regulated, it has its advantages

Hey, I don't disagree. But it's important to remember that the barriers to doing this aren't economic, they're political. It would be, to put it mildly, extremely controversial to have, say, Emirates running domestic flights within Australia, even if they're technically eighth freedom flights.

 

[Spark]

The Swedish authorities just released a study based on an SEIR model that suggested most people (between 25 and 35 %) in Stockholm have already been infected with the virus, on the basis of 2.5 % having returned a positive test in the first week of April.

Can that be right? Can you stick the percentage of positive tests into the 'infected' part of a SEIR model like that and expect a sensible answer?

Is this based on a random sample like that Austrian study? Otherwise how can you be sure that the sample that you've collected is random as opposed to 2.5% of people who think they might have the virus?

 

[GIMH]

Spark what are my chances of

Going to Porto Santo in July - low imo
Going to Scotland in October
Going on a short western European cruise in December

Please advise. Thanks.