4 ms·

I'd add a fourth factor: The fact that we travel more frequently. If you are flying something like once per decade flying might feel like an adventure in its o

I'd add a fourth factor: The fact that we travel more frequently. If you are flying something like once per decade flying might feel like an adventure in its own right and you may be willing to splurge a bit. But the more often you need to fly between A and B, the more similar it becomes to taking the bus, subway or a taxi, all of which already are commodities. I expect there is room for more "exclusive" experiences at a higher price, just like there is for groceries. Or as with limousine rental vs taxi. But fundamentally it's just transport - I'm flying because I need to get somewhere else quickly. If I were traveling for the experience I would probably go by motorcycle, train or boat instead.

Sukotto 16y ago
The fact that we travel more frequently. I travel far less often now than a few years ago. I feel the airports today are so flier hostile that I would rather just stay home. My last few vacations were spent within driving distance of my home. Even though I could easily afford the airfare. To put that into perspective... I used to fly a lot. A weekend trip across country would not have been an unusual thing for me. My wife and I flew to Japan several times a year to visit family... we just don't do that anymore. Now I'll fly on business if I have to. but that's pretty much it.
- j-g-faustus 16y ago
  > I travel far FAR less often now than a few years ago. So do I. I never found flying particularly pleasant, whether economy or business class, and after a decade of frequent business flying I pick other alternatives (including staying at home) whenever I can. But the US travel statistics http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_37.html http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_stat... seems to say that "people" still fly more - 350 bill. passenger miles in 1990, 530 bill. in 2000, 583 in 2008. Although it's down a bit from the peak years 2006-2007.
  - logic 16y ago
    I'm a visual kind of guy, so I pulled those travel stats into Google Docs: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqzimL8-eYhYdDdkcC1fS3I1VkFsQWppUDhGWDVCM2c&hl=en https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqzimL8-eYhYdDdkcC1... The chart sheet has a graph of total miles traveled. Compare to US population: http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=uspopulation&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=population&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=state&tdim=true&tstart=331257600000&tunit=M&tlen=348&hl=en&dl=en http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=uspopulation&ctype=l...
    - korch 16y ago
      How did you pull those stats into Google Docs? It was automated, right? If Google Docs can take an arbitrary page, figure out what the data is and slurp it into a spreadsheet, then there are some very interesting kinds of data mashups to make!
      - logic 16y ago
        Sadly, no: I just imported the excel spreadsheet that's on the page j-g-faustus linked to. :) However, you can just cut-and-paste a traditional HTML table into Google Docs, and in most cases, it works exactly as you'd expect. Automating that is left as an exercise to the reader. :)

Sukotto 16y ago

The fact that we travel more frequently. I travel far less often now than a few years ago. I feel the airports today are so flier hostile that I would rather just stay home. My last few vacations were spent within driving distance of my home. Even though I could easily afford the airfare. To put that into perspective... I used to fly a lot. A weekend trip across country would not have been an unusual thing for me. My wife and I flew to Japan several times a year to visit family... we just don't do that anymore. Now I'll fly on business if I have to. but that's pretty much it.

j-g-faustus 16y ago
> I travel far FAR less often now than a few years ago. So do I. I never found flying particularly pleasant, whether economy or business class, and after a decade of frequent business flying I pick other alternatives (including staying at home) whenever I can. But the US travel statistics http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_37.html http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_stat... seems to say that "people" still fly more - 350 bill. passenger miles in 1990, 530 bill. in 2000, 583 in 2008. Although it's down a bit from the peak years 2006-2007.
- logic 16y ago
  I'm a visual kind of guy, so I pulled those travel stats into Google Docs: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqzimL8-eYhYdDdkcC1fS3I1VkFsQWppUDhGWDVCM2c&hl=en https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqzimL8-eYhYdDdkcC1... The chart sheet has a graph of total miles traveled. Compare to US population: http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=uspopulation&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=population&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=state&tdim=true&tstart=331257600000&tunit=M&tlen=348&hl=en&dl=en http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=uspopulation&ctype=l...
  - korch 16y ago
    How did you pull those stats into Google Docs? It was automated, right? If Google Docs can take an arbitrary page, figure out what the data is and slurp it into a spreadsheet, then there are some very interesting kinds of data mashups to make!
    - logic 16y ago
      Sadly, no: I just imported the excel spreadsheet that's on the page j-g-faustus linked to. :) However, you can just cut-and-paste a traditional HTML table into Google Docs, and in most cases, it works exactly as you'd expect. Automating that is left as an exercise to the reader. :)