10 ms·

I would like to see supersonic travel come back. But I would LOVE it if we could find a way to speed up the time spent at the airport. The amount of time I spe

I would like to see supersonic travel come back. But I would LOVE it if we could find a way to speed up the time spent at the airport. The amount of time I spend traveling to the airport, dropping off bags, queuing for security, getting pulled aside because I forgot I was wearing a belt that day, waiting for the gate to open, getting on a train to the gate, queuing to board the gate, getting on a BUS to the plane, queuing to get on the plane, waiting to put my overhead bags in the bins, waiting on the tarmac for the plan to find a free slot on the runway. In the future I still have to do all this before we finally take off and travel at supersonic speed (yay), but then I land and basically have to do it all again. Most of the time spent traveling by air is spent on the ground.

struppi 8y ago
This is exactly the reason why I usually prefer a 6-hour train ride to a 1-hour flight (at least in Germany, Austria, Switzerland). Train: Go to the station (near city center), arrive 10 mins before train departs, get on the train, read/work/eat/drink for 6 hours, get off the train. And then you are already at the city center of your destination! The total time spent when flying might be shorter (4.5-5 hours), but that is not worth the hassle.
- toothbrush 8y ago
  So much this. Not to mention the reduced environmental impact. Flying is absolutely catastrophic in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, and the Paris accord doesn't cover even a fraction of it! (because flying occurs in "international space" and so it doesn't appear on any country's "balance sheet"... atrocious.)
  - audunw 8y ago
    > Flying is absolutely catastrophic in terms of greenhouse gas emissions Uhm, flying is OK in terms of emissions per passenger mile. Not as great as train, but better than driving solo in a gasoline car. The problem is transcontinental flights. While they're OK in terms of efficiency per mile, the number of miles is staggering. The problem is, those trips can't be made by train. So in terms of flying, I think the main focus should be not to fly long distance if it can be avoided. Sure, it's much better to take the train if possible, but if you fly between countries within europe a dozen times a year, that's not a catastrophe.
    - llukas 8y ago
      Is it still competetive vs car for supersonic flight?
    - cornholio 8y ago
      I know Boeing proposed Methane turbofans, and they were estimated to have 60% less carbon emissions and cheaper than jet fuel - after eating the large development and infrastructure costs. You could take this even further, producing Hydrogen from clean electric energy is about three times more expensive than methane for the same energy content, leading to a moderate increase in the cost of even a low cost ticket. But as with all radically new technology, there needs to be a strong industry, government and consumer push. The program that produced the Methane turbofan concept (SUGAR Freeze) has lost any political appeal.
      - erezyehuda 8y ago
        Costs aside, wouldn't replacing carbon emissions with methane be drastically worse? Doing a casual search says that methane is 2000-3000% more potent as a GHG.
        ufo 8y ago
        I assume the methane would be the fuel, not the byproduct.
        JamesBarney 8y ago
        I imagine you won't combust 100% of the fuel. So wouldn't it be both.
        rlucas 8y ago
        Pure methane is a bunch of molecules with just one carbon, which simplifies things a bit vs. a cracked and heterogeneous mix of longer chain (10+) molecules. You can incompletely combust a 10-carbon molecule and wind up with other hydrocarbons but if you burn up CH4, you're definitely just getting one CO2.
  - mehrdadn 8y ago
    I'll point out that although it's indeed atrocious compared to a train ride, flying is still more efficient than driving a car. So if traveling is required and you're debating between driving vs. flying (say SF <-> LA), you should prefer flying unless you can carpool. I don't know the exact numbers since it depends on where you're going and what plane/airline you fly, but I would expect around 50-75 MPG for a reasonably full airplane [1], whereas your car might be more like 25-30 MPG on the highway, so you'd want at least 2-3 (ideally 4) people in the car to make it more efficient. However the thing about flying is of course that it burns fuel at a much, much faster rate, so if it means the difference between you driving to workplace A vs. flying to workplace B regularly, then you'll be burning one hell of a lot more fuel by flying. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Airlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Airli...
    - Reason077 8y ago
      That’s true today. But in the coming years and decades, ground transport will be largely electrified and it’s per-mile emissions greatly reduced. Hopefully, aviation can be electrified too one day (or it’s emissions reduced with hybrid technology), but unlike ground transport, the technology is not quite here yet.
      - mehrdadn 8y ago
        With battery capacities being what they are you'll also have to hang tight for the moment when they stretch long enough to allow you to even have the choice of driving to the same place you can fly. (Or swap batteries on the way somehow... not sure how well that would work.)
        Reason077 8y ago
        This is already solved in technology terms. Battery capacities and charging speeds are already good enough for almost all long-distance travel scenarios. It’s now just a case of getting costs down and infrastructure built out. But that’s the easy part.
- kiba 8y ago
  All these security for air travel but not for a train which is also full of lot of people felt bizarre.
  - dijit 8y ago
    You can't hijack a train and take hostages to some other country; This was endemic in the 80s. You also can't hijack a train and drive it into a building.
    - amelius 8y ago
      But is this still true for airplanes, given the switch to hardened cockpit doors?
      - Uberphallus 8y ago
        Then you get Germanwings incidents
        amelius 8y ago
        Which can't happen on trains and buses?
        endymi0n 8y ago
        Buses, maybe. Trains: Nope. Doors are locked from the inside, usually aren't accessible while moving and even someone would get inside, well, you can't get off the tracks. You'll get a red signal and a forced braking shortly afterwards. It's really, REALLY hard (by design) to wreck something on purpose with a modern high speed train.
        Uberphallus 8y ago
        And in buses you can't really lock yourself out as a driver.
        8y ago
- Numberwang 8y ago
  I'm totally with you, but it is truly annoying the amount of subsidies the flight industry get. I've often taken trains across Europe due to my preference, but when the plane ticket is €20 and the train ticket is €400 it seems I'm fighting against the system.
  - peteretep 8y ago
    > but it is truly annoying the amount of subsidies the flight industry get Please could you illustrate some of those for me, as compared to rail?
    - yrro 8y ago
      UK here. > Aviation is currently undertaxed, according to economists from the IMF and World Bank, compared to other forms of transport. Airlines pay no fuel duty and VAT is zero rated meaning that no tax is charged on sales and tax charged on inputs is refunded. > ... > CE Delft calculated in 2013 that the shortfall as a result of these two anomalies amounted to around €27 billion annually in Europe. > ... > At a global level, the World Bank and IMF favour a relatively low tax universally applied per tonne of CO2, which could then raise money for climate change mitigation. > In the UK, the Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition considered in 2010 replacing APD with a per plane tax to include freight aircraft and provide an additional incentive to airlines to fill empty seats. However, this was dropped following concerns, the Government claimed, about concerns that it could be challenged legally as representing a proxy fuel tax (contrary to bilateral air service provisions with other countries). > Another alternative would be a form of taxation that discouraged frequent fliers. https://www.aef.org.uk/issues/economics/taxation/ https://www.aef.org.uk/issues/economics/taxation/
    - Reason077 8y ago
      1. International airlines pay no tax on aviation fuel, despite their significant contribution to air pollution and climate change. In say, Europe, this represents a huge subsidy compared to ground transport, where fuel is heavily taxed. 2. Airports, particularly regional ones, are often owned by local governments and receive subsidies in order to encourage tourism and commerce in their region. In some cases, airlines receive direct subsidies from those airports in order to fly there. 3. Internationally, some airlines themselves are state-owned or state-subsidised. Gulf airlines such as Emirates and Qatar have been criticised for being significant beneficiaries of state subsidies. This isn’t to say that rail isn’t subsidised too, of course. Even in countries where rail operates on a commercial basis, the physical infrastructure is usually government owned or financed in some way. However, if airlines had to account for (and pay for) their environmental externalities, the costs of airline vs rail travel would work out very differently!
- Swizec 8y ago
  I traveled with the French TGV a couple times and it is absolutely astounding how amazing it is. Large comfy chairs, quiet train, you can walk around, plenty of room for activities. There's even a bar where you can hang out with fellow passengers! Plus first class tickets are like $20 more expensive than normal tickets and totally worth it. Although I almost missed it because I'm used to all the buffer time you get with airplanes. Train leaves at 10:45, you better be there at 10:40 or you're gonna miss the darn thing.
  - maeln 8y ago
    Although I like our (maybe not for long) nationalized train system, I still have to mitigate your praises a bit :) . One of my main issue is that train ticket are really expensive. Regional train are okayish, but TGV cost often way more than any other equivalent (plane/bus/car/...) and are sometimes not faster. The second thing is that the network is historically completely centered around Paris. That lead to some very weird situation where, to go from the north-west to the south-west, you need to go all around France. And because of this, it is again faster and cheaper to just take a plane. Finally, there is often delay or train being canceled, which is normal because lot more problem happen on the ground and such that when you are several thousand feet in the air, but they tend to communicate about it really badly. When your train have a problem, it is often really hard to know when you will have a new train, how much delay will you have, ... On the other end, I agree with you. The train are so much comfortable. I really enjoy traveling in train way more than with any other form of transportation. I assume they are also a bit more ecological than cars and planes. The application of the SCNF to book ticket is also very good nowadays, never had a problem with it.
- garmaine 8y ago
  Lol, try living in California. 6-12 hour plane ride to anywhere. Trains? We have them. But why would you when it takes literally days to cross the country.
  - dewey 8y ago
    That's not a problem of trains it's a problem of the US train infrastructure. As you can see in Europe or Japan trains can be very fast and very efficient.
    - Reason077 8y ago
      Sure, but the distances between cities in a huge country like the USA tend to be much greater than in Europe or Japan. Even if you had high speed rail it’d still take a very long time to cross the continent! High speed trains do exist, or are being built, in more densely populated US regions (eg Northeast corridor, California).
      - nickjj 8y ago
        It takes around 4-5 days to cross the US by train. The problem is, the regular seats are shoulder to shoulder, there's no showers, and everyone shares a bathroom. Plus, they gouge you relentlessly with food rates. It doesn't seem like it would be a fun experience at all due to those conditions (but would be fun otherwise). Of course you could spend $1,000+ each way to get a "sleeper seat" which comes with a shower and meals but then it's like you're essentially paying $700 for a shower and a touch of privacy. It's just off putting to me based on principle.
      - lhopki01 8y ago
        The distances between cities in California or the upper East coast isn't. Both places have a high enough population density to support a good train network. No one is suggesting that you take train from New York to LA but rather that you take a train from LA to San Francisco or Boston to New York. Similarly in Europe most people don't take a train from London to Rome but people will often take a train from London to Paris or Barcelona to Madrid. Any flight of 3 hours or less is usually faster and more comfortable as a train ride.
- Uberphallus 8y ago
  That's the exact same reason why nobody sane takes a train in France for anything that matters. Schedules violated every day, strikes, poor maintenance, and moreover, they killed almost all of the night trains, that were the cheapest option especially if you account for one night you save on accommodation.
ggg9990 8y ago
Yeah, in today's world, I can only imagine supersonic being of even any benefit on flights longer than 8 hours.
cornholio 8y ago
Agreed. I think self driving technology can help here. I imagine a lobby area where you check-in, go through passport and baggage control, then board a pod that securely takes you right on the tarmac, to the mobile ladder adjacent to your half of the plane. The whole duty free forced march -> endless tread mills -> gate -> bus routine is harrowing busy work. It creates multiple choke and synchronization points, thus multiple queues: you queue to enter the gate, than wait for everybody to board the bus, then queue again as people take their seats and place the luggage in the overheads. It's a telling sign of how bad the current system is, when boarding on a single front door is considered a large speed up. A pod can take you to the right door in real time, gradually, as people arrive and clear passport control, overlapping multiple activities and allowing tighter turnaround. Why should the gate close 40 minutes before take off? If a passenger just checked in, and it takes 10 minutes for the pod to get to the plane, that's the minimal effective cutoff (with a larger official cutoff for safety). As for passport and baggage control, those can be automated and sped up to a large degree using new technologies. And of course, the will of people in charge to change anything - I've spent to many hours waiting long queues while only 30% of the desks were manned, to know they just don't see queues as a problem. As for the duty free revenue this whole circus brings in, it must be massive.
- rimliu 8y ago
  > The whole duty free forced march -> endless tread mills > -> gate -> bus routine is harrowing busy work. Is it not a purpose of it, at least in theory the opposite, to distribute flow os passengers in space and in time? Sorry, I do not really see how self-driving helps here, looks like a solution in search of a problem. Technology already changed a lot of things (self checkins, etc.) but it did not make flying a bit more enjoyable.
  - cornholio 8y ago
    I disagree that the spatial layout of an airport is, even theoretically, designed to distribute the flow of passengers in time - otherwise, it wouldn't involve multiple queue/sync points, some involving all passengers of a flight. It's a historic design from the age of grass strips, that sprawled as modern airports grew to handle more and more passengers, increasing the walking and waiting required from one point to another to the current, extreme situation. We now have buses taking you to the plane, airport monorails taking you to the terminal (Frankfurt) [1], and even pods moving you around the airport (Heathrow). [2] Self driving pods are the obvious response to unify all these transport needs in a single end-to-end system that can spread the passenger load in time and massively simplify the airport construction. [1] https://www.frankfurt-airport.com/en/travel/transfer.detail.suffix.html/article/travel/terminal-transfer/terminal-transfer-via-skyline.html https://www.frankfurt-airport.com/en/travel/transfer.detail.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULTra_(rapid_transit) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULTra_(rapid_transit)
janlaureys 8y ago
Airports make a fair share of their money by passengers hanging around and spending money in shops and restaurants. This video is pretty interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdU1WTBJMl0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdU1WTBJMl0
bauc 8y ago
Some airports make a significant portion of the revenue from the long wait between security and take off (e.g. Heathrow where they only show departure information 45 mins before leaving and you are surrounded by shops).
Gravityloss 8y ago
Just the normal airport designs could be improved a lot, with no added technology. It doesn't take a genius to see how many airports have very long walking distances or oddly placed stairs etc. Also, airlines for some reason don't want checked in luggage, since they price it so high. This means everyone travels with maximum hand luggage, and boarding takes a long time. The last people boarding usually can not find space in the overhead bin close to their seat. I wonder if they really are at the global optimum point with this. Checked in luggage is also notoriously unreliable (it travels to the wrong country or is thrown around with such force that everything is broken) which can ruin your trip.
cloudblockchain 8y ago
Ban Muslims Alright ban me but we all know this is the truth. 2.8T USD and so much productivity has been lost since 9/11. Anyway I'm going to get banned but I hope this username can be recycled and my sacrifice shall not be in vain.
AndrewDucker 8y ago
It's the uncertainty that leads to longest wait times. If I have no suitcases to drop off, and it's at a quiet time, then I can arrive half an hour before departure, breeze through security, and get on the plane. But if I have cases, or security _might_ be long, then I'm having to leave at least an extra half an hour in case of big queues, if not an hour. And that's a time-killer. The "automated bag drop" that some airports do now has really sped things up, but I'm sure some more time could be cut there. Security is the main bottleneck nowadays.
dsr_ 8y ago
The good news is most of the changes you want are political rather than technological. There's no law of physics or even of economics that prevents us from having airports where, once you have a ticket, you hand your luggage to a machine then stroll over to your departure gate and board the plane as soon as it is ready. The bad news is that political changes need the cooperation of large groups of your fellow citizens.

struppi 8y ago

This is exactly the reason why I usually prefer a 6-hour train ride to a 1-hour flight (at least in Germany, Austria, Switzerland). Train: Go to the station (near city center), arrive 10 mins before train departs, get on the train, read/work/eat/drink for 6 hours, get off the train. And then you are already at the city center of your destination! The total time spent when flying might be shorter (4.5-5 hours), but that is not worth the hassle.

toothbrush 8y ago
So much this. Not to mention the reduced environmental impact. Flying is absolutely catastrophic in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, and the Paris accord doesn't cover even a fraction of it! (because flying occurs in "international space" and so it doesn't appear on any country's "balance sheet"... atrocious.)
- audunw 8y ago
  > Flying is absolutely catastrophic in terms of greenhouse gas emissions Uhm, flying is OK in terms of emissions per passenger mile. Not as great as train, but better than driving solo in a gasoline car. The problem is transcontinental flights. While they're OK in terms of efficiency per mile, the number of miles is staggering. The problem is, those trips can't be made by train. So in terms of flying, I think the main focus should be not to fly long distance if it can be avoided. Sure, it's much better to take the train if possible, but if you fly between countries within europe a dozen times a year, that's not a catastrophe.
  - llukas 8y ago
    Is it still competetive vs car for supersonic flight?
  - cornholio 8y ago
    I know Boeing proposed Methane turbofans, and they were estimated to have 60% less carbon emissions and cheaper than jet fuel - after eating the large development and infrastructure costs. You could take this even further, producing Hydrogen from clean electric energy is about three times more expensive than methane for the same energy content, leading to a moderate increase in the cost of even a low cost ticket. But as with all radically new technology, there needs to be a strong industry, government and consumer push. The program that produced the Methane turbofan concept (SUGAR Freeze) has lost any political appeal.
    - erezyehuda 8y ago
      Costs aside, wouldn't replacing carbon emissions with methane be drastically worse? Doing a casual search says that methane is 2000-3000% more potent as a GHG.
      - ufo 8y ago
        I assume the methane would be the fuel, not the byproduct.
        JamesBarney 8y ago
        I imagine you won't combust 100% of the fuel. So wouldn't it be both.
        rlucas 8y ago
        Pure methane is a bunch of molecules with just one carbon, which simplifies things a bit vs. a cracked and heterogeneous mix of longer chain (10+) molecules. You can incompletely combust a 10-carbon molecule and wind up with other hydrocarbons but if you burn up CH4, you're definitely just getting one CO2.
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  I'll point out that although it's indeed atrocious compared to a train ride, flying is still more efficient than driving a car. So if traveling is required and you're debating between driving vs. flying (say SF <-> LA), you should prefer flying unless you can carpool. I don't know the exact numbers since it depends on where you're going and what plane/airline you fly, but I would expect around 50-75 MPG for a reasonably full airplane [1], whereas your car might be more like 25-30 MPG on the highway, so you'd want at least 2-3 (ideally 4) people in the car to make it more efficient. However the thing about flying is of course that it burns fuel at a much, much faster rate, so if it means the difference between you driving to workplace A vs. flying to workplace B regularly, then you'll be burning one hell of a lot more fuel by flying. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Airlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Airli...
  - Reason077 8y ago
    That’s true today. But in the coming years and decades, ground transport will be largely electrified and it’s per-mile emissions greatly reduced. Hopefully, aviation can be electrified too one day (or it’s emissions reduced with hybrid technology), but unlike ground transport, the technology is not quite here yet.
    - mehrdadn 8y ago
      With battery capacities being what they are you'll also have to hang tight for the moment when they stretch long enough to allow you to even have the choice of driving to the same place you can fly. (Or swap batteries on the way somehow... not sure how well that would work.)
      - Reason077 8y ago
        This is already solved in technology terms. Battery capacities and charging speeds are already good enough for almost all long-distance travel scenarios. It’s now just a case of getting costs down and infrastructure built out. But that’s the easy part.
kiba 8y ago
All these security for air travel but not for a train which is also full of lot of people felt bizarre.
- dijit 8y ago
  You can't hijack a train and take hostages to some other country; This was endemic in the 80s. You also can't hijack a train and drive it into a building.
  - amelius 8y ago
    But is this still true for airplanes, given the switch to hardened cockpit doors?
    - Uberphallus 8y ago
      Then you get Germanwings incidents
      - amelius 8y ago
        Which can't happen on trains and buses?
        endymi0n 8y ago
        Buses, maybe. Trains: Nope. Doors are locked from the inside, usually aren't accessible while moving and even someone would get inside, well, you can't get off the tracks. You'll get a red signal and a forced braking shortly afterwards. It's really, REALLY hard (by design) to wreck something on purpose with a modern high speed train.
        Uberphallus 8y ago
        And in buses you can't really lock yourself out as a driver.
        8y ago
Numberwang 8y ago
I'm totally with you, but it is truly annoying the amount of subsidies the flight industry get. I've often taken trains across Europe due to my preference, but when the plane ticket is €20 and the train ticket is €400 it seems I'm fighting against the system.
- peteretep 8y ago
  > but it is truly annoying the amount of subsidies the flight industry get Please could you illustrate some of those for me, as compared to rail?
  - yrro 8y ago
    UK here. > Aviation is currently undertaxed, according to economists from the IMF and World Bank, compared to other forms of transport. Airlines pay no fuel duty and VAT is zero rated meaning that no tax is charged on sales and tax charged on inputs is refunded. > ... > CE Delft calculated in 2013 that the shortfall as a result of these two anomalies amounted to around €27 billion annually in Europe. > ... > At a global level, the World Bank and IMF favour a relatively low tax universally applied per tonne of CO2, which could then raise money for climate change mitigation. > In the UK, the Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition considered in 2010 replacing APD with a per plane tax to include freight aircraft and provide an additional incentive to airlines to fill empty seats. However, this was dropped following concerns, the Government claimed, about concerns that it could be challenged legally as representing a proxy fuel tax (contrary to bilateral air service provisions with other countries). > Another alternative would be a form of taxation that discouraged frequent fliers. https://www.aef.org.uk/issues/economics/taxation/ https://www.aef.org.uk/issues/economics/taxation/
  - Reason077 8y ago
    1. International airlines pay no tax on aviation fuel, despite their significant contribution to air pollution and climate change. In say, Europe, this represents a huge subsidy compared to ground transport, where fuel is heavily taxed. 2. Airports, particularly regional ones, are often owned by local governments and receive subsidies in order to encourage tourism and commerce in their region. In some cases, airlines receive direct subsidies from those airports in order to fly there. 3. Internationally, some airlines themselves are state-owned or state-subsidised. Gulf airlines such as Emirates and Qatar have been criticised for being significant beneficiaries of state subsidies. This isn’t to say that rail isn’t subsidised too, of course. Even in countries where rail operates on a commercial basis, the physical infrastructure is usually government owned or financed in some way. However, if airlines had to account for (and pay for) their environmental externalities, the costs of airline vs rail travel would work out very differently!
Swizec 8y ago
I traveled with the French TGV a couple times and it is absolutely astounding how amazing it is. Large comfy chairs, quiet train, you can walk around, plenty of room for activities. There's even a bar where you can hang out with fellow passengers! Plus first class tickets are like $20 more expensive than normal tickets and totally worth it. Although I almost missed it because I'm used to all the buffer time you get with airplanes. Train leaves at 10:45, you better be there at 10:40 or you're gonna miss the darn thing.
- maeln 8y ago
  Although I like our (maybe not for long) nationalized train system, I still have to mitigate your praises a bit :) . One of my main issue is that train ticket are really expensive. Regional train are okayish, but TGV cost often way more than any other equivalent (plane/bus/car/...) and are sometimes not faster. The second thing is that the network is historically completely centered around Paris. That lead to some very weird situation where, to go from the north-west to the south-west, you need to go all around France. And because of this, it is again faster and cheaper to just take a plane. Finally, there is often delay or train being canceled, which is normal because lot more problem happen on the ground and such that when you are several thousand feet in the air, but they tend to communicate about it really badly. When your train have a problem, it is often really hard to know when you will have a new train, how much delay will you have, ... On the other end, I agree with you. The train are so much comfortable. I really enjoy traveling in train way more than with any other form of transportation. I assume they are also a bit more ecological than cars and planes. The application of the SCNF to book ticket is also very good nowadays, never had a problem with it.
garmaine 8y ago
Lol, try living in California. 6-12 hour plane ride to anywhere. Trains? We have them. But why would you when it takes literally days to cross the country.
- dewey 8y ago
  That's not a problem of trains it's a problem of the US train infrastructure. As you can see in Europe or Japan trains can be very fast and very efficient.
  - Reason077 8y ago
    Sure, but the distances between cities in a huge country like the USA tend to be much greater than in Europe or Japan. Even if you had high speed rail it’d still take a very long time to cross the continent! High speed trains do exist, or are being built, in more densely populated US regions (eg Northeast corridor, California).
    - nickjj 8y ago
      It takes around 4-5 days to cross the US by train. The problem is, the regular seats are shoulder to shoulder, there's no showers, and everyone shares a bathroom. Plus, they gouge you relentlessly with food rates. It doesn't seem like it would be a fun experience at all due to those conditions (but would be fun otherwise). Of course you could spend $1,000+ each way to get a "sleeper seat" which comes with a shower and meals but then it's like you're essentially paying $700 for a shower and a touch of privacy. It's just off putting to me based on principle.
    - lhopki01 8y ago
      The distances between cities in California or the upper East coast isn't. Both places have a high enough population density to support a good train network. No one is suggesting that you take train from New York to LA but rather that you take a train from LA to San Francisco or Boston to New York. Similarly in Europe most people don't take a train from London to Rome but people will often take a train from London to Paris or Barcelona to Madrid. Any flight of 3 hours or less is usually faster and more comfortable as a train ride.
Uberphallus 8y ago
That's the exact same reason why nobody sane takes a train in France for anything that matters. Schedules violated every day, strikes, poor maintenance, and moreover, they killed almost all of the night trains, that were the cheapest option especially if you account for one night you save on accommodation.

ggg9990 8y ago

Yeah, in today's world, I can only imagine supersonic being of even any benefit on flights longer than 8 hours.

cornholio 8y ago

Agreed. I think self driving technology can help here. I imagine a lobby area where you check-in, go through passport and baggage control, then board a pod that securely takes you right on the tarmac, to the mobile ladder adjacent to your half of the plane. The whole duty free forced march -> endless tread mills -> gate -> bus routine is harrowing busy work. It creates multiple choke and synchronization points, thus multiple queues: you queue to enter the gate, than wait for everybody to board the bus, then queue again as people take their seats and place the luggage in the overheads. It's a telling sign of how bad the current system is, when boarding on a single front door is considered a large speed up. A pod can take you to the right door in real time, gradually, as people arrive and clear passport control, overlapping multiple activities and allowing tighter turnaround. Why should the gate close 40 minutes before take off? If a passenger just checked in, and it takes 10 minutes for the pod to get to the plane, that's the minimal effective cutoff (with a larger official cutoff for safety). As for passport and baggage control, those can be automated and sped up to a large degree using new technologies. And of course, the will of people in charge to change anything - I've spent to many hours waiting long queues while only 30% of the desks were manned, to know they just don't see queues as a problem. As for the duty free revenue this whole circus brings in, it must be massive.

rimliu 8y ago
> The whole duty free forced march -> endless tread mills > -> gate -> bus routine is harrowing busy work. Is it not a purpose of it, at least in theory the opposite, to distribute flow os passengers in space and in time? Sorry, I do not really see how self-driving helps here, looks like a solution in search of a problem. Technology already changed a lot of things (self checkins, etc.) but it did not make flying a bit more enjoyable.
- cornholio 8y ago
  I disagree that the spatial layout of an airport is, even theoretically, designed to distribute the flow of passengers in time - otherwise, it wouldn't involve multiple queue/sync points, some involving all passengers of a flight. It's a historic design from the age of grass strips, that sprawled as modern airports grew to handle more and more passengers, increasing the walking and waiting required from one point to another to the current, extreme situation. We now have buses taking you to the plane, airport monorails taking you to the terminal (Frankfurt) [1], and even pods moving you around the airport (Heathrow). [2] Self driving pods are the obvious response to unify all these transport needs in a single end-to-end system that can spread the passenger load in time and massively simplify the airport construction. [1] https://www.frankfurt-airport.com/en/travel/transfer.detail.suffix.html/article/travel/terminal-transfer/terminal-transfer-via-skyline.html https://www.frankfurt-airport.com/en/travel/transfer.detail.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULTra_(rapid_transit) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULTra_(rapid_transit)

janlaureys 8y ago

Airports make a fair share of their money by passengers hanging around and spending money in shops and restaurants. This video is pretty interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdU1WTBJMl0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdU1WTBJMl0

bauc 8y ago

Some airports make a significant portion of the revenue from the long wait between security and take off (e.g. Heathrow where they only show departure information 45 mins before leaving and you are surrounded by shops).

Gravityloss 8y ago

Just the normal airport designs could be improved a lot, with no added technology. It doesn't take a genius to see how many airports have very long walking distances or oddly placed stairs etc. Also, airlines for some reason don't want checked in luggage, since they price it so high. This means everyone travels with maximum hand luggage, and boarding takes a long time. The last people boarding usually can not find space in the overhead bin close to their seat. I wonder if they really are at the global optimum point with this. Checked in luggage is also notoriously unreliable (it travels to the wrong country or is thrown around with such force that everything is broken) which can ruin your trip.

cloudblockchain 8y ago

Ban Muslims Alright ban me but we all know this is the truth. 2.8T USD and so much productivity has been lost since 9/11. Anyway I'm going to get banned but I hope this username can be recycled and my sacrifice shall not be in vain.

AndrewDucker 8y ago

It's the uncertainty that leads to longest wait times. If I have no suitcases to drop off, and it's at a quiet time, then I can arrive half an hour before departure, breeze through security, and get on the plane. But if I have cases, or security _might_ be long, then I'm having to leave at least an extra half an hour in case of big queues, if not an hour. And that's a time-killer. The "automated bag drop" that some airports do now has really sped things up, but I'm sure some more time could be cut there. Security is the main bottleneck nowadays.

dsr_ 8y ago

The good news is most of the changes you want are political rather than technological. There's no law of physics or even of economics that prevents us from having airports where, once you have a ticket, you hand your luggage to a machine then stroll over to your departure gate and board the plane as soon as it is ready. The bad news is that political changes need the cooperation of large groups of your fellow citizens.