WNBA organizes playoff charter flight after commercial flight canceled

[LadyStanley]

WNBA playoffs: League flies Wings, Sun to Dallas on chartered flights after travel issues

After the Wings' flight to Dallas was canceled, the WNBA flew both them and the Sun privately ahead of Game 3 on Wednesday.

sports.yahoo.com

Put both teams on charter to eliminate competitive advantage.

Commissioner says it's about $20m/season for charter flights. "Not sustainable"

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[KevFu]

Its really wild to me that


A) no entrepreneur has thought to be a "'charter flight for leagues'" company that does occasional flights the other way to make money" company.

B) That no league has just been like, "Eff it, let's have our own airline."

 

[KevFu]

It would take like 48 planes to be the exclusive airline of MLB/NHL, 60 max to cover five of the big six leagues.

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

Its really wild to me that


A) no entrepreneur has thought to be a "'charter flight for leagues'" company that does occasional flights the other way to make money" company.

B) That no league has just been like, "Eff it, let's have our own airline."

It’s really wild to me that you could just assume the economic viability of such an endeavor.

Sorry I should add to this instead of just a short quip. But if you take a look at the airline business in general, they run razor thin margins to stay profitable (with other moral and immoral cost cutting activities). The speed at which airlines lose money when they can’t have their planes all in the air flying is stunning. Deregulation has led to an environment in which the cost of flying is relatively cheap (even with the inflation of today, flying is much cheaper in real terms than it was in the 70s), but reliability and the overall experience is far less pleasant.

Teams that have their own planes don’t do it because it saves any money. Far from it. It’s because it is a luxury. A charter company solely focusing on the unpredictable nature of business in terms of sports teams would never be able to offer a more economical option than the airlines or a regular charter company.

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

It would take like 48 planes to be the exclusive airline of MLB/NHL, 60 max to cover five of the big six leagues.

And what do you do with those planes during the ebbs and flows of the business. What you’re talking about is an inherently undiversified business model.

You could lease out the planes, but how would that prove more viable than just having a general charter company that already exists?

Ie how does focusing solely on one very small sector show any sort of security in terms of return giving the huge capital and operating expenditures of flying (and storing/maintaining) jets.