Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 March 4

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March 4

US airline marginal profit

If a US airline flies X passengers on a given domestic route, it makes $Y profit. If it flies X+1 passengers on an identical flight, and the last person pays $60-plus-taxes for a ticket, I suppose that the airline's profit on the flight is almost $Y+$60, since most of the airline's expenses are unrelated to the specific number of passengers on a flight: corporate expenses (e.g. salaries), equipment depreciation, fuel, and the airports' landing fees. Fuel usage will be marginally greater, since the passenger and bags weigh something, but I assume that's negligible. You'll have a tiny bit of extra expense for napkins, snacks, etc., but those can't add up to much at airline-scale bulk purchasing. Am I correct, or if not, is the airline likely to incur expenses directly related to the number of passengers carried on a particular flight? All I can find online is general industry averages, e.g. "American Airlines flew X passengers at a cost of $Y, so its cost per passenger is $Y/X", not something talking about marginal profit. Nyttend (talk) 05:52, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Adding one passenger+luggage on a Boeing 737-800 adds about 0.15% weight, which close to maximum range amounts to about 30 kg (66 lb) additional fuel. (Fuel consumption per passenger will be about 120 kg (260 lb).) Jet fuel is very cheap, but I don't think that's negligible. The profit margin will be better. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:07, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Jet A1 is around 1 US$/EUR per kg in Germany (and the price seems to vary by only a few percent between major markets). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:53, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

What Is An Airline's Load Factor And Why Does It Matter? may help. Alansplodge (talk) 11:29, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

We also have an article, Passenger load factor. Alansplodge (talk) 11:31, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Interesting. Even 0.15% is a lot more than I expected. Also — in such a situation, assuming the extra doesn't push them over the edge of some bracket (e.g. 101 passengers require one more flight attendant than 100 passengers, or landing fees for 76 passengers are 50% higher than for 75 passengers), is the airline likely to have expenses besides fuel and snacks/napkins/etc directly related to the addition of the extra passenger? Of course this assumes that the extra passenger doesn't directly cause expenses by engaging in disruptive behaviour or experiencing a medical emergency. Nyttend (talk) 21:05, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Add the marginal (probably trivial) cost of handling that passenger and her luggage on the ground to your equation, as well as any expenses incurred in booking the flight. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 23:06, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

That's what I was guessing; the ground employees are already getting paid, so they likely won't have any extra expense in that area. Nyttend (talk) 19:52, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Murdaugh defense surprised by dog kennel video

I haven't followed the trial closely--guy's guilty but he's a bigshot in a small town, so apparently people are mesmerized. Anyway, I just read that the defense didn't learn of the video until the trial. Isn't the prosecution supposed to give the defense all evidence in a timely manner? I thought only the defense are allowed to surprise the other side in the US. Imagine Reason (talk) 14:07, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy link: Trial of Alex Murdaugh. Alansplodge (talk) 14:51, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I haven't been following the trial closely either, but the Murdaugh family has apparently had great influence over a rural and semi-rural area where almost 300,000 people live, so it's a bit more than a "small town"... AnonMoos (talk) 16:24, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

The defence knew before the trial started that there was a video, said to be "critical to the case".^[1] It is possible that they had not been allowed to view it, but [speculation on] another possibility is that they did watch it but did not grasp its significance [speculation off ]. The rules for disclosure to the defence may differ from state to state.  --Lambiam 10:13, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

(EC) It seems incredibly unlikely the defence was not aware of the video until the trial, not least because I'm fairly sure this is the same video [2] [3] and we can see back in mid August 2022, the defence was alleging the prosecution was leaking evidence including the existence of this video to the media but not handing it over to them. Indeed the second source mentions this [4] from a year after the murders i.e. 6 June 2022 as the first public report of the video and we can see it says "Video found on Paul Murdaugh’s now-unlocked phone shows Alex and Maggie talking by the dog kennels the evening of June 7, 2021, according to multiple sources." While this doesn't prove the defence were provided access before the trial, at least it shows they knew it existed so it wasn't a secret. They likely became aware of it soon after the news report in June. And before jury selection had begun, the judge had subpoenaed Snapchat and Google. [5] While this still doesn't prove the defence had seen/heard it, ultimately I find it very hard to imagine the defence wouldn't have made a far bigger deal if they still hadn't been given access to this video. Especially since it seems the video was even mentioned in the prosecutions filing for the case [6]. When they obtained it, I don't know. But since the video isn't mentioned in this from 22 October [7] my guess would be it would have been on or before then. This probably isn't the place to discuss whether the prosecution were still too slow, except that the judge seemed satisfied with the speed of them turning over evidence. As for the leak allegations, again not really the place to discuss except to note the ORry but IMO obvious point that if this was a Snapchat video sent to friends, it's existence was likely known or speculated from very early on at least in private. Nil Einne (talk) 10:33, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I found [8] which links to [9]. The latter includes the court filing on evidence the defence were alleging still hadn't been handed over. While I'm generally reluctant to link to a court document on anything involving a living person, under the specific conditions here and given the document, I feel it's harmless enough.

Anyway the motion in 17 October doesn't mention the video as one of the fifteen pieces of evidence the defence was still seeking strongly suggesting they had obtained it by then. Note that the document does mention they hadn't received the result of a search warrant on geofencing data served on Google, making it even more surprising they'd just forget about this Snapchat video they were earlier complaining that they hadn't received despite it's existence being public.

I wonder if one reasons this is causing confusion is because the video seems to have been a crucial piece of evidence with significant ramifications. But remember that hindsight is 20/20. And maybe more importantly, as to why the video was still a problem even if the defence knew about it, well [10] and [11] may be of interest.

And again I'd finish with some minor OR/speculation, but the defence ultimately have to deal with the evidence that exists including any earlier statements their client may have made. (One reason defences hate it when their clients talked without consulting them.) And I doubt many defences would suggest it's better for their client to go on record before trial explaining that they told something which was untrue. Instead I suspect in nearly all cases the defence would recommend the client only do that during testimony during trial if it's felt it's the best course of action. In other words, even if it seems it was handled poorly, perhaps this is because there wasn't a better way to handle it within the confines of the law. Remember too, the defence also generally has to follow the wishes of their client provided it isn't illegal, even if they feel it's a bad idea.

Nil Einne (talk) 11:09, 5 March 2023 (UTC)