Comment by toomim | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomim | Hacker News Reader

It's likely that this is due to corruption in Panama with pressure from Nicaragua and Hong Kong. The official reasons given don't make sense:

> Marine Traffic Control said the backlog is primarily due to weather conditions, including several days of fog at the canal. But we spoke with a canal insider, who said that in his decades of experience he has only seen it like this when there is some other issue going on – not one that’s weather related.

Thus, something is happening behind the scenes that they don't want to talk about.

Maybe there is political pressure from Nicaragua/Hong Kong proponents of the Nicaraguan canal. The biggest reason cited by the WSJ not to build the canal is lack of demand:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-to-dig-the-nicaragua...

It's quite possible that Nicaragua/Hong Kong are putting pressure on Panama to increase the wait times. Perhaps they scheduled the "Dry chamber maintenance" during a high-shipping seasons on purpose:

> A statement provided to us Friday from the Panama Canal Authority said that a high level of arrivals during the last in September coincided with schedule dry-chamber maintenance.

Why would Panama willingly do anything to encourage the Nicaragua Canal? It poses a huge competitive threat (if it were likely to be built).

Money

Unless they were colluding to increase wait times to get the Nicaragua Canal built and then share the profits (unlikely). More likely is Panama isn't doing this to encourage building the Nicaragua Canal but instead is just doing this to increase premium slot prices.

Could Magic Mountain and Knott's Berry Farm run more roller coaster trains and decrease wait times? Sure, but then there wouldn't be as much incentive for people to buy flash/front-of-the-line passes. I'd be willing to bet the waits are at least partially artificially created to support the flash passes as yet another source of revenue.

It would be easier to just raise prices then to do all the hullaboo.

They would get so much pushback for artificially raising prices, with the increased demand they can claim innocence/market forces - this seems like the most logical explanation to me, also don't think they'd want to collude with a potential competitor for profit-sharing that seems a little conspiracy theorist...

Speaking from experience, The waits at magic mountain in the 80s ran upwards of an hour+, and that was prior to flash/front-of-line passes, so I don't think there is a correlation.

An hour wait at Magic Mountain nowadays seems to be the norm moreso than the exception. Have you been there in the summer when X2 has had waits in the 2-3 hour range WITHOUT a Flash Pass? This still occurs and the ride is over 12 years old now. I'd argue it is somewhat due to incomes rising enough to allow more people to attend MM. MM has responded by offering Flash Passes but what I've yet to see is even on the busiest day, running multiple cars at a quick enough clip to minimize wait times. With this kind of demand, they really don't have to minimize wait times since as much as people complain about the times, they still go.

Furthermore, the Flash Pass isn't so much a front-of-the-line pass as it is a bypass-most-of-the-line pass. It still deposits you in the loading/unloading area so you could still hypothetically have a 15-20 minute wait depending on how many riders are already in the loading/unloading area.

Edit: Goliath (built in 2000) still routinely has 1-2 hour waits and might even rival Tatsu for most Flash Passed coaster given that X2 was, up until recently, not even able to be added to the standard Flash Pass unless you upgraded to the Gold or Platinum Flash Passes.

Tell me that doesn't smell like an incentive to increase waits to drive sales of Flash Passes in lieu of outright raising prices to control demand.

Because of corrupt officials, bribed with money to schedule a maintenance during a busy season.

"Thus, something is happening behind the scenes that they don't want to talk about."

Which is explained later in the piece.

"A statement provided to us Friday from the Panama Canal Authority said that a high level of arrivals during the last in September coincided with schedule dry-chamber maintenance."

Unless you think that's a bogus reason too?

Did you read my whole comment? I addressed that.

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