[kjaftaedi]

You're making a strawman / false equivalence.

They are forcing them to fly the planes.

The company has already decided the value of the slots exceed the lost passenger revenue.

The company could not fly the plane, but the governments rules force the situation.

The rules were changed during covid to alleviate this, but now that the rules have changed back, we see the same situation again.

Imagine if you were faced with an equivalent dilemma:

You are in a situation where you will lose the right to park in your own garage for a year.

To keep your garage rights all you have to do is drive around aimlessly for an hour.

Do you decide the environment is more important, or do you want to park in your garage?

[DarkWiiPlayer]

Your analogy doesn't hold water. This is your garage, and you'd lose the rights to it by not using it.

A better one would be:

You have a reserved parking spot near a nice beach; but you will have to visit this beach at least 20 times during the summer or you will lose your reservation.

Does this make sense? Depends on your goal. If you want fair access to the beach for as many people as possible, no. If you want a smaller number of regulars that will spend many days at the beach and might be more willing to maybe buy some ice cream at your chiringuito, yes.

The actual problem also translates well to this analogy: You might drive all the way to the beach only to park for 10 minutes and drive back, only to keep your privilege for those days where you really want to use it.

[kjaftaedi]

Your analogy is slightly better, but even then it still misses the whole idea of hubs and connecting flights, because it's not just your trip to the beach, it's a whole network of cars trips to the beach that also depend on your trip to the beach in order for the system to function.

Once you start removing trips and other people take your parking spot, you don't always get your parking spot back or even one close, sometimes you might have to find all your cars a new beach to use.

[quantified]

The decision is on me. If the environment is actually important, I drop the space. If I’m spending the next year just driving aimlessly to keep the space, I don’t really need it.

Please quote the text of the article which claims they are being forced to fly? In fact you do claim it’s the company’s decision that this is the best course of action, acknowledging the alternative that’s plainly available.

[kjaftaedi]

It's the law.

Just Google 'use it or lose it slot rule'

It was dropped in March 2020, but recently brought back since the committee thought the pandemic was 'over'.

Here is an article I googled for you:

https://simpleflying.com/lufthansa-ghost-flights/

I think this was discussed here a day or two ago.