Ridership on Florida’s Brightline passenger trains has more than tripled since the company opened its extension to Orlando last September. However, that increase hasn’t been enough to cover costs, as the company reported losing $116 million in the first three months of 2024. This is more than double the $53 million it lost in the first quarter of 2023, indicating that expenses increased by nearly three times as much as revenues.
Brightline’s station at Orlando International Airport. Photo by elisfkc.
When the Orlando line opened, Brightline predicted that it would carry 7.0 million passengers in 2024. However, it has recently reduced that estimate to 5.5 million. One problem is that Brightline has had to turn away passengers in the “short-distance” Miami-West Palm Beach segment of its route in order to keep seats available for the “more profitable long-distance” travelers to or from Orlando. As of May, year-to-date revenue in the short-distance segment declined from $18.8 million in 2023 to $17.2 million in 2024.
While that’s only a small portion of the $116 million loss, it shows that Brightline has a capacity problem. While there are many vacant seats during off-peak times, the trains are filled during peak periods of the day. Brightline responded to this on June 1 by increasing fares for short-distance passengers by as much as 250 percent. However, this isn’t going to fill more seats in the off-peak trains.
This reveals one of the disadvantages of passenger rail: its inflexibility. Brightline trains consist of two locomotives pulling four passenger cars that are semi-permanently coupled together, meaning it is impractical to change train lengths in response to peak or off-peak demand. While Brightline had planned to buy seven-car trains for its Orlando service, it instead received more four-car trains with 20 extra cars expected to arrive in 2025. Longer trains means more wear-and-tear and energy costs, making it undesirable to run such trains during off-peak periods, but it will be difficult to schedule the longer trains only in peak periods and shorter ones only in off-peak periods.
A large part of the reason why Brightline is losing money is its high debt service. The company sold nearly $5 billion worth of bonds to finance the construction of its line to Orlando. It would like to refinance some of those bonds at lower interest rates, but the bonds have been given low BBB and BBB-minus ratings. That means the ratings companies expect the bonds to be “stable” so long as the economy is healthy but “subject to adverse business and economic conditions.” In other words, in a recession Brightline is likely to go bankrupt. The fact that it is losing tens of millions of dollars a month in a relatively healthy economy doesn’t help.
I once thought that Brightline had a lot of potential to make money by connecting south Florida’s cruise ship ports to Orlando’s theme parks. But the Brightline station in Miami is close to two miles from cruise ships while stations in Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach are even further away from cruise ship ports. Brightline offers no shuttle service and only promises that “ rest and relaxation starts the moment you enter the station,” hinting that getting to the station may be stressful.
Meanwhile, its terminus in Orlando is at the airport, which is more than 16 miles to Disney World. Brightline’s original plans to run a train line all the way to Disney World were cancelled in 2022. While there are plenty of local shuttle services, the lack of a one-seat ride from cruise ships to Disney World or other theme parks greatly reduces the attractiveness of the train.
As a result, I don’t expect that either Brightline or Brightline West will ever be profitable. These companies were started by an investment firm that happens to be run by a rail fan whose predictions of profitability suffer from severe optimism bias.
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Another reason Brightline failed, was because ultimate clincher, Disney.
Whole aspect Brightline was attempt secure route and trainstop to connect upper Florida with Disney world resort. But they fail to take; fact 1/3 of Disney Worlds visitors are international and arrive by airport already closely connected to the park. Half come from living east of the Mississippi river. Only about 8% live with close Florida area and they will drive there.
The Pandemic, it’s string Box Office failures and declines in visitors due it’s revelation of it’s internal business practices.
https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/crime/2014/07/15/report-dozens-disney-universal-theme-park-employees-arrested-sex-crimes/15792070007/
There is another direct issue with trains, which is that rail systems are, by their nature, one dimensional. Any disruption on a rail line shuts down the entire line, imposing high maintenance costs on an entire network to ensure reliable uptime.Contrast this with aircraft. There are 15,000 airports in the US. Any but the largest aircraft can fly to any of these airports. If I build another airport, I have added 15,000 potential connections to the network. If I build another rail terminal and branch line, at significantly greater cost than an airstrip, I have added only one additional connection to the network.
Roads and trucks are somewhere between rail and aircraft. The road network largely already exists everywhere, and there aren’t any strict gauge restrictions, mandatory union labor requirements, obscure signaling standards, or weird 19th century incompatible ownership structures. Damage or obstruction isn’t a showstopper, as trucks have two dimensions of freedom of movement, and can drive around an obstacle. In Los Angeles during the age of streetcars, a fire anywhere in the city would result in water hoses crossing the street from hydrant to firetruck, and then the network ground to a halt because steel wheels can’t cross a hose or surmount a temporary hump.
The Cruise line industry is in it’s own slump.
– Even before pandemic; the ease of transmittable diseases, not easily treatable at sea without access to real doctors/hospitals.
– Cruise liners are overly dependent on cheap fuel, namely marine bunker oil; an extremely dirty fuel as maritime environmental laws require global shipping to convert low sulfer/particulate diesel fuels.
– Unlike tankers, cruise ships will not convert to LNG due size tankage and explosivity risk.
– effects DEI just as bad for cruise industry as it is for Boeing….
LazyReader,
You make some good points but technically only about 500 airports are certified for commercial aircraft. Most of the 15,000 airports you mention (the number is actually closer to 20,000) have landing strips that are too short for most jets. See official numbers in National Transportation Statistics.
Rather than wasting money on outmoded 19th-century inventions (trains), Floridians should look at more modern transportation modes such as cars and boats, that preserve individual freedom, our desire to live in low-density suburbs and are better suited to the weather it will experience in the future.*
https://x.com/Earth42morrow/status/1801635981717639595/video/1
*By the way, this future is not at all related to climate change due to carbon emissions, as some planners who want to dictate every aspect of our lives, seem to believe.
If you believed in this climate nutter bull you’d be heading dir mountains
I have an ongoing bet that the Vegas LA (Rancho Cucamonga) line won’t ever get built.
And here more reasons Brightline would/have failed.
– Orlando has a downtown like lots of cities, however it’s only 87,000 professionals. Vastly smaller than major cities.
– High Speed Rail predominantly serves downtown job markets….Lot of FLorida cities like Orlando/Miami serve tourism/services, not professional finance/IT. Thus having Downtown Headquarters doesn’t mean much. Carnival Cruise is headquartered in 87th Avenue, 6 miles away from Downtown.
– Disney offer’s transportation planning fresh from the airport. Since over 60% of it’s visitors flew there; the rest Drive themselves and don’t need a train. The Greyhound station is approximately 13 miles from Orlando International Airport, and can be accessed via Buses & Taxis or Vehicles for Hire. With prices low as 2 dollars.
– Disney World has 46,000 daily visitors, but only 30,000 hotel rooms but an occupancy rate of 82% or 24,000.
That means 20,000 daily visitors drive themselves; Why drive to a Brightline station; when Parking at Disney World is cheaper than riding Brightline.
AP, can you post something about right turn on red? Planners are trying to take away drivers’ freedom and turn us into a socialist country where drivers have to wait at a light to turn – don’t let them get away with it!
“Turning right on red has long been a driving norm, but as traffic fatalities soar, states are rethinking this practice.”
https://x.com/APA_Planning/status/1816594344607952946
Interesting article:
https://jalopnik.com/americans-too-old-to-be-driving-risk-it-anyway-because-1851605703
“In our latest What Car Should You Buy entry, a reader wanted advice on what car his father-in-law should get to replace his current BMW X5. .. the right answer is that it’s probably time for the father-in-law to stop driving altogether. Unfortunately for him and so many other aging drivers, in most of the U.S., when you give up your keys you might as well cut yourself off from society while you’re at it.”
“The social isolation that people experience while essentially locked up at home, unable to walk anywhere except in circles around the block, increases the risk of premature death, a 50-percent higher risk of dementia, a 29-percent increase in risk for heart disease, and a 32-percent higher risk of stroke. That’s not even touching the increased risk of depression, anxiety and suicide. “