7 ms·

People seem confused, but this seems very reasonable to me. Consider flying to some far away location. Would you rather A) A short flight from your local airpo

People seem confused, but this seems very reasonable to me. Consider flying to some far away location. Would you rather A) A short flight from your local airport to a nearby hub and then transfer to a long haul flight to the far away location B) A long flight from your local airport to a far away hub and then transfer to a short flight to get to your final destination. If something goes wrong, its likely to happen at the transfer point. If something goes wrong, you want to be in a place where you have the most resources available to you. Usually being close to home affords you the most resources/options. Stakes are much lower for commuter train travel, but it still rings true for me.

nonethewiser 3y ago
I would rather muster the effort at the beginning as well. After a long flight i want to be done.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  Does that matter, given you'll do the trip in reverse on your return?
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    With airplanes in particulart , that's not a given. Even when it is, returning home is less stressful than leaving for a foreign place, so the effect is not cancelled out. Almost anyone would prefer being stranded in a different city in their home country than being stranded on anther continent.
progbits 3y ago
Transfer can also be exhausting. I would rather have it done early so when I get out of the long haul flight I can directly go to the hotel. For all my EU->US (and back) flights, if I have to transfer I always do it in Frankfurt/Zurich/Heathrow, rather than US. The fact the airports and lounges are nicer helps.
- Mandatum 3y ago
  Yeah but US airports are ridiculous. There’s nowhere in the world with worse processing. I’d take Indonesia and Heathrow during a lockdown over LAX on the quietest day of the year.
  - kortilla 3y ago
    LAX is maybe the worst one in the US though with its constant construction. Maybe it’s different for non citizens, but I’ve had easy international transfers through SEA, SFO, ATL, DTW, JFK, and MCO.
    - Mandatum 3y ago
      ATL, SFO, JFK are just as bad - just less claustrophobic.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - kelnos 3y ago
    If you're just talking about immigration lines, that seems not correct at all. I've definitely seen much longer wait times at quite a few non-US airports than the non-citizen lines at most US airports. Aside from that, at least you don't have to clear immigration to leave the US. I always thought it was super weird that you need "permission" to leave many other countries, which adds a bunch more unpredictable time to the airport experience, beyond what's already there with the security lines. And LAX is not exactly a great example; it's one of the worst airports in the US. SFO, EWR, IAD, and even JFK (to name a few) aren't anywhere near as bad, and are just-fine to good at some of them. And Indonesia... having to pay cash in the airport in order to be allowed to leave the country? And if you're out of rupiah by that point, they charge you much more in USD? Hell, I'd probably take LAX over that garbage. And Heathrow! Oh man, Heathrow. It's been years since I flew into, out of, or through Heathrow, so maybe things have gotten better, but what a terrible airport it was! Transferring between terminals was a pain in and of itself, not to mention the need to go through security again if you need to make a connection between certain terminals.
fsckboy 3y ago
I think it's because we want to transfer while feeling fresh, and then relax for the remainder of the trip. Traveling is exhausting, and probably a factor is increased stress, and the stress of an upcoming transfer, and a transfer when exhausted just seems so much worse.
leetcrew 3y ago
I take your point for long-distance travel, but the same argument doesn't really make sense to me in the commuter context. if something goes wrong with the second leg of my commute, I probably want to figure out a different way to get to work, not turn around and go home. either way, I'd just end up taking a taxi, bus, or both. as long as it doesn't happen often, it's not a big deal. personally, I am primarily optimizing my commute for low average travel time and variance. I'll always pick the fastest option that allows me to walk out of my door at the same time every day and get to work on time for >90% of trips. practically, that equates to planning transit where the second leg has very short headways, regardless of where the transfer happens.
- Scarblac 3y ago
  Actually, with the week divided between in-office and wfh nowadays, my most common reaction to something going wrong with my commute is to turn around and go home to work from there.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    Most people don't have this luxury.
    - Cogito 3y ago
      What's your intuition for how many people do have this luxury, and what context do you think it holds in? My company has fully embraced flexibility, so even though many do work in the office it is completely accepted that some days they just won't. Other people in my social circles seem to have similar setups, but I've got no idea how far that extends outside of my bubble - not even in the rest of my city let alone the country or wordlwide.
      - tsimionescu 3y ago
        Given that not all jobs that can be remote are remote, and that the majority of jobs can't be remote (retail, manufacturing, agriculture, etc), I see good reasons to believe the vast majority of people don't have the option of working remote at their current job, anywhere in the world.
slaymaker1907 3y ago
And chances are high something goes wrong during a transfer on public transit. I don’t know how anyone manages to use transit in Seattle effectively without some sort of backup plan (Uber, bike, walking, etc.) because I often found the buses would never show up, often due to undocumented/poorly documented route adjustments. Also, buses would very frequently not stop unless I basically jumped up and down to get their attention (just standing right next to the stop marker in broad daylight was not sufficient).
- bluGill 3y ago
  Make sure you report every such instance when they happen. If nothing else they need to get statistics about how many people are really annoyed by their failing. Likely they have options to fix things, but need complaints to back them up.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  > Also, buses would very frequently not stop unless I basically jumped up and down to get their attention (just standing right next to the stop marker in broad daylight was not sufficient). Does more than one route stop at that stop? If so, that's expected, surely?
  - slaymaker1907 3y ago
    Blind? ADHD? Guess there’s no bus for you. You’re trading accessibility for very minor gains in efficiency.
hgsgm 3y ago
People are confused because the article doesn't explain what it's talking about. Seems like SEO babble.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
100% of my flights from Europe to the SF are A) and 100% of my flights from the SF to Europe are B). Quite frankly the deciding factor here is that the factor that outweighs everything is that transferring at a European airport is speedy, luggage stays checked and I don't need to go through security. Transferring in most of the US from an international to a regional flight is a much more involved undertaking. The same kind of thinking for me applies to a lot of public transport too. I pick based on how annoying transferring is.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  But you are also in SF, so you are already at a Hub of sorts that is well connected and is going to get you at least to a close by airport in Europe. If you were living in Seattle which is less connected to Europe than SF, you would be doing B more often. In scheduling a trip from Seattle to Tokyo, direct in the way there (as it should be!) but on the way back I have to transfer in Minneapolis. I don’t think I could have flown to Osaka or something to get direct at a reasonable price.
- JCharante 3y ago
  Do you have Global Entry? It’s open to citizens of many countries and you can feasible get off the plane and be going through security (past immigration) in under 10 minutes. I wish other countries offered a Global Entry experience.
  - raverbashing 3y ago
    Other countries have a more straightforward entrance protocol, I've never been stuck too long (I mean, except in case of strikes) in a customs queue in Europe (though ETIAS might make this more annoying)
  - the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
    I’m not eligible for it.
  - dacryn 3y ago
    most other countries have a customs/security process that is as fast as global entry. So everyone gets a good treatment most of the times. It's not pay for convenience, its a fair treatment for all. I honestly think global entry is a backwards solution to the problem, and only makes it worse for non paying people
wpietri 3y ago
I'd personally take B. If something goes wrong on the trip, I'd much rather be almost there, as there will be more ways to complete the journey. But I think it flips for me when commuting, in that a short local ride is easier for me to mentally discount as it's part of my routine. E.g. I used to live one MUNI stop from BART, and I came to see that first leg as negligible in the same way that walking to the MUNI station did.
- glenngillen 3y ago
  I initially felt the same as you, but then I thought about some of the times this has actually happened. After 18hrs on a plane I just want to be home or in my hotel. I’m not in a headspace where dealing with any level of inconvenience is welcomed even if the the rational response is “well at least you’re close to where you want to be and have a range of options to choose from, some of them possibly quite familiar if you’re coming home”. I don’t want options. I don’t want to think. I just want to collapse into a bed.
  - wpietri 3y ago
    Sure, I too want to just get there. I'd rather it just worked. But if I compare the disappointment of having a problem when I'm almost there versus one where I've just started, I'd definitely take the former. In either case I've already gone to the trouble of starting a long trip. A failure at the 90% point means I'm almost there and just have the work of finishing it, and short trips have many more options than long ones (e.g., short-hop flight vs transit vs renting a car vs taking a Lyft). But a failure at the 10% point means that I've gone to a lot of trouble, gotten very little out of it, and will have fewer options for finishing. I get people's preferences are different here, and maybe this is just me making use of whatever drives the sunk cost fallacy to keep momentum up and not get discouraged. But I'd definitely prefer B.
rainsford 3y ago
I think you're on the right track, but I'd argue it's even more abstract than this. Assuming a transfer represents uncertainty in arrival time, do you want it early or later in your trip? If the transfer is near the end of your journey, it means the uncertainty is ahead of you for most of the trip. Even if the early part of your trip is going smoothly, you still don't know if you'll arrive on time. On the other hand, if you get your transfer over with early in your trip, you can experience the rest of your journey with more confidence you'll arrive as expected. It's not so much that you have more options closer to home, it's that less of your trip is in the uncertainty zone.
- ReptileMan 3y ago
  I think that there is something else at play - something like arrival anticipation paradox - the final descent and taxi to the terminal feel a lot more tense than the 8 hours in flight before.
- SubiculumCode 3y ago
  I think its anxiety. A transfer near home is safe maybe even familiar. A transfer far away feels risky, even dangerous, where mishaps could be more likely.
  - labster 3y ago
    On international flights, it’s not just familiarity, but the fact that I’ll be sleep-deprived and jet lagged at the end of a long flight. Making decisions about how to fix problems in unfamiliar circumstances with my brain half-functional is not fun. At least near home I’ve thought about alternative transit beforehand.
  - cgriswald 3y ago
    I live my life by front-loading the work. I work hard early in the day so that in the evening I can relax. I tackle the complicated part of projects first. Traveling isn’t any different. Is it anxiety? Maybe. But I don’t think it’s about distance from home. I’ve got nearly as many options in Cincinnati as I do in Denver.
- 3y ago
YetAnotherNick 3y ago
If I have significantly more resource available in one side of the trip than other, it almost always a round trip. So the effect according to your logic will cancel out.
- bombolo 3y ago
  Why presume you transfer in the same place both ways?
nanidin 3y ago
In my ideal commute I'd be sleeping, so I would prefer the long first, short second option. That way I can get in a longer period of shut-eye before transferring and waking up for the destination.
crazygringo 3y ago
This doesn't make any sense to me in your scenario or in the commuting scenario. I don't have any "more resources" in a city that's a 2 hr flight from where I live vs. 10 hours away. I use the same app to find a hotel and the same credit card to pay for it. The only relevant thing is which one interrupts my sleep schedule more. And in daily commuting it makes no sense to me either. Whether you drive 10 min to the train station and take it straight to work, or live next to the train station and then take a subway 10 min (including wait time) to the office, I find it hard to believe anybody cares much at all, or that people's random preferences don't cancel each other out. Plus for a commute aren't you always doing the reverse as well? If you have an "origin transfer" in the morning it becomes a "destination transfer" in the evening. So wouldn't any preference become entirely moot?
- basch 3y ago
  For an American, being unexpectedly stuck at JFK or Atlanta may be less disorienting than an unplanned day in Amsterdam or Paris. Entering the EU at a smaller airport is probably smoother as well. (Obviously not a rail or commuter example, but same principal.)
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Or for an American, being stuck at JFK or Atlanta is boring and sucks. While an unplanned day in Amsterdam or Paris is a lovely start to your trip, just from the food and architecture alone! I don't know a lot of people who would complain about being stuck in Paris for a day. ;)
    - basch 3y ago
      Moreso having to deal with the Paris airport. With extra time at JFK I could visit https://www.twahotel.com/ https://www.twahotel.com/
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    > Obviously not a rail or commuter example, but same principal. Not really, unless it's international rail, which is a bit of an edge case; it certainly exists, but the vast majority of rail journeys do not cross a national border.
balderdash 3y ago
I’d add another factor, safety (perceived or real). Most people are going to prefer a transfer to their car in a quiet suburban parking lot, than transferring to another form of transit in an urban city where there might be a high level of homelessness/vagrancy/drug use/ crime/harassment
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  Not sure if your experience is common inside the US, but in most of the world, most people, by far, don't live in the suburbs. And most cities in the world don't have an appreciable amount of homelessness/vagrancy/drug use/crime/harassment in the areas most businesses exist.
  - balderdash 3y ago
    The article is in reference to American commuter rail preferences…
HWR_14 3y ago
(B) Long flight first When transferring I can do things like visit the restroom or get dinner or even update people I am meeting in my final destination. Those have far more value to me after I've been traveling for a while. Meanwhile, I don't feel like I have "more resources" in a close location to a far destination.
- bombolo 3y ago
  Airplanes have toilets on board.
  - HWR_14 3y ago
    Airplanes do, but the ones on the ground are bigger and not moving. Long-distance trains do, subways don't and commuter trains are "sometimes".
nexus7556 3y ago
This analogy doesn’t resonate with me at all. Based out of the US I’d rather have a misconnection in Europe than in the US (EU261 is amazing). Also I like the connection after the long flight as it gives me a chance to shower and freshen up before continuing on to my final destination.
- smcin 3y ago
  (EU261 = the very powerful compensation laws for delays/cancellations on flights departing from an EU airport)
  - nexus7556 3y ago
    Also flights arriving into EU if operated by an airline licensed in an EU member state. This was very helpful this winter while Lufthansa’s ground handling was in full meltdown mode. On three separate occasions Lufthansa failed to get my luggage to its final destination on time so I was able to get reimbursed for replacement clothes and toiletries while Lufthansa tracked down my bags. There is no such guaranteed compensation in the US.
    - smcin 3y ago
      Sure, but my point was to make sure readers understood 'EU261' is a law, not just one flight. Yes it's much stronger than the USDOT ones.
menotyou 3y ago
Quite the opposite for me. I would start with the long haul segment, because missing the long haul flight because of a late local flight would mean more trouble than being already near my final destination which gives me more options for the final segment in case problems arising.
TheFattestNinja 3y ago
To me it's the opposite. I prefer to be as close to destination as possible so if I have to arrange an alternative it's shorter and probably cheaper.
kelnos 3y ago
I don't think this analogy hold up all that well. For the commuter example (at least in the US), often the first leg is a drive (in a car) to the train station. When the commuter-rail train gets to its destination, you don't have the car anymore, so you want to be as close to your destination as possible. Even then, if I have to take a local train from there, and something goes wrong with it, at least I can probably get a taxi or something. Regardless, in your airline example, I would probably want (B), not (A). If I were to choose (A), and there was a problem with my short-haul local flight, I'm probably missing my long-haul connection, which will be more difficult to re-arrange. If I take the long-haul flight first, and something gets messed up with the short-haul connection at the destination, I likely have more options, possibly even including a train or car. Sure, the worst case might be worse (I get stuck at the connecting airport and need to get a hotel overnight), but I think the average case is probably better. Sure, if I want to bail on my trip if anything goes wrong, the short-haul-first approach works better, but I don't think there are many situations where I'd want to bail rather than finding another way to get there. But overall I'm not sure the main issue is when things go wrong. For commuting, there are still benefits to the happy path when the connection is closer to the origin. If the train station is next door to my house, but the station on the other end is 15 miles from the office, that's still a pain to deal with. The opposite is much easier.
GuB-42 3y ago
For me that's the opposite. Long flights are usually more expensive and require more advance booking. If you miss the transfer after the long flight, there are usually plenty of alternatives to get to your final destination. Commuter trains are different because they usually don't require booking in advance. And in this case, I think I prefer origin transfers, because if there is a big problem, I would just go back home and take a day off, work remote, take the car, ...
aflag 3y ago
I don't truly get it. If I really want to get to my destination, I'd rather be as close to it as possible when things go wrong, rather than being farther away. If I'm nearly there it feels there would be more resources available to make the last stretch.
sershe 3y ago
I feel like from experience I'd much rather (B). The things usually go wrong in a fixable way, and it's much better to be close to your destination where you have more options, like more local flights with more space vs daily long haul flights; ability to give up on a leg of a trip and drive there; etc. Especially across countries, where there may also be visa/document shenanigans. E.g. going to Venice from Seattle, in terms of getting there it's much better to be stranded in Amsterdam or Paris than in I dunno, Atlanta.

nonethewiser 3y ago

I would rather muster the effort at the beginning as well. After a long flight i want to be done.

ajmurmann 3y ago
Does that matter, given you'll do the trip in reverse on your return?
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  With airplanes in particulart , that's not a given. Even when it is, returning home is less stressful than leaving for a foreign place, so the effect is not cancelled out. Almost anyone would prefer being stranded in a different city in their home country than being stranded on anther continent.

progbits 3y ago

Transfer can also be exhausting. I would rather have it done early so when I get out of the long haul flight I can directly go to the hotel. For all my EU->US (and back) flights, if I have to transfer I always do it in Frankfurt/Zurich/Heathrow, rather than US. The fact the airports and lounges are nicer helps.

Mandatum 3y ago
Yeah but US airports are ridiculous. There’s nowhere in the world with worse processing. I’d take Indonesia and Heathrow during a lockdown over LAX on the quietest day of the year.
- kortilla 3y ago
  LAX is maybe the worst one in the US though with its constant construction. Maybe it’s different for non citizens, but I’ve had easy international transfers through SEA, SFO, ATL, DTW, JFK, and MCO.
  - Mandatum 3y ago
    ATL, SFO, JFK are just as bad - just less claustrophobic.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kelnos 3y ago
  If you're just talking about immigration lines, that seems not correct at all. I've definitely seen much longer wait times at quite a few non-US airports than the non-citizen lines at most US airports. Aside from that, at least you don't have to clear immigration to leave the US. I always thought it was super weird that you need "permission" to leave many other countries, which adds a bunch more unpredictable time to the airport experience, beyond what's already there with the security lines. And LAX is not exactly a great example; it's one of the worst airports in the US. SFO, EWR, IAD, and even JFK (to name a few) aren't anywhere near as bad, and are just-fine to good at some of them. And Indonesia... having to pay cash in the airport in order to be allowed to leave the country? And if you're out of rupiah by that point, they charge you much more in USD? Hell, I'd probably take LAX over that garbage. And Heathrow! Oh man, Heathrow. It's been years since I flew into, out of, or through Heathrow, so maybe things have gotten better, but what a terrible airport it was! Transferring between terminals was a pain in and of itself, not to mention the need to go through security again if you need to make a connection between certain terminals.

fsckboy 3y ago

I think it's because we want to transfer while feeling fresh, and then relax for the remainder of the trip. Traveling is exhausting, and probably a factor is increased stress, and the stress of an upcoming transfer, and a transfer when exhausted just seems so much worse.

leetcrew 3y ago

I take your point for long-distance travel, but the same argument doesn't really make sense to me in the commuter context. if something goes wrong with the second leg of my commute, I probably want to figure out a different way to get to work, not turn around and go home. either way, I'd just end up taking a taxi, bus, or both. as long as it doesn't happen often, it's not a big deal. personally, I am primarily optimizing my commute for low average travel time and variance. I'll always pick the fastest option that allows me to walk out of my door at the same time every day and get to work on time for >90% of trips. practically, that equates to planning transit where the second leg has very short headways, regardless of where the transfer happens.

Scarblac 3y ago
Actually, with the week divided between in-office and wfh nowadays, my most common reaction to something going wrong with my commute is to turn around and go home to work from there.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  Most people don't have this luxury.
  - Cogito 3y ago
    What's your intuition for how many people do have this luxury, and what context do you think it holds in? My company has fully embraced flexibility, so even though many do work in the office it is completely accepted that some days they just won't. Other people in my social circles seem to have similar setups, but I've got no idea how far that extends outside of my bubble - not even in the rest of my city let alone the country or wordlwide.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      Given that not all jobs that can be remote are remote, and that the majority of jobs can't be remote (retail, manufacturing, agriculture, etc), I see good reasons to believe the vast majority of people don't have the option of working remote at their current job, anywhere in the world.

slaymaker1907 3y ago

And chances are high something goes wrong during a transfer on public transit. I don’t know how anyone manages to use transit in Seattle effectively without some sort of backup plan (Uber, bike, walking, etc.) because I often found the buses would never show up, often due to undocumented/poorly documented route adjustments. Also, buses would very frequently not stop unless I basically jumped up and down to get their attention (just standing right next to the stop marker in broad daylight was not sufficient).

bluGill 3y ago
Make sure you report every such instance when they happen. If nothing else they need to get statistics about how many people are really annoyed by their failing. Likely they have options to fix things, but need complaints to back them up.
rsynnott 3y ago
> Also, buses would very frequently not stop unless I basically jumped up and down to get their attention (just standing right next to the stop marker in broad daylight was not sufficient). Does more than one route stop at that stop? If so, that's expected, surely?
- slaymaker1907 3y ago
  Blind? ADHD? Guess there’s no bus for you. You’re trading accessibility for very minor gains in efficiency.

hgsgm 3y ago

People are confused because the article doesn't explain what it's talking about. Seems like SEO babble.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

the_mitsuhiko 3y ago

100% of my flights from Europe to the SF are A) and 100% of my flights from the SF to Europe are B). Quite frankly the deciding factor here is that the factor that outweighs everything is that transferring at a European airport is speedy, luggage stays checked and I don't need to go through security. Transferring in most of the US from an international to a regional flight is a much more involved undertaking. The same kind of thinking for me applies to a lot of public transport too. I pick based on how annoying transferring is.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
But you are also in SF, so you are already at a Hub of sorts that is well connected and is going to get you at least to a close by airport in Europe. If you were living in Seattle which is less connected to Europe than SF, you would be doing B more often. In scheduling a trip from Seattle to Tokyo, direct in the way there (as it should be!) but on the way back I have to transfer in Minneapolis. I don’t think I could have flown to Osaka or something to get direct at a reasonable price.
JCharante 3y ago
Do you have Global Entry? It’s open to citizens of many countries and you can feasible get off the plane and be going through security (past immigration) in under 10 minutes. I wish other countries offered a Global Entry experience.
- raverbashing 3y ago
  Other countries have a more straightforward entrance protocol, I've never been stuck too long (I mean, except in case of strikes) in a customs queue in Europe (though ETIAS might make this more annoying)
- the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
  I’m not eligible for it.
- dacryn 3y ago
  most other countries have a customs/security process that is as fast as global entry. So everyone gets a good treatment most of the times. It's not pay for convenience, its a fair treatment for all. I honestly think global entry is a backwards solution to the problem, and only makes it worse for non paying people

wpietri 3y ago

I'd personally take B. If something goes wrong on the trip, I'd much rather be almost there, as there will be more ways to complete the journey. But I think it flips for me when commuting, in that a short local ride is easier for me to mentally discount as it's part of my routine. E.g. I used to live one MUNI stop from BART, and I came to see that first leg as negligible in the same way that walking to the MUNI station did.

glenngillen 3y ago
I initially felt the same as you, but then I thought about some of the times this has actually happened. After 18hrs on a plane I just want to be home or in my hotel. I’m not in a headspace where dealing with any level of inconvenience is welcomed even if the the rational response is “well at least you’re close to where you want to be and have a range of options to choose from, some of them possibly quite familiar if you’re coming home”. I don’t want options. I don’t want to think. I just want to collapse into a bed.
- wpietri 3y ago
  Sure, I too want to just get there. I'd rather it just worked. But if I compare the disappointment of having a problem when I'm almost there versus one where I've just started, I'd definitely take the former. In either case I've already gone to the trouble of starting a long trip. A failure at the 90% point means I'm almost there and just have the work of finishing it, and short trips have many more options than long ones (e.g., short-hop flight vs transit vs renting a car vs taking a Lyft). But a failure at the 10% point means that I've gone to a lot of trouble, gotten very little out of it, and will have fewer options for finishing. I get people's preferences are different here, and maybe this is just me making use of whatever drives the sunk cost fallacy to keep momentum up and not get discouraged. But I'd definitely prefer B.

rainsford 3y ago

I think you're on the right track, but I'd argue it's even more abstract than this. Assuming a transfer represents uncertainty in arrival time, do you want it early or later in your trip? If the transfer is near the end of your journey, it means the uncertainty is ahead of you for most of the trip. Even if the early part of your trip is going smoothly, you still don't know if you'll arrive on time. On the other hand, if you get your transfer over with early in your trip, you can experience the rest of your journey with more confidence you'll arrive as expected. It's not so much that you have more options closer to home, it's that less of your trip is in the uncertainty zone.

ReptileMan 3y ago
I think that there is something else at play - something like arrival anticipation paradox - the final descent and taxi to the terminal feel a lot more tense than the 8 hours in flight before.
SubiculumCode 3y ago
I think its anxiety. A transfer near home is safe maybe even familiar. A transfer far away feels risky, even dangerous, where mishaps could be more likely.
- labster 3y ago
  On international flights, it’s not just familiarity, but the fact that I’ll be sleep-deprived and jet lagged at the end of a long flight. Making decisions about how to fix problems in unfamiliar circumstances with my brain half-functional is not fun. At least near home I’ve thought about alternative transit beforehand.
- cgriswald 3y ago
  I live my life by front-loading the work. I work hard early in the day so that in the evening I can relax. I tackle the complicated part of projects first. Traveling isn’t any different. Is it anxiety? Maybe. But I don’t think it’s about distance from home. I’ve got nearly as many options in Cincinnati as I do in Denver.
3y ago

YetAnotherNick 3y ago

If I have significantly more resource available in one side of the trip than other, it almost always a round trip. So the effect according to your logic will cancel out.

bombolo 3y ago
Why presume you transfer in the same place both ways?

nanidin 3y ago

In my ideal commute I'd be sleeping, so I would prefer the long first, short second option. That way I can get in a longer period of shut-eye before transferring and waking up for the destination.

crazygringo 3y ago

This doesn't make any sense to me in your scenario or in the commuting scenario. I don't have any "more resources" in a city that's a 2 hr flight from where I live vs. 10 hours away. I use the same app to find a hotel and the same credit card to pay for it. The only relevant thing is which one interrupts my sleep schedule more. And in daily commuting it makes no sense to me either. Whether you drive 10 min to the train station and take it straight to work, or live next to the train station and then take a subway 10 min (including wait time) to the office, I find it hard to believe anybody cares much at all, or that people's random preferences don't cancel each other out. Plus for a commute aren't you always doing the reverse as well? If you have an "origin transfer" in the morning it becomes a "destination transfer" in the evening. So wouldn't any preference become entirely moot?

basch 3y ago
For an American, being unexpectedly stuck at JFK or Atlanta may be less disorienting than an unplanned day in Amsterdam or Paris. Entering the EU at a smaller airport is probably smoother as well. (Obviously not a rail or commuter example, but same principal.)
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Or for an American, being stuck at JFK or Atlanta is boring and sucks. While an unplanned day in Amsterdam or Paris is a lovely start to your trip, just from the food and architecture alone! I don't know a lot of people who would complain about being stuck in Paris for a day. ;)
  - basch 3y ago
    Moreso having to deal with the Paris airport. With extra time at JFK I could visit https://www.twahotel.com/ https://www.twahotel.com/
- rsynnott 3y ago
  > Obviously not a rail or commuter example, but same principal. Not really, unless it's international rail, which is a bit of an edge case; it certainly exists, but the vast majority of rail journeys do not cross a national border.

balderdash 3y ago

I’d add another factor, safety (perceived or real). Most people are going to prefer a transfer to their car in a quiet suburban parking lot, than transferring to another form of transit in an urban city where there might be a high level of homelessness/vagrancy/drug use/ crime/harassment

tsimionescu 3y ago
Not sure if your experience is common inside the US, but in most of the world, most people, by far, don't live in the suburbs. And most cities in the world don't have an appreciable amount of homelessness/vagrancy/drug use/crime/harassment in the areas most businesses exist.
- balderdash 3y ago
  The article is in reference to American commuter rail preferences…

HWR_14 3y ago

(B) Long flight first When transferring I can do things like visit the restroom or get dinner or even update people I am meeting in my final destination. Those have far more value to me after I've been traveling for a while. Meanwhile, I don't feel like I have "more resources" in a close location to a far destination.

bombolo 3y ago
Airplanes have toilets on board.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  Airplanes do, but the ones on the ground are bigger and not moving. Long-distance trains do, subways don't and commuter trains are "sometimes".

nexus7556 3y ago

This analogy doesn’t resonate with me at all. Based out of the US I’d rather have a misconnection in Europe than in the US (EU261 is amazing). Also I like the connection after the long flight as it gives me a chance to shower and freshen up before continuing on to my final destination.

smcin 3y ago
(EU261 = the very powerful compensation laws for delays/cancellations on flights departing from an EU airport)
- nexus7556 3y ago
  Also flights arriving into EU if operated by an airline licensed in an EU member state. This was very helpful this winter while Lufthansa’s ground handling was in full meltdown mode. On three separate occasions Lufthansa failed to get my luggage to its final destination on time so I was able to get reimbursed for replacement clothes and toiletries while Lufthansa tracked down my bags. There is no such guaranteed compensation in the US.
  - smcin 3y ago
    Sure, but my point was to make sure readers understood 'EU261' is a law, not just one flight. Yes it's much stronger than the USDOT ones.

menotyou 3y ago

Quite the opposite for me. I would start with the long haul segment, because missing the long haul flight because of a late local flight would mean more trouble than being already near my final destination which gives me more options for the final segment in case problems arising.

TheFattestNinja 3y ago

To me it's the opposite. I prefer to be as close to destination as possible so if I have to arrange an alternative it's shorter and probably cheaper.

kelnos 3y ago

I don't think this analogy hold up all that well. For the commuter example (at least in the US), often the first leg is a drive (in a car) to the train station. When the commuter-rail train gets to its destination, you don't have the car anymore, so you want to be as close to your destination as possible. Even then, if I have to take a local train from there, and something goes wrong with it, at least I can probably get a taxi or something. Regardless, in your airline example, I would probably want (B), not (A). If I were to choose (A), and there was a problem with my short-haul local flight, I'm probably missing my long-haul connection, which will be more difficult to re-arrange. If I take the long-haul flight first, and something gets messed up with the short-haul connection at the destination, I likely have more options, possibly even including a train or car. Sure, the worst case might be worse (I get stuck at the connecting airport and need to get a hotel overnight), but I think the average case is probably better. Sure, if I want to bail on my trip if anything goes wrong, the short-haul-first approach works better, but I don't think there are many situations where I'd want to bail rather than finding another way to get there. But overall I'm not sure the main issue is when things go wrong. For commuting, there are still benefits to the happy path when the connection is closer to the origin. If the train station is next door to my house, but the station on the other end is 15 miles from the office, that's still a pain to deal with. The opposite is much easier.

GuB-42 3y ago

For me that's the opposite. Long flights are usually more expensive and require more advance booking. If you miss the transfer after the long flight, there are usually plenty of alternatives to get to your final destination. Commuter trains are different because they usually don't require booking in advance. And in this case, I think I prefer origin transfers, because if there is a big problem, I would just go back home and take a day off, work remote, take the car, ...

aflag 3y ago

I don't truly get it. If I really want to get to my destination, I'd rather be as close to it as possible when things go wrong, rather than being farther away. If I'm nearly there it feels there would be more resources available to make the last stretch.

sershe 3y ago

I feel like from experience I'd much rather (B). The things usually go wrong in a fixable way, and it's much better to be close to your destination where you have more options, like more local flights with more space vs daily long haul flights; ability to give up on a leg of a trip and drive there; etc. Especially across countries, where there may also be visa/document shenanigans. E.g. going to Venice from Seattle, in terms of getting there it's much better to be stranded in Amsterdam or Paris than in I dunno, Atlanta.