For the skeptics

Hi all,
I want to first talk about my flying experience. I live across the country from the rest of my family and the times I fly are usually around the Christmas holidays at the busiest time of the year. Virtually every time I flew back home it was with the same airline and it was a 767 which had 290 passenger capacity, one flight per day leaving at 9:00 AM and arriving at 2:00 PM 3 hours later with a 2 hour lag. And the flight is usually full with very few seats left empty, I would say at least 90-95% of the seats were occupied.

But I had a funeral to attend last August. So I called to make reservations and they told me that there was a flight leaving every two days. Either on the 8th of August or on the 10th of August. They told me that during the slower season they only fly a single flight every two days. So I flew on the 8th because the funeral service was on the 10th. And event thought they were flying only one plane every two days, which is half the usual frequency, the flight was about 70-80% full. In fact the seat next to mine was empty, that was a first for me.

Now I want you to think about this: on 9-11 there was a total of about 240 passengers on board the four airliners total. That is less then 60 passengers per plane and about 25% occupancy.

Don't you find it extremely strange that on that day 4 airplanes from two different airlines were flying at 25% occupancy?
I mean, if that was a slow season, they should have reduced the number of flights or use smaller airplanes. It's just not cost efficient to fly a full crew on a large airplane with only 25% occupancy.

So to the skeptics, how do you feel about that? What's your take on this very very strange anomaly?

I have to say, I have NEVER flown an airliner at anything below 70-80% occupancy. I find this 25% occupancy on all four airplanes extremely difficult to swallow .... what do you guys/gurls think?

Cheers,
PepeLapiu

I used to work for an airlines, and this is my take on it. One thing that is important to note is that flights are more heavily loaded now then they were back then. Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, I used to get on aircraft that were only halfway full all the time, now I am lucky if I don’t have people on either side of me, and the flight overbooked.

Also some flights are always heavier then others. Lets say that you have a lot of folks flying to Florida in the fall to stay there for the winter, and then returning home in the spring to spend the summer up north. Well in that instance you have flights coming in here that are fully booked, yet that aircraft has to go back into rotation at its next airport and may fly there almost empty.

Schedules for airlines also do not change on a dime. They normally change flight schedules seasonally. So here, for example, that was two times a year, in the spring and fall. Once those flight schedules are set, even if they fly empty, they still fly (there is still mail and freight on that flight, and it has to be at its next boarding location). In this instance you were at the end of the summer, so the summer flight schedule was due to be switching over to the fall schedule. Toward the end of the season you would not have as many vacation travelers, yet you would still be on a heavier level flight schedule. As the airlines have had to become more efficient at scheduling due to fuel costs, maybe they have started to shift those schedules more often.

Also there was starting to be a shift in equipment in the last few years I worked out there. Airlines were bringing down the price of tickets, filling the aircraft to higher capacity, and flying larger aircraft on fewer routes. If you remember back before SouthWest airlines became a huge competitor, most airlines were flying 727’s with a few larger aircraft. Now that folks have had to compete with SW, they have changed over to more of the large 737’s, 757’s, airbuses, and 767’s flying fewer flights with more passengers at lower cost per passenger.

Ultimately the biggest factors are always: time of day, time of season, cost of tickets, and destination, in how booked a flight is prone to be.



[edit on 11/7/2007 by defcon5]

So you have no problems with the idea that the passengers of all 4 airplanes could have fitted into a single aircraft?

While I agree that there could be some seasonal North-South pattern fluctuations I have NEVER EVER heard of a flight flying at 25% capacity. I dare you to find some examples of this.

But never the less, North-South seasonal pattern fluctuations are not all that relevant in this case because all the flights were traveling West and for the life of me, I can't find any Est-West pattern fluctuations for the month of September .... can you?

Furthermore, you would think that if they were flying at only 25% passenger capacity (which is extremely low and rare in any case) they would tend to carry more cargo such as mail and other stuff, but there is absolutely no record of any missing cargo from any of the four flights. Nobody has claimed any missing shipment/mail/cargo after 9-11 and no cargo outside of the passenger luggage has been reported to be on board. It would help if the two airlines would make their manifest public but to this day, that remains unpublished.

Food for thoughts......

Cheers,
PepeLapiu

[edit on 7-11-2007 by PepeLapew]

Originally posted by PepeLapew
While I agree that there could be some seasonal North-South pattern fluctuations I have NEVER EVER heard of a flight flying at 25% capacity. I dare you to find some examples of this.

This is a silly dare, as I said I have worked for airlines.
Translation: I have worked on flights that have gone out empty.
Now are you going to find a website that list passenger loads…. Nope…
Airlines do not publish that type of information, as its critical business info that they do not share with their competitors. They do not want competitors to know exact numbers for what are successful routes, as then they have more competition for those routes. Route info is very business sensitive.

Originally posted by PepeLapew
I can't find any Est-West pattern fluctuations for the month of September .... can you?

As I stated clearly above, September is the end of summer vacation period. Many people from the east go west to California, Las Vegas, etc. There are many flights that connect to other locations in the Far East out of airports ranging from Denver to San Francisco.

Originally posted by PepeLapew
Furthermore, you would think that if they were flying at only 25% passenger capacity (which is extremely low and rare in any case) they would tend to carry more cargo such as mail and other stuff, but there is absolutely no record of any missing cargo from any of the four flights.

Again, I don’t think your going to find that information online. Cargo and mail manifests are held in high confidence so someone cannot figure out how to coordinate them to specific flights. To make matters even more confusing, the Post Office started buying planes to fly the majority of their own mail by 2000. Airfreight is a hit or miss thing, either someone is sending something that day on one of the flights, or not. There is no guarantee that anything will go out on an aircraft. When this happens they call that aircraft a ferry flight. Meaning its ferrying its equipment and its crew to the next location with nothing on it.

Must happen more frequently then you think when they have a name for it.

Originally posted by PepeLapew
It would help if the two airlines would make their manifest public but to this day, that remains unpublished.

Again, never going to happen for security reasons.

It's akin to the seemingly low number of people needlessly losing their lives in the towers. While waiting all that time to hear the final death toll for that day, I wondered too about the uncrowded jets. Four uncrowded jets, not just one or two fluke uncrowded jets, but four of them. And all four of these jets happened to be hi-jacked. Stands to reason then, that if anyone ever gets charged or sued for anything, then there will be fewer restitutions to be made. I've only guessed before that a lot of folks were off work that day at the towers, but I also have heard that substantial office space was vacant at that time. Something I was never aware of until recently. I always thought it was "the big apple" of course, and the world trade center of all places was jammed with companies and employees. Maybe this was not the case.

Originally posted by grooveguy
It's akin to the seemingly low number of people needlessly losing their lives in the towers. While waiting all that time to hear the final death toll for that day, I wondered too about the uncrowded jets. Four uncrowded jets, not just one or two fluke uncrowded jets, but four of them. And all four of these jets happened to be hi-jacked. Stands to reason then, that if anyone ever gets charged or sued for anything, then there will be fewer restitutions to be made. I've only guessed before that a lot of folks were off work that day at the towers, but I also have heard that substantial office space was vacant at that time. Something I was never aware of until recently. I always thought it was "the big apple" of course, and the world trade center of all places was jammed with companies and employees. Maybe this was not the case.

Wrong. The highjackers intentionally picked flights during this time period knowing there wold be fewer passengers allowing them to take over the craft that much easier.

Wrong. The WTC complex was enjoying a 96% occupancy rate. I am not sure where you "recently" got your information.

I've worked for four airlines over 10 years and was contracted out by them to also work operations/dispatch for many other carriers as well.

It is NOT at all unusual for planes to go out with 25% or less passenger load. Some are repositioning to a hub, some are on a small leg of a multi-leg route, some are on an open-jaw, some are being 'ferried' for maintenance, some are under charter or being positioned for charter, some are on layover and are simply carrying non-revs, some are contracted for postal/cargo/military or other uses and are not part of scheduled service, some are on a feeder route, some are serving a small remote community but are later part of a continuing itinerary, and on and on.

Any one of these situations and many others would result in a flight that carries a less-than 'typical' full load (

John Farmer says it was a trans-continental flight. John Farmer is some guy on one of those commissions or panels. Are these trans-continental flights commonly ferries or re-directs or hubs? Or are they transcontinental flights? No matter. That's my research on this one. Visited Wikipedia and searched the death toll. 2,974 including all the deaths for that day, but Wikipedia didn't include the highjackers in this given number of deaths. Cuz they don't know the exact count of the highjackers? Maybe they fear going on record? A few showed up alive and well later. Easy money. Though Wikipedia did go on to say there were 19, they just didn't want to include them as "fatalities."

I'm shutting up now in the name of freedom. This post is turning into an act of terror. Taking investigations in my own hands. I should be ashamed.

I like having a wrong opinion, though. It's now possible to have a wrong opinion, and ask wrong questions...and it's illegal.

reply to post by CaptainObvious
Hi CO,

I'm guessing the hijackers left a note telling the world that they picked those flights because, they knew they wouldn't be full, huh? Did they ask reservations for a flight leaving in the morning, that would be nearly empty? How would the hijackers know these flights would be 25% full?

Thanks for another question that needs answering.

Sorry about bumping a thread that was front page 4 months ago, I just need CO to answer a couple of answers.