Slotmachine

Ulrich Formann

Slotmachine, 2022

Tracking Europes Ghost Flights

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“‘Ghost flights’ carry neither freight nor passengers. Their purpose is to retain so-called slots. Slots are exclusive takeoff and landing times at airports that are allocated to individual airlines. When an airline does not use a slot on a regular basis, it is forfeited and reallocated to another airline. To prevent their competitors from obtaining these valuable starting and landing rights, airlines simply operate flights with empty planes. This system leads to thousands of ghost flights that produce ecologically harmful emissions for no good economic reason. Slotmachine continually retrieves the departure schedules of European airports and correlates them with the radar data supplied by aircraft tracking systems, made possible by airplanes’ constantly transmitting their positions so as to avoid collisions. By correlating these datasets, Slotmachine identifies current ghost flights, which are displayed on a departure board of the sort one can see in airports.” (Ulrich Formann)