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Comment by tpmx | Hacker News Reader

"a reduction in the current passenger cap from 101,500 to 100,000"

Doesn't seem that dramatic?

The last two words in that sentence are pretty important "PER DAY"

>"Kaye’s solution is to cap Heathrow passenger numbers at 100,000 per day for the Summer period" ... "the closure for sale of all flights departing from the airport until 11th September a reduction in the current passenger cap from 101,500 to 100,000"

meaning every day until 9/11 1.5k people aren't getting a seat they paid for

It still doesn’t sound that extreme, tbh. I’m not sure how Heathrow compares to Schiphol but KLM alone is scrapping on the order of 7,000 seats _per day_. And that’s one (admittedly major) airline.

https://nos.nl/artikel/2433371-klm-schrapt-7000-stoelen-per-...

> This would be fine, except that airlines have already sold an avereage of 101,500 tickets per day and seats are still on sale.

My understanding is that based on existing sales alone, there are already 101,500 passengers/day. And in order to get 100,000, they have asked airlines to not sell any more tickets at all.

If you imagine that airlines were previously planning to sell a further 20,000 tickets per day, and they cut that down to 0-100 per day, that's a huge drop that is sure to impact anyone looking to buy tickets at this time.

And stop selling means to spend more money per passenger on fuel or re-coordinate the flights

That's per day, so 91,500 fewer seats this summer...most of which are already spoken for, it sounds like.

The article I read asked airlines to not sell additional seats, meaning to go off on the amount of sold seats they already have.

Yes, 1.48% of a very large number is still a large number.

clickbait title, in reality all they have asked is for the airlines to reduce the passengers by about 4000

HN needs to work on this, IMO. It works way too well here.

Should I flag this post? Feels a bit over the top. At the same time I can't downvote it. shrug

How is every single title considered clickbait? I'm at the point I don't even know what clickbait is anymore. Every HN thread I open, someone is saying the title is clickbait, even when the title is literally what is happening.

To me, clickbait is along the lines of "10 ways to lose 100lbs in 1 hour!" and it's an article about throwing out two 50lb weights. Or otherwise where the title is clearly not representative of the article itself.

But here we have...

>Effectively immediately, Heathrow has requested:

-the closure for sale of all flights departing from the airport until 11th September

- a reduction in the current passenger cap from 101,500 to 100,000

That seems to match the title exactly? Which part is clickbait? Or what has changed in the definition of clickbait that I'm too out of touch to have learned?

While it might not be clickbait it is definitely sensationalizing.

That usually leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of the reader.

Which part of the title is sensationalized?

Because the title is almost a word for word copy of the actual announcement, straight from the CEOs mouth.

One form of clickbait is to take mundane processes that the general public is not aware of, and to publicize them as if they are news.

Is this unprecedented at Heathrow, or normal course of action? Will the average Heathrow traveler or prospective traveler a face any consequence anything from this news?

Some of the items do seem like they would impact travelers and potential travelers, so I would not classify it as clickbait yet. Unless I found out this was every summer.

But if this article means that people should avoid Heathrow because the experience will be worse than prior years, then I would say this is relevant news to share with the public.

Capitalized "ANY" is certainly a clickbait trick.

It's certainly not clickbait. If I wanted to fly to London for a meeting in 6 weeks and then fly home, I can no longer do so via Heathrow. It's not like I can just get an earlier or later flight, travel a day earlier, whatever. It's just not an option. That's a rather big deal.

The title says ANY tickets, which won't actually the case since the aim is a reduction in passengers and many flights won't be fully booked anyway

but the "clickbait" bit is the dramatic title, weak definition of perhaps, but its still excessive

example of level reporting: https://news.sky.com/story/new-summer-holiday-threat-as-heat...

The letter says "so we are asking our airline partners to stop selling summer tickets to limit the impact on passengers." I do read this as selling any ticket, which is the title of the article.

Asks, not tells them to stop (and most airlines are still selling tickets, likely because many people that would be traveling now won't be so there will be spare capacity) - the problem is the article a) is a bit dramatic and misleading with the title, and b) isn't of particularly high quality anyway

Again the article covers that. The airport cannot enforce the rule but if the airlines do not play ball (and I suspect the airport has visibility on ticket sales), it can cancel flights wholesale.

Your article says the same thing as the one you call clickbait. They are already over the target cap, and they are asking for no additional ticket sales as a means of preventing going further over the cap, and indicating that if the numbers sold get worse, they will be forced to impose flight cancellations and may prohibit rebookings for passengers on any cancelled flights since such rebookings would defeat the purpose of reducing passengers.

Yes, but it does it without the tabloid caps, Sky are by no means innocent re this type of thing of course

The Sky article is actually worse quality. The original article quotes the full CEO statement, which is what I care about.

to me the title sounds like its cancel all flights, like its closing. but that doesnt really make sense, it's just phrased badly. its borderline clickbait, it sounds really bad(worse than it is), and the only way to understand what the title means is read the article. 'any more seats' - i think a 'more' in there would make the title ok

> to me the title sounds like its cancel all flights, like its closing

I am genuinely perplexed as to how someone could get that from this title.

But no more ticket sale is a big deal I think. Particularly business travelers.

No, they've asked them to stop selling tickets for the time period in question because they are already 1500 passengers/day over the cap, and are expected to be 4000 over if sales continue. They are also threatening to cancel flights (and not allowing rebookings of those whose flights are cancelled) if necessary to maintain the cap.

That “cap” wasn’t a previous policy. It’s the amount of tickets already sold!

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