One year of Analytic Flying!
One year of Analytic Flying!
We're looking forward to another fantastic data filled year!
We registered the domain www.analyticflying.com on 8 September 2023. Just over a week later we published our first blog analysing the implications of the Australian government’s decisions to block Qatar Airways’s application for additional market access. The purpose of the analysis wasn’t to take a position on the issue or criticise the decision, but to analyse and understand its implications in a sober and rational manner.
While our conclusions were critical of the government’s decision, the analysis highlighted how Qatar’s approach was a little arrogant and even cynical. The mainstream narrative ignored that Qatar could increase capacity without additional capacity and that they were clearly exaggerating the likely impact.
The Qatar affair played well into the narrative that Qantas and Alan Joyce were villains. However, as our follow-up analysis showed, Qantas was not the main beneficiary and that Emirates and Singapore Airlines had as much, if not more to gain.
Implications of the Australian government’s decision to block additional frequencies for Qatar Airways
Who stands to benefit from Australia’s decision to block additional market access to Qatar Airways?
That’s why we started Analytic Flying! It wasn’t about dumping on anyone or sensationalising anecdotes to attract clicks. It’s about advancing the discourse in Australian aviation through rigorous technical analyses. Using the wealth of publicly available data we aim to answer technical questions and understand the implications of strategic and policy decisions. We’re not that interested which credit card gets the most miles or best lounge access, nor which airline wronged us (Lufthansa!).
We’re also not journalists! Journalists don’t conduct analysis. They aren’t experts in aviation, however passionate about it they may be. Their expertise is investigating, speaking to experts and sources, distilling information and asking the right questions. They put the pieces together! But they also rely on analysis ...
In the age of social media, forums and enthusiast websites (let's call it new media) there are many passionate AvGeeks. Some brand themselves as experts, despite not having the technical knowledge or experience. We don’t see much analysis in "new media" and where we do it’s rather superficial. There is no focus on quality of output, rather focusing on quantity and speed of output.
Out focus is on quality rather than quantity or speed. This explains our erratic publication schedule and sometimes long gaps between articles. We’d rather spend more time working on data and refining our analysis instead of pushing out half-baked pieces.
New media doesn't like to rely on experts for analysis like traditional journalism does. Everyone else is competition for clicks! Many of the popular new media tend to be clickbaity, generating a race to the bottom. Sensationalism drives clicks and villains drive narrative. Analysis takes time to read and generates nuanced conclusions. Superficial analysis reaches easy conclusions that align with narrative and support sensationalism. Maybe analysis isn’t good for business …
Aviation forums follow a pile-on agenda where users can file their grievances and get the moral support from an equally aggrieved traveling public. Or where armchair CEOs tell you everything an airline is doing wrong. You know, the guy/girl that can run the airline by doubling staff, selling tickets at half the price, flying the latest equipment with the best seats, food and drink, and somehow still make enough profit to actually pay for that fancy fleet new aircraft that the manufacturer probably can’t deliver on time anyway! But we digress …
Challenging the narrative by providing analysis, supported by data gets your reply deleted because the moderator’s mate get embarrassed. Asking someone to provide a source to back up their wild unsubstantiated claim will get you banned (as required by the forum rules we might add, and yes this happened), as will injecting a little humour.
We keep the analysis on analyticflying.com dry and data driven, but if you follow us on social media you’ll see that we try to inject a little humour. Life isn’t as serious as the aggrieved feel and sometimes humour can help bring some perspective. Occasionally we push it a little too far. If we made one sardonic comment too many or didn’t hit the right note, we apologise!
Our goal has always been to bring something different. We're not trying to change the world, instead we want to add some value. We believe that rigorous technical analysis can advance the discourse and democratise expertise.
We're also don’t engage in the public policy process. Even though we’ve had plenty to say about their decisions we haven’t made any submissions to ACCC, IASC or other government departments. This is a deliberate decision to maintain independence from being aligned with the positions of individual airlines. However, if anyone wants to utilise our work in the public space they’re welcome to do so, but please give us the appropriate credit. In fact, we sincerely hope that policy makers to read our work and believe it would be valuable to them!
Stop sounding so grumpy!
On the topic of apologies we accept that we aren’t always right. We’re human and make mistakes, and we aren’t scared to acknowledge and correct errors. We encourage readers to let us know when we’ve made a mistake, but we also recognise that varying interpretations and conclusions don’t imply mistakes. Not every data point and point of analysis leads to the same interpretations and conclusions.
From the start, we aimed to follow the data and to use publicly available data as much as possible. We have followed this rule strictly and to the best of our knowledge haven’t published any analysis that didn’t utilise publicly available data. In addition, we have always strived to link all data sources, including original data, regulatory fillings, secondary analysis, etc. The data are our facts!
“Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.” Mark Twain
One things we’d like to do better in the coming year is being a less grumpy when people are take chance with the facts. They say that patience is a virtue and we strive to be respectful and take time to explain technical issues which are less obvious to casual observers. We’ve had a few jarring experiences where people have chosen to critique our analysis on other platforms, sometimes on platforms which don’t provide us the opportunity to respond or defend out positions. In a few cases, these critiques have been based on erroneous factual bases. We’ve taken umbrage with this, especially where our right of reply has been limited.
For example, the baseline version of the A321neo can only hold 18.4t of fuel. This is an established fact in black and white in the manual! Just because you’ll only burn about 16.0t flying from Sydney to Bali (with 200 passengers and no cargo) it doesn’t mean that the aircraft can actually fly this route.
There are other established facts: it needs taxi fuel, contingency fuel, fuel to get to an alternate (possibly a second alternate), and additional fuel for a range of other things (including but not limited to EDTO, and ATC and weather related route diversions). Then at the end of it all, it must land with a minimum amount of fuel remaining. Once all taken in account, there are no circumstances under which it gets from Sydney to Bali with anything close to a viable payload.
This hasn’t stoped a few people confidently asserting otherwise while critiquing our analysis on Qantas’s A321 XLR order.
Conflict of interest?
On a few occasions, we’ve been accused of showing favouritism and/or giving too much attention to Qantas. We acknowledge this as a valid critique but also acknowledge our context. Qantas are the largest airline group in Australia, flying more aircraft and routes than any other airline. Secondly, so much of the public discourse in aviation over the last year has focussed on Qantas. Thirdly, Qantas is the only carrier publishing detailed financial statements. Virgin no longer publish financial statements while Rex’s are simply not as detailed and transparent.
Simply put: Qantas occupies so much space and bandwidth that it dominates our content. We’ve tried to bring more balance by covering more international or general topics. For example, we’ve published shorter analyses on British Airways and the A380, and the challenges facing Cathay Pacific rebuilding their network post-COVID. We will do more of this in the coming year, particularly when there are interesting implications to Australia.
Look back, look forward
Apologies for the lengthy and grumpy diatribe but it’s important to recall why we started this project. As we look back over the last year we want to take the time to thank all our readers and subscribers. Several hundred of you now subscribe to the blog while many more follow and engage with us on social media. Thank you for the support, feedback and encouragement. As we’ve said before, it’s not a business and we’re not doing it for money!
There's nothing better than getting a message from someone who values and appreciates what we do, or seeing a surge in few subscribers after we publish an article! This validation is important so if you enjoy and value our work then please keep sharing it. This is more important than you might imagine!
We’ve said a number of times that Analytic Flying isn’t a business. There are no ads and no links pushing you to sign up for credit cards. Even if we wanted to try and turn it into a business we accept that our material is too technical and dense to get enough clicks. However, a few weeks ago something extraordinary and astonishing happened. Someone clicked a button on Substack (that we didn’t even know existed) and pledged an annual subscription that didn’t yet exist. We don’t know this person; we’ve never met them; never engaged with them (that we know it).
We were shocked since someone was voluntarily wanting to pay us for what we were doing! Analytic Flying is a labor of love and it doesn’t cost us much to operate. Substack is free and we use the free versions of data visualisation tools like Datawrapper, Google Looker Studio and Flourish. The domain and email cost a few hundred bucks, as do some other subscriptions (like ADS-B data) that we utilise to build our databases - that you should all use more anyway - like the Capacity Tracker!
Analytic Flying Capacity Tracker: Updated June 2024
The subscription gave us a lot of validation, so we’ve decided to change the model a little. We’ve introduced the option of a voluntary paid subscription. Again, it’s an option. You can maintain a free subscription and you’ll get the same content and access to Analytic Flying. If you enjoy and value what we do you are welcome to make a contribution via a monthly or annual subscription, or by contributing any amount you’d like.
It’s voluntary and the purpose isn’t to turn a profit. Nobody will be quitting their jobs but it’ll help defray some of the expenses and help us scale-up and improve some things. It’ll allow us to upgrade to paid versions of data visualisation tools and help pay some bright young freelancers to improve our old and clunky databasing.
Once again, it’s been a blast! We’re had a lot of fun over the last year and look forward to the year ahead! And if you’re ever in Melbourne and want to catch-up for a drink and some plane spotting, let us know!