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You’re Too Cheap to Fly Faster

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Re: You’re Too Cheap to Fly Faster

#31

Post by georgemcbay »

The economics behind the failure of the Concorde are far more complicated than "people didn't buy enough tickets". There were an extremely limited amount of routes (basically you could fly out of NYC or Washington DC to either London or Paris), mostly due to the problem of sonic booms, but also because the plane design was such that there was essentially a minimum travel distance for it to ever be reasonably economically viable. It isn't like there was a Southwest offering Concorde flights from LA to SFO at 1.5x or 2.0x times the price of a normal ticket. The Concorde actually sold pretty well given how limited the routes were until the entire airline industry started to crater around the turn of the century (9/11, etc).

There was also a lot of politics behind the Concorde discontinuation that had nothing to do with pure economics.

Having said all of that, our cheapness does seem to be doing harm to a lot of industries over time, where if you want to buy a new product your choices are like a dozen shitty things made by the lowest bidder in China or 2 "premium" choices that are only marginally better than the cheap shit at like 5 times the cost. Something similar to the capitalistic middle-class squeeze we have been going through seems to apply to product choices as well.

Re: You’re Too Cheap to Fly Faster

#32

Post by gilgoomesh »

I live in Australia and occasionally have to fly to the U.S. for business (the Pacific flight alone is a 15 hour trip one way and an 18 hour trip return). I would lower my consulting fees and channel the money into my airfares if I could get a flight that would do it in half the time. 24+ hours travel time (including connecting flights airports and taxis) is torture.

Sadly, I don't think I'll get the opportunity for anything quicker in my lifetime. I predict there will be humans on Mars before a supersonic cross-Pacific passenger aircraft.

Re: You’re Too Cheap to Fly Faster

#33

Post by zanny »

harisenbon wrote: post #20
vidarh wrote: post #8

A big part of the problem is that it is not just about price. New York to London is 5-6 hours. But back when I did business travel regularly (SFO LHR), the door to door time for me on an 11 hour flight was 16 hours after a lot of practice. So on a 5-6 hour flight, half would likely be spent on either end (and this is without checked luggage). At that point saving 2-3 hours in-air is not making enough of a dent in the…

Completely agreed. I mainly fly internationally, and while shaving 2 hours off a 8 hour flight would be wonderful, it doesn't help me, as the majority of my time is spent in airports between the flights. For me to get to where my family lives (one layover), it takes me: 1 Hour drive to airport 2 Hours because it's an international flight 8 Hour Flight 2 Hours Immigration / Baggage 1 Hour Re-checkin 3-5 Hour Layover 3…

I wish we had more trains. Not just for passengers, but in general. They just get the best cost per mile per pound were gonna get on planet Earth, since the physics of cars requires constant acceleration / deceleration and 2 dimensions of movement, and planes require lift.

I'd love a train from Miami to Boston that hits all the major cities and averages something between the terrible 80 mph Amtrack trains and the way too expensive per mile (or km in a more civilized country =P) bullet trains in Korea or Japan.

Also, that doesn't cost $200 and doesn't take 2 days trip. It should be so much cheaper taking a vacation on wheels than paying the cost to get luggage airborne, and it really is the infrastructure being awful.

Wow, a round trip ticket to Austin is around $800. That is just unacceptable.

Re: You’re Too Cheap to Fly Faster

#35

Post by michaelt »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #26
bernardom wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a really great point. After 9/11, it takes so damn long to get to your flight that cutting out an hour of travel time isn't as impactful as before.

I haven't noticed any big problems. The American airport I fly into often (SeaTac) is pretty efficient, security rarely takes more than 10 minutes. The other smaller airports I've experienced haven't been any worse.

Airports and airlines advise [1-4] arriving 2 to 3 hours before the departure of an international/long haul flight.

If airlines and airports have the capability to get you through security quickly, they don't do a good job of publicizing it.

[1] http://www.portseattle.org/sea-tac/passenger-services/pages/... [2] http://www.flysfo.com/web/page/orphan/faq/#2 [3] http://www.stanstedairport.com/stansted-airport-guide/checki... [4] http://www.jfkairportguide.com/arrivals-departures.html

Re: You’re Too Cheap to Fly Faster

#36

Post by phy2 »

Hard to believe an article on this topic fails to mention airline deregulation[1]. When an industry transitions from mandated prices to open price competition the profit formula changes. It is logical that carriers would prefer efficient, reliable, high capacity planes over faster alternatives post deregulation. Also, given the small number of plane manufacturers and the huge costs of R&D to bring out a new plane, it is unlikely a manufacturer would invest in building a supersonic jet that does not meet the current operating needs of its clients. Maybe Elon will do planes next? The average altitude of Tesla and Space X's vehicles is probably around 35k feet...

[1]http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/AirlineDeregulation.html

Re: You’re Too Cheap to Fly Faster

#37

Post by omni »

georgemcbay wrote: post #31

The economics behind the failure of the Concorde are far more complicated than "people didn't buy enough tickets". There were an extremely limited amount of routes (basically you could fly out of NYC or Washington DC to either London or Paris), mostly due to the problem of sonic booms, but also because the plane design was such that there was essentially a minimum travel distance for it to ever be reasonably economic…

I can think of at least 113 other reasons as well. I'd imagine a fatal crash would have had much more impact on consumer attitudes towards the Concorde than it would towards other, more "conventional" plane models. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_4590

Re: You’re Too Cheap to Fly Faster

#38

Post by mikeash »

rocky1138 wrote: post #21
imjk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually trip duration is an option, and one which I regularly prioritize.

Yes but trip duration in terms of number of stops or speed of the jet that takes you there?

Total number of hours from start to finish is commonly displayed. If you want less time traveling, it's trivial to choose that when it's available.

Re: You’re Too Cheap to Fly Faster

#39

Post by zanny »

zurn wrote: post #17

We're not nearly cheap enough: The plane ticket price doesn't capture the cost of flying, the majority of which comes from the greenhouse gas emissions. Further working in the wrong direction is the tax freeness of jet fuel and the 2-3x amplified effect of co2 when injected directly to the upper atmosphere.

I have to think the only reason trains pretty much died as an industry in the last hundred years is due to government fiddling or poor infrastructure maintenance. In a trifecta of balancing cost to time to carrying weight, trains should almost always win, with cars never winning in any of them and planes winning only at time investment.

Yet we all drive cars (which win in being personal transport where free wheels in 2d on tarmac is much more portable than steel wheels on tracks in 1d) even though they should cost significantly more, take longer (if we had even a reasonable bullet train at 150 - 160 mph, not even close to the 260mph Japanese / Korean lines) and carry less (especially compared against fuel consumption or just the raw bearing weight of car frames and rubber tires against rail cars).

An amtrack ticket from NY to Austin is $800 round way, and 50 hours each way. I can rent a car for $100 a day, and do that drive in 40 hours. So I save time, it costs the same when you factor in gas, and the only benefit is I can read a book on the train. Which is a nice plus, but not double the price worth.

Re: You’re Too Cheap to Fly Faster

#40

Post by dalke »

michaelfeathers wrote: post #30
Ensorceled wrote: post #27

The worst part of my flight, and most of the time the largest part, is the Home->Gate->Plane part. Why would I pay to optimize the least unpleasant part of the journey? Give me a way to skip the whole "everybody is a possible terrorist" fiasco and now we're talking ...

Few people now remember it, but back in the earlier days of commercial aviation flying was a breeze. You could walk up to a counter, buy a ticket, walk to the gate and walk on. It was that way for a long while.

People's Express Airline. A low-cost airline from the 1980s.

From what I understand, a perfectly viable procedure was: walk to the gate, wait until they call out "all aboard", push and shove for the good seats, take off, pay in cash when the crew comes around to collect tickets.

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