3 ms·

The bigger question which is still unaddressed is: with the growth in passenger traffic, will there be a return to hub and spoke, or can long and skinny win? E

The bigger question which is still unaddressed is: with the growth in passenger traffic, will there be a return to hub and spoke, or can long and skinny win? Even if the a380 is dead, food for thought: In 5-10 years we may have a 300 person 1 hr transport from sydney to New York by way of the BFR. That is hub and spoke

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> with the growth in passenger traffic, will there be a return to hub and spoke, or can long and skinny win? Long-and-skinny scales better than hub-and-spoke. Comparing the systems, you have identical origin and destination airport traffic. With long-and-skinny, however, traffic at congested hubs is avoided and reduced. Long-and-skinny is purely a reality because of improved jet technology, in reliability and efficiency. What four engines could barely do in 1969 two engines comfortably manage today.
yock 8y ago
> In 5-10 years we may have a 300 person 1 hr transport from sydney to New York by way of the BFR. Is your average human's health and safety really compatible with the acceleration required for ballistic travel?
- reaperducer 8y ago
  At one time people thought that any transport faster than a horse would cause the human body to fly apart. Engineering finds a way.
  - notahacker 8y ago
    We're in the opposite position from people that doubted whether the human body could cope with transport faster than a horse. We have pretty good data for what very high G-forces do to the human body and what the failure rates of rocket launches are, and neither are compatible with routine commercial flight.
    - robbiep 8y ago
      If you consider that the early jets (ie comet) had a tendency to disintegrate, and take a speculative view that rockets have largely been in the comet era for perhaps a prolonged period (40-50 years!) and take another speculative leap that current technology/space companies are going to improve this by orders of magnitude (lots of ifs) then it isn’t too far removed. And the cost of a flight would be 300-400k in fuel, which means that tickets would be roughly premium economy cost or business cost. Business would eat up day trip returns from ny to shanghai in a heartbeat. Maybe people would have to wear a g force suit like pilots?
bluGill 8y ago
For very long distance maybe. It isn't clear how many people BFR can actually carry, which is a big factor (you quote 300, but I don't see any source backing that up). 10 people for the amount of fuel implies that the trip is only for the insanely rich - CEOs will take it but the rest of us will stick to the current technology (24 hour flight). If they can get 1000 people, the costs are probably cheaper than a jet, but they need the hub/spoke model to fill it up. However that is only good for very long routes. Chicago to London is faster with current jets after you consider all the time wasted transferring to the BFR. Chicago to London can scale down to a direct Milwaukee (Wisconsin) to Stockholm (Sweden), if there is just a small amount of demand.
Retric 8y ago
Hub and spoke scales poorly because you need more takeoffs and landings for the same route which means more airports. It's an adaptation for lower overall traffic density and simplifies routing, but direct flights scale much better because you can more likely do A > X > D not just A > B > C > D.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> with the growth in passenger traffic, will there be a return to hub and spoke, or can long and skinny win? Long-and-skinny scales better than hub-and-spoke. Comparing the systems, you have identical origin and destination airport traffic. With long-and-skinny, however, traffic at congested hubs is avoided and reduced. Long-and-skinny is purely a reality because of improved jet technology, in reliability and efficiency. What four engines could barely do in 1969 two engines comfortably manage today.

yock 8y ago

> In 5-10 years we may have a 300 person 1 hr transport from sydney to New York by way of the BFR. Is your average human's health and safety really compatible with the acceleration required for ballistic travel?

reaperducer 8y ago
At one time people thought that any transport faster than a horse would cause the human body to fly apart. Engineering finds a way.
- notahacker 8y ago
  We're in the opposite position from people that doubted whether the human body could cope with transport faster than a horse. We have pretty good data for what very high G-forces do to the human body and what the failure rates of rocket launches are, and neither are compatible with routine commercial flight.
  - robbiep 8y ago
    If you consider that the early jets (ie comet) had a tendency to disintegrate, and take a speculative view that rockets have largely been in the comet era for perhaps a prolonged period (40-50 years!) and take another speculative leap that current technology/space companies are going to improve this by orders of magnitude (lots of ifs) then it isn’t too far removed. And the cost of a flight would be 300-400k in fuel, which means that tickets would be roughly premium economy cost or business cost. Business would eat up day trip returns from ny to shanghai in a heartbeat. Maybe people would have to wear a g force suit like pilots?

bluGill 8y ago

For very long distance maybe. It isn't clear how many people BFR can actually carry, which is a big factor (you quote 300, but I don't see any source backing that up). 10 people for the amount of fuel implies that the trip is only for the insanely rich - CEOs will take it but the rest of us will stick to the current technology (24 hour flight). If they can get 1000 people, the costs are probably cheaper than a jet, but they need the hub/spoke model to fill it up. However that is only good for very long routes. Chicago to London is faster with current jets after you consider all the time wasted transferring to the BFR. Chicago to London can scale down to a direct Milwaukee (Wisconsin) to Stockholm (Sweden), if there is just a small amount of demand.

Retric 8y ago

Hub and spoke scales poorly because you need more takeoffs and landings for the same route which means more airports. It's an adaptation for lower overall traffic density and simplifies routing, but direct flights scale much better because you can more likely do A > X > D not just A > B > C > D.