Do airlines ever run relief flights?

[Lost property]

The nicotine stains apparently made it easier for the techs to find leaks in the rear bulkhead.

If you have a "leak" in the rear pressure bulkhead, there's a very good chance you will make next days headlines. However, if you have a leak around a fastener, this is serious enough, but, can be rectified.

The one, and only, "plus" of smoking on an aircraft was that, obviously, any fastener on the fuselage with a stain clearly showed it had failed. Most of you will never have had to remove the outflow valve, encrusted with thick tar. The sight of that alone confirms banning smoking was a very sensible move.

As for the Shuttle, true, originally the idea was turn up and go...hence a standby aircraft, and crew, were also allocated just in case. Then the costs started to mount. However, once the relics (Trident / 1-11 ) had been consigned to, hopefully, the breakers yard and the 757's started to arrive, there was no need for a standby.

It simply isn't commercially or operationally viable to have an aircraft sat around "just in case" .

 

[davyp]

That’s their normal timetable, it seems they have a flight that runs 6 days a week (not Wednesdays) SV123, and SV129 which is Saturdays only.

Many thanks for the update re Saudia
D

 

[Tetchytyke]

It simply isn't commercially or operationally viable to have an aircraft sat around "just in case" .

Most airlines have spare aircraft sat around. It's "just in case" but, in reality, they will always be used as there will always be a delay somewhere.

EasyJet say they have 14 spares at any time around their network.

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www.bbc.co.uk

The airline says it now has 14 standby aircraft across its network. If a plane gets delayed early on, rather than letting delays accumulate over the day, a spare aircraft and crew can be “injected” to take on the second half of the programme.

[Director of Network Control] Ms Baudot says that makes a huge difference, “because then you’re not over-running into the following day, you’re not ending up with very last-minute overnight delays or last minute cancellations”.

 

[TravelDream]

Most airlines have spare aircraft sat around. It's "just in case" but, in reality, they will always be used as there will always be a delay somewhere.

I think you are both right here.

It isn't commercially viable to have excess planes just sat around. However, all major airlines have some level of spare aircraft that can be called upon. It's an are where operational resilience and finance (and supply of crew) collide and it generally works out to be the bare minimum of spares the airline thinks it can get away with.

A spare doesn't always mean flights take off quickly too.
Let's say your tui Bristol to Faro aircraft goes tech and the base engineers say that it can't be fixed quickly. It needs a part tui has in stock at their maintenance base in Luton which will take time to get there and be fixed - say 8-10 hours. The flight is already delayed by over an hour at this point. TUI has a spare 737 at Manchester, but the crew needs to be called in off standby meaning the plane isn't going to go off blocks for at least 100-120 minutes or so. It's then has a 30 minute flight to Bristol for a quick 25 minute or so turn.
So that tech plane has now turned into a four plus hour delay.
Palma is an easy one. it's a big airport open 24/7.
What if the tech plane is due to go to one of the Greek islands with a strict nightime curfew? Operations needs to make the decision on whether the plane will make it to Bristol, then to Greece and then out again before spending a penny of the airline's money. A mistake will costs hundreds of thousands of pounds in what is a tight margin industry.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Delta Airlines in the USA often runs relief/extra flights. They give them a DL 9XXX code usually.

 

[Indigo Soup]

Delta Airlines in the USA often runs relief/extra flights. They give them a DL 9XXX code usually.

I don't know what the cost base is like for US airlines, but from what I've heard the fares are substantially higher than for European air travel. That may make a difference.

 

[AlterEgo]

I don't know what the cost base is like for US airlines, but from what I've heard the fares are substantially higher than for European air travel. That may make a difference.

Partly, but also that flying is vastly more democratised and essential as a means of domestic public transport in the USA.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Also, as soon as the Superbowl contenders are known, they already know the location of the stadium well in advance, airlines proactively put on extra flights.