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New Jet Service a High-Speed Rail Killer

By | | Transportation
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JSX, formerly known as JetSuiteX, is a new airline with a new operating model that will kill any idea that high-speed trains could compete with air travel in short-haul markets. The airline flies many routes that have been planned for high-speed trains, including Oakland-Los Angeles, Los Angeles-Phoenix, and — starting last week — Dallas-Houston.

JSX uses small jet planes with seats for only 30 passengers, allowing it to by-pass TSA requirements as it conducts its own airport screening. Technically, passengers don’t fly JSX, they make reservations and JSX charters a plane that happens to be owned by a JSX subsidiary, which is another way that it by-passes TSA rules. The result is that people can arrive at the terminal just 20 minutes ahead of their flight’s departure. Continue reading →

2018 Transport Subsidies and Costs

By | | Transportation
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Last year, I published a policy brief that calculated 2017 transportation subsidies and costs for airlines, Amtrak, highways, and transit. When 2018 data for Amtrak, highways, and transit became available, I included an updated chart in a policy brief on transportation after the pandemic. But that wasn’t exactly prominent — I had a hard time finding it when someone asked me about it recently — and it didn’t have many details so I’m going to expand on it here.

The above chart is useful because it shows the disparities. Amtrak spends almost four times as much to move someone a passenger mile as the airlines. Transit agencies spend almost five times as much to move someone a passenger mile as personal automobiles. Continue reading →

Saving the Planet by Flying

By | | Transportation
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The Guardian reported yesterday about people who think they are saving the planet by giving up flying and taking the train instead. They should think again, especially for those who are Americans.

According to the 2016 edition of the Transportation Energy Data Book, Amtrak in 2014 used an average of 2,186 British thermal units (BTUs) per passenger mile in 2014, while the airlines used 2,511. Jet fuel and Diesel fuel both have about the same BTUs and produce about the same greenhouse gases per gallon, so that would seem to give rail travel an edge.

But airplanes don’t have to go around mountains or follow meandering river valleys to get to their destinations. The Amtrak route from Portland to Washington DC is 3,035 miles long, while airlines only have to go 2,350 miles. Multiply through, and the Amtrak trip used 6.6 million BTUs while the airline flight used only 5.9 million. Continue reading →

The Golden Age

By | | Transportation
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In response to criticisms about cramped planes, poor service, and hidden fees, commercial airline pilot and ask-a-pilot author Patrick Smith opines in the New York Times that there really was no golden age of air travel. “Yes, things were once a little more comfortable,” he says, but air travel costs only half as much today as it did 35 years ago. This is conservative: using the consumer price index, the average fare per passenger mile was 32.5 cents in 1980 compared with 14.2 cents in 2013, the latest year for which data are available.

Moreover, Smith says, more planes go more places with fewer stopovers shortening overall travel times. So even though there’s a little less legroom (“but only slightly”), travel times are shorter. He concludes by asking, “Do you really want to travel like people did in the 1960s? Are you sure?”

In the same way people nostalgically recall a golden age of air travel, many nostalgically think back to a supposed golden age of rail travel. Yet this was so long ago–roughly 1895 to 1925–that few people alive can really remember it. The nostalgia buffs remember that there were 9,000 intercity trains a day in 1920. What they forget is that those trains were expensive, slow, and uncomfortable. We can somewhat remedy the latter two problems today, but only by making them even more expensive. Continue reading →

Airline Competition

By | | Transportation
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“President Obama promised to fight corporate concentration,” says public interest journalist Justin Elliott. “Eight years later, the airline industry is dominated by just four companies.” It’s true that what were seven major airlines in 2008 have merged into four today. The Antiplanner isn’t sure, however, that this is a bad thing.

According to Wikipedia, in 2008, those seven major airlines (American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, U.S. Air, and United) had 88.0 percent of the domestic air market. As of fiscal 2016, that’s dropped to 84.5 percent.

Meanwhile, Alaska has increased its market share by 65 percent and JetBlue has increased its share by 43 percent. Hawaiian’s share has increased by 15 percent. Two major new airlines have appeared, Allegiant and Spirit, giving travelers more choices particularly since they have different pricing models.

Continue reading →

What Is Your Sin?

By | | Transportation
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Over at Green Car Reports, the “guide to cleaner, greener driving,” electric car advocate David Noland asks, “Which sins worse: cars or planes?” The “sin,” of course, is carbon emissions, and his answer, while interesting, is flawed in many respects.

“The passenger jet blows away the automobile in terms of efficiency and CO2 emissions per mile,” he says, a result he apparently considers surprising. But it’s not surprising at all to anyone familiar with the Department of Energy’s Transportation Energy Data Book. According to tables in the book, airlines emitted about 2,568 grams of carbon per passenger mile in 2013, while the average car emitted 3,144 grams (or 3,564 if SUVs and other light trucks are included).

But it’s not enough to show that both cars and airlines have been rapidly improving their energy efficiency. Noland wants to really blow cars out of contention, so he biases his analysis in several ways.

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FAA Bill Postponed for 17th Time

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Last week, the House decisively postponed reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, something it has already done 16 times since reauthorization was scheduled to take place in 2007. At stake is the future of America’s airline network, which is beholden to the federal government to maintain and update an antiquated air traffic control system.

Flickr photo by Andrew Morrell Photography.

Air traffic control is fully funded by airline ticket fees and other aircraft users. But the system is run by the federal government, which for more than 20 years has promised to update it with a Next Generation system. In contrast, Canada’sprivatized air traffic control recently won an award from the International Air Transport Association for being the world’s best system. ATC agencies in Iceland and the Netherlands also won awards; these have been “corporatized,” turned into independent, government-owned entities that are not dependent on their governments for funding or reauthorizations.

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Airfares Taking Flight?

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Delta and Northwest have merged, and now United and Continental are merging. So naturally someone raises the specter that airfares are going to go up. “Concentration in any industry leads to higher prices,” says someone who claims to have analyzed the airline industry for 40 years.

I don’t know what industry they have been analyzing, but it isn’t the one I’ve observed over the past 40 years. The problem for the airlines is that the cost of starting a new airline is low. Sure, the planes are expensive, but you can lease those. Once you have those, you don’t have to pay for air space, you don’t have to build airports, and you don’t have to build your own air traffic control system. As a result, for every airline that disappears through bankruptcy or merger, another one springs up.

Though not relevant to the rest of this post, this plane is not only painted like a salmon, it is a piece of pork. As a favor to the Alaska fishing industry, Alaska Congressman Don Young wrote a half-million-dollar earmark into the 2005 transportation bill to paint this plane to advertise Alaska salmon. Photo courtesy Alaska Airlines.

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