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Comment by mattmaroon | Hacker News Reader

Only part I don't understand is why not sell tickets if you're making that flight anyway? There are several direct flights between those two cities every day so there's at least some demand. Some people are flying that leg so you're still doing all the stuff you do when you do a commercial flight. Surely a little extra boarding/deplaning time is worth the fares you'd get.

Why not pack the plane and get the sales? I am sure there's a reason (it's too obvious to not have occurred to an airline to sell tickets on a flight) why they think it's not worth it, I am just curious what it is.

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You can't legally sell domestic flights in a foreign country. (for these purposes, the EU is one country)

This is true for Australia, for India, for the USA, for the EU - an airline like Delta can fly to Sydney from LA but not sell domestic flights from Sydney to Melbourne. (Or, for that matter, international flights between Sydney and Singapore)

However, there is a catch! Airliners did not used to have quite the range they do today, and so the treaties allow things like refueling stops. And they (sometimes!) allow passengers to embark/disembark at those stops - but those passengers still have to be flying the international leg, or else it would be a domestic flight.

There's a Wendover video from years ago that's relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thqbjA2DC-E

Oh I see. So the few people on that last leg are just ones who booked a flight to Adelaide and they’re not allowed to sell more. I did not understand what parent meant about that but thanks that makes sense.

I am surprised few airlines set up subsidiary companies in other countries if this legal issue is almost universal. I've only ever interacted with airlines in the EU, so I had little to no idea how good I've had it.

I think that domestic airlines have to generally be 50+% owned by citizens of a country in most countries.

The article says a few passengers continue on to the final destination, so they’re not saving much in terms of crew / logistics.

Maybe it’s an attempt to avoid drawing too much attention from the regulator? If they started offering internal flights in Australia they’d be stepping even more on Qantas toes.

The wording in the article suggests that they're now selling tickets

>I mean, they weren’t even selling tickets [to Adelaide] for the first few weeks. They were taking the p** out of the industry and the laws.”

which implies after the "first few weeks" they were selling tickets

Right which I took to mean it must be legal since they do it now.

They did not sold tickets to the final destination, Adelaide. They only sold Doha-Melbourne. And now they sell Doha-Adelaide, with a long stop-over in Melbourne.

I'm guessing they don't need a crew for these ghost flights if there are no passengers.

But the article mentions that there's a few passengers, not zero.

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