Can this be true?
It was reported on Algerzira TV today !
They will still fly the planes despite having no passengers for them !!
Sounds crazy to me??
Donkeyman! 
Despite much rhetoric about vehicles & the environment. The UK government & the EU, subsidise air travel & not just with subsidies for specific routes either. In 2010 air travel by UK operators were subsidised by over £9.2 billion simply because there was no VAT on air tickets & because aircraft, unlike cars, HGVs, buses etc pay no duty on fuel!!
In 2010 the costs were broken down as…
Implementing fuel tax at the same rate as private vehicle fuel tax would cost the aviation industry £5.7 billion.
Adding VAT to the cost of tickets would bring in £4.0 billion to the economy.
Air Passenger Duty brought in £0.9 billion. This would be lost. So over all, the gain figure was £9.2 Billion.
Not very “green” is it.
Sheer stupidity.
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@Gee3 , So our cheap air fares are not cheap at all then?
And even if we never fly we still pay some sort of ‘fare’ ?
I suppose it encourages our consumers to spend
though, which seems to be essential for the so called healthy
‘economy’ these days ??
It also explains why flying is cheaper than rail or bus ??
Donkeyman! 
Why are they doing this? Is it to make sure they are all still airworthy?
@SilverTabby Don’t ask me Tabby, the only thing l can think of
is that they are scheduled flights or summat ?
Donkeyman!
Is it something to do with being obliged to fly a specific route regularly in order to maintain a contract to keep that route?
Trains are also heavily subsidised. In 2020, it was costing the tax payer an average of £100 per rail journey.
Pre covid goverment subsidies of the rail industry was £4.3 billion. Currently according to todays Guardian that stands at £17 billion. And that does not include the billions being spent on HS2.
@JBR , Could be JB, I Just posted that also !
Still think it’s stupid though?
Somebody on the forum posted on a flight from Singapore
that had only twelve passengers in an Airbus too ?!
Donkeyman!
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Why are we subsiding private companies people like Richard Branson
IMO trains should be subsided but they should be owned by the Nation.
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Lufthansa is also going to cancel some 33,000 flights because of a lack of demand. Due to airport slot rules, an airline cannot simply reduce the number of flights accordingly. Those 18,000 flights have to be carried out in order not to forfeit valuable take-off and landing slots and, at the same time, to make sure the company doesn’t take a nose dive and can get off to a flying start in spring and especially once the crisis is over.
As I suspected.
Some of the train operators are not even British companies & pay minimal UK tax.