Amtrak carried 6.2 percent more riders and almost 8 percent more passenger-miles in October of 2024 than the same month before the pandemic, according to the entity’s latest monthly performance report. The airlines, meanwhile, carried 5.9 percent more passengers, according to TSA passenger counts.
October transit and highway data will be posted here when it is released by the Department of Transportation.
Although growth in air travel did not quite equal growth in rail travel, airlines still carried 25 times as many passengers and far more passenger-miles than Amtrak. While October airline passenger-miles won’t be available for a month or so, in August domestic airlines carried 110 times as many passenger-miles as Amtrak. When international air travel is included, airlines carried 226 times as many passenger-miles as Amtrak.
Passenger-rail advocates argue that trains have a competitive advantage for trips between 100 and 500 miles long. It’s true that the average Amtrak trip is just under 200 miles while the average domestic airline trip is around 950 miles long, but that doesn’t mean Amtrak has a competitive advantage over other modes for 200-mile trips. The trip between Portland and Seattle is just under 200 miles and airline plus highway travel swamps Amtrak travel in this corridor. Amtrak’s fastest trains in the Northeast Corridor may carry a few more passengers than the airlines, but intercity highway traffic carries about 15 times as many passenger-miles as Amtrak.
Concerning! How are Amtrak numbers going up? Are people not reading the AP’s blog? Trains are a 19th century technology.