More Airlines Means Lower Prices

How Airline Competition Helps Consumers

Imagine that you happen to have a ton of vacation time and are planning a trip. You want to fly somewhere cheap, but where should you go? Well, according to a new study, air routes that are served by the highest number of carriers also tend to be the cheapest. So when trying to book your vacation, it may make the most sense to fly between large airports that are served by several carriers. Here is the chart that explains how the number of airlines effects prices per mile.

A Travelers Dilemna

While this chart is great news for someone living in say New York, what does it mean for people from smaller cities? Typically we think that larger cities like New York, Chicago and Boston have high costs, but when it comes to air travel the opposite tends to be true. If you are a frequent traveler, you may actually spend much more money if you live in Burlington, Vermont than if you live in Boston. For domestic flights, small airports with few routes can be almost five times as expensive for flights from large airports! 

In theory, this would suggest that we should, as a society, build large airports or no airports at all. Rather than trying to serve all small metropolitan areas with airports, we should theoretically consolidate power into mega-airports in order to further reduce prices. The only problem with this is that it would shut many people out of the market. If for example we did shut down the airport in Burlington, Vermont, people who lived here would be stuck. The closest large airport would be nearly 5 hours away in New York City. That's no good, at least not for now.

A Transportation Solution

The issue comes down to a matter of travel efficiency. For long trips, say more than 500 miles, it makes sense to travel by plane because it saves the most time. But say you need to travel only 250 miles. The optimal trip in this case it to take a high-speed train because the time that you would save from not passing through security at an airport would make train travel faster. So in our theoretical model of small airports, Burlington should shut down it's airport and those wishing to travel a long distance should take a high-speed train to New York and then fly to their destination. 

So in reality, the issue is that there are not enough trains in America. Unless you are traveling between Boston, New York and D.C., nobody wants to travel by train because there are no trains. If however, we were willing to invest in reasonable public transportation by means of train, we could save travelers tons of money by not forcing anyone to fly out of small airports for "convenience." 

Connecting Amtrak to Airports

Connecting Trains to Planes

Right now there are only two airports in the United States, Burbank and Newark, that have a connection to an Amtrak station. This means when you fly to or from any airport, you almost always have to get to your destination by car. In order to increase the overall functionality of our public transportation system, I feel that any city that has both an airport and a rail connection should make sure to connect the two services. The picture below shows the Newark airport. Interestingly enough, this airport allows passengers to purchase plane and train tickets together in one transaction! Imagine if that were possible everywhere.

I realize that it would be expensive to make these connections in lots of cities, but I think that if all cities made this investment, it would be well worth it. The combined value of a network of airports and trains exceeds the value of each service on its own.

Intended Use

One of the most important reasons to bring airports and trains together is a desire to maximize the intended use for each type of transportation. Right now if you need to get somewhere you may have to fly a very bizarre route and some of your flights may be very short. For example, I recently flew 40 minutes from Philadelphia to Providence. Long-distance travel is ideal for planes because of their speed, but trips less than about 200 miles should actually rely on trains. This is because you can get right onto a train without airport security. If you are traveling less than 200 miles you will move faster by train than plane due to security checkpoints. Short trips like this are also much cheaper by train. 

Layover Pain

Another problem with short-distance flights is layovers. Again I will use my example for my Philadelphia - Providence flight. SIX hour layover for a 40 minute flight. My total travel time was about seven hours on this leg of my trip; I flew from Miami to Philadelphia in about four. Because of their shorter distance optimization and ability to stop at several locations, trains run more frequently. If there had been a train station in Philadelphia, I could have probably caught a Boston bound train within half an hour of my flight and stopped in Providence an hour or so later. This would have gotten me home faster and cheaper. Reducing layover congestion may be bad for airport vendors, but I think it would be good for just about any traveler.

Car Reliance

Right now when we travel, we usually end up paying twice for cars. We pay once to leave our car idle in the airport for several days and we pay again to rent another car when we arrive at our destination. Often times the only reason we need to rent a car is so that we can leave the airport; we then drive to our resort or hotel and either stay put or rely on public transportation. But we still have to pay for the car. If we could get out of the airports on a comfortable train that would take us closer to our destination, sometimes rental cars could be cut out! Not to mention that if we could take a train to the airport we would not have to pay to let our car sit in the lot. Besides, the fun of vacations do not come from renting cars. Cars are not "fun", they are methods of transportation to and from fun. If we could take out the expense of cars without reducing our ability to have fun, that would be a welcome development. 

United States High Speed Train?

For decades the United States has been toying with the idea of building a network of high speed train routes throughout the country. This system would be similar to the one that operates in Europe. Many oppose the system because of the cost to build it; however, I feel that some of the most innovative and economically useful public projects have also come at costs that seemed high at first. Consider for example the interstate highway system. This project began in the 1950's and parts are still under construction today; it was expensive, but it helped bring the United States to a position of power among world economies.

Here is a proposed map of the train network in the United States.

Although this map is visually appealing, it may not be fully realistic. Many areas along the red and blue routes would need to be eliminated because these areas do not have the population density to support ridership. 

A network of high speed trains would serve a wonderful need in society. Trips that are between 100 and 600 miles would be ideal to make by train. These trips would be too long many people to tolerate in a car, but going through security for a flight of this distance could take as long as the flight itself. Trains would provide high speeds without needing to wait in extensive check in lines. This could revolutionize medium-distance travel in the United States, encouraging an increase in business and leisure travel, particularly in mega-regions such as the Northeast or South-Central California.