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Interesting that the routes they name are 119 and 78 miles. Kinda surprised Americans have flights so short. But then again the aircraft might beat CAFE for a v

Interesting that the routes they name are 119 and 78 miles. Kinda surprised Americans have flights so short. But then again the aircraft might beat CAFE for a vehicle with a single driver in it, plus aircraft usually carry a load of cargo too, as the passengers pay for the plane to go somewhere and the cargo is the profit. Wonder how much cargo this elegy plane can carry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Commuter_flights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Commu...

ZanyProgrammer 5y ago
It’s 130 miles from Portland International to SeaTac, and there absolutely are a ton of Alaska Airlines flights between the two cities.
- apendleton 5y ago
  True, but if you don't have a car and are going downtown to downtown, it's probably faster to take a train or bus, given that it takes almost an hour to get from downtown Seattle to SeaTac by transit and a shorter-but-still-nontrivial amount of time into Portland on the Max on the other end, plus ticketing, boarding, etc. I think it really only makes sense if you're connecting.
kylehotchkiss 5y ago
It's all connecting to bigger flights. Plus 78-119 miles means either paying a lot of money for a cab, paying gas & parking fees for the duration of your trip at the bigger airport, or asking a friend/family member very nicely to take that trip to drop you off/pick you up. The smaller cities in question for these routes aren't going to have any sort of usable bus service for making a flight on time. To answer your cargo question: probably not much. The distance is within a normal delivery range of some rural UPS/Fedex/DHL routes. Making people in these smaller cities go to the airport to pick up boxes just makes a lot of work for them. source: my own experience taking loud proppy planes between Roanoke VA to Charlotte, NC to connect to a larger flight
- Aardwolf 5y ago
  > Plus 78-119 miles means either paying a lot of money for a cab, paying gas & parking fees for the duration of your trip at the bigger airport, or asking a friend/family member very nicely to take that trip to drop you off/pick you up. How about trains for those distances?
  - bserge 5y ago
    Track/engine building and maintenance is probably more expensive than airports and planes.
    - choeger 5y ago
      This. People tend to grossly underestimate the expense and effort to build new rail tracks in an industrialized country. Most land is owned by someone already, there are environmental concerns, other (rail-)roads and generally obstacles must be crossed, and -worst of all- you have to repeat the process basically for every single town you want to connect. Side remark: The same holds for roads, of course, with the notable caveat that roads form a flexible network automatically. Planes are just superlinear in their flexibility: If you have n airports and add one more, you get n new connections.
    - GravitasFailure 5y ago
      A a route that serves a few hundred passengers a day is also potentially profitable for an airline while a train would likely not be unless there's existing infrastructure that can be leveraged. Also, if nobody needs that route to be served any more, just send the plane elsewhere. Edit: I'm an idiot and missed that these are 19 seat planes. No, a train that only serves 19 people a day, one way, has a zero percent chance of being profitable, and I doubt it even makes environmental sense if you have to lay 70 miles of track to support it.
      - Symbiote 5y ago
        For 19 people on a 100-mile route, they may as well schedule a bus. (For example, my parents would take a direct bus a similar distance to Heathrow or several other airports. It saves parking costs and driving while tired.)
melling 5y ago
[Good] Rail travel in the United States is practically nonexistent and people are in a hurry. Hopefully low-speed maglev becomes a thing http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-12/15/c_139591288.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-12/15/c_139591288.htm
hu3 5y ago
What's CAFE?
- GravitasFailure 5y ago
  Corporate Average Fuel Economy. It's a regulation mandating fuel efficiency for vehicles. https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/corporate-average-fuel-economy https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/corporate-average-fue... is the full explanation.
dawnerd 5y ago
There used to be commercial flights from United from OXR to LAX. It’s only an hour drive but they still managed to have service for quite some time and there’s been talk about bringing it back. Little connector flights like that could help reduce congestion at LAX. I could easily seeing electric flights returning and even being subsidized.

ZanyProgrammer 5y ago

It’s 130 miles from Portland International to SeaTac, and there absolutely are a ton of Alaska Airlines flights between the two cities.

apendleton 5y ago
True, but if you don't have a car and are going downtown to downtown, it's probably faster to take a train or bus, given that it takes almost an hour to get from downtown Seattle to SeaTac by transit and a shorter-but-still-nontrivial amount of time into Portland on the Max on the other end, plus ticketing, boarding, etc. I think it really only makes sense if you're connecting.

kylehotchkiss 5y ago

It's all connecting to bigger flights. Plus 78-119 miles means either paying a lot of money for a cab, paying gas & parking fees for the duration of your trip at the bigger airport, or asking a friend/family member very nicely to take that trip to drop you off/pick you up. The smaller cities in question for these routes aren't going to have any sort of usable bus service for making a flight on time. To answer your cargo question: probably not much. The distance is within a normal delivery range of some rural UPS/Fedex/DHL routes. Making people in these smaller cities go to the airport to pick up boxes just makes a lot of work for them. source: my own experience taking loud proppy planes between Roanoke VA to Charlotte, NC to connect to a larger flight

Aardwolf 5y ago
> Plus 78-119 miles means either paying a lot of money for a cab, paying gas & parking fees for the duration of your trip at the bigger airport, or asking a friend/family member very nicely to take that trip to drop you off/pick you up. How about trains for those distances?
- bserge 5y ago
  Track/engine building and maintenance is probably more expensive than airports and planes.
  - choeger 5y ago
    This. People tend to grossly underestimate the expense and effort to build new rail tracks in an industrialized country. Most land is owned by someone already, there are environmental concerns, other (rail-)roads and generally obstacles must be crossed, and -worst of all- you have to repeat the process basically for every single town you want to connect. Side remark: The same holds for roads, of course, with the notable caveat that roads form a flexible network automatically. Planes are just superlinear in their flexibility: If you have n airports and add one more, you get n new connections.
  - GravitasFailure 5y ago
    A a route that serves a few hundred passengers a day is also potentially profitable for an airline while a train would likely not be unless there's existing infrastructure that can be leveraged. Also, if nobody needs that route to be served any more, just send the plane elsewhere. Edit: I'm an idiot and missed that these are 19 seat planes. No, a train that only serves 19 people a day, one way, has a zero percent chance of being profitable, and I doubt it even makes environmental sense if you have to lay 70 miles of track to support it.
    - Symbiote 5y ago
      For 19 people on a 100-mile route, they may as well schedule a bus. (For example, my parents would take a direct bus a similar distance to Heathrow or several other airports. It saves parking costs and driving while tired.)

melling 5y ago

[Good] Rail travel in the United States is practically nonexistent and people are in a hurry. Hopefully low-speed maglev becomes a thing http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-12/15/c_139591288.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-12/15/c_139591288.htm

hu3 5y ago

What's CAFE?

GravitasFailure 5y ago
Corporate Average Fuel Economy. It's a regulation mandating fuel efficiency for vehicles. https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/corporate-average-fuel-economy https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/corporate-average-fue... is the full explanation.

dawnerd 5y ago

There used to be commercial flights from United from OXR to LAX. It’s only an hour drive but they still managed to have service for quite some time and there’s been talk about bringing it back. Little connector flights like that could help reduce congestion at LAX. I could easily seeing electric flights returning and even being subsidized.