Last week, a sizeable flock of OPIGlets went to ISMB in Basel. Also last week, a storm and a radar tower problem over London Gatwick (LGW) and London Heathrow (LHR) led to four of those OPIGlets being stranded in Switzerland. This is a (somewhat accurate) timeline of their ordeal:
8pm: We arrive at Basel airport. All is well. We are exhausted from the conference but happy to get back to Oxford soon.
8.30pm: We get to gate D33. Our flight is delayed by 45min. We expected this (it’s easyjet after all). I do some work.
9.30pm: We were supposed to have boarded. A message appeared in the easyjet app: Expect major disruptions due to storms of LGW. We are getting worried. I write some emails I have been putting off.
10pm: We have been informed that our flight has been cancelled. We wonder if they did not know that information earlier.
10.15pm: After queuing for 15min to get rebooked on a different flight and get accommodation, we are given a piece of paper and are told we will have to do this via the easyjet app. We wonder why we queued for this. The app has not been updated, so we cannot book anything yet.
10.30pm: We are back in the departure hall. The app does not allow us to book accommodation yet. We wonder why there is no one to talk to.
10.45pm: The app allows us to book things now. The next flight is from Zurich on the next morning at 10.25. Fair enough, we book onto that one. The accommodation search is ongoing. We wonder if the system is designed for maximum annoyance.
11.15pm: We have finally found accommodation in the app. We are advised that easyjet ground crew will assist us in getting to the accommodation. There is no easyjet ground crew in the entire airport.
11.45pm: We get to the hotel and check in.
5.30am: We get up. There is a train to catch.
8am: We arrive in Zurich. We learn that the flight is scheduled to depart 4h late. We grow angry again.
9am: After futilely attempting to book onto a flight that would leave somewhat in time, we go through security. There is a lot of cursing.
Noon: Our flight is updated to 7h delay. I try to find something to do.
5pm: I have run out of work to do remotely. Our flight is updated to 8h delay. I call a friend from Zurich and ask him if he wants to go for a pint.
5.30pm: Against all expectations, the boarding begins.
6.19pm: With a delay of only 21h35min, we leave for London Gatwick. Some people clap. I wonder what for.
As we finally made it home, I began wondering just how much of an economic impact flight cancellations and delays actually have. The following are back-of-the-envelope calculations including a lot of assumptions about plane size, salaries and productivity. I think I estimated all of these conservatively, but you might disagree:
- Number of cancellations: https://www.flightstats.com/v2/global-cancellations-and-delays
- Average European salary: https://www.emolument.com/career_advice/average_salary_europe rounded up to 2000 euros for inflation. I believe this is a low estimate since the average salary of frequent flyers is likely higher.
- Average amount of passengers per plane: https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-passenger-traffic-globally/ (for the number of passengers per year) and https://www.statista.com/statistics/564769/airline-industry-number-of-flights/ (for the number of flights per year). This is again a low estimate, since it includes small planes (e.g. Cessnas), which are less likely to be flying in Europe than in other parts of the world and are less likely to be flying into LGW or LHR and be affected by the delays in question.
- Average duration of delays: https://www.flightstats.com/company/monthly-performance-reports/airlines/ (eyeballed 45mins from the delays for low-budget airlines). This too likely underestimates the actual delays, since the delays caused by the problems that weekend were probably larger than average. The duration of a cancellation was set to 8h, this seemed a reasonable estimate.
avg_salary = 2000 / (8 * 21.4) # 21.4 is the average number of working days in a month) num_delays = 52999 # each considered 45min num_cancellations = 2658 # each considered 8h passengers_per_plane = 4.6 * 1000 / 39.4 hours_delay_total_europe_this_week = per_plane * (num_delays * 45 + num_cancellations * 8 * 60) / 60
Assuming that at most, during a delay at the airport, people work at half efficiency (some are going to their holidays (and therefore do not incur loss) while some do not work at all even though they are technically on their employer’s dime):
econ_damage = hours_delay_total_europe_this_week * avg_salary / 2
This amounts to 41,600,000 Euros in economic damage over the last week in Europe alone. How much of this was due the problems we were experiencing though (i.e. the delays due to problems around LGW and LHR)? If we assume that this week was otherwise normal:
num_delays_last_30d = 222613 num_cancellations_last_30d = 7079 num_cancellations_avg_week = ((num_cancellations_30d - num_cancellations)/23) * 7 num_delays_avg_week = ((num_delays_last_30d - num_delays)/23) * 7 hours_delay_total_europe_normal_week = per_plane * (num_delays_avg_week * 45 + num_cancellations_avg_week * 8 * 60) / 60 econ_damage_normal_week = hours_delay_total_europe_normal * avg_salary / 2 econ_damamge_diff = econ_damage - econ_damage_normal
Compared to the previous 23 days, delay induced damages over the last week have increased by 7,900,000 Euros (!), most of which will have been due to one storm and one radar tower problem…
Disclaimer: The above calculations are bound to be fairly inaccurate and rely on several vague assumptions. I assume that the actual damages would turn out to be considerably higher, as I did not include any damages beyond salaries paid during unproductive airport stays (e.g. additional logistics costs on the side of the airlines, trickle-down costs of disruptions due to personnel not being present etc.)
