4 ms·
> Once that's done, the operational costs are negligible relative to an airline. I'll need to see some evidence for that claim. 1. The relatively slower speed
by labcomputer 3y ago
> Once that's done, the operational costs are negligible relative to an airline.
I'll need to see some evidence for that claim.
1. The relatively slower speed of trains means that the amount of person-hours of labor for the crew is similar or greater than for a plane. And railroad employees generally have even better union contracts than airline employees.
2. Airlines don't have to build a track, but neither do they need to maintain a track. That cost is not negligible.
- bobthepanda 3y agoThere are fewer crewmembers, though. The FAA requires a 50:1 ratio for flight attendants. (Famously, JetBlue in the US ripped out two rows of seats in its original A320s to get to a round multiple of 50, and then used the extra room to get the largest seat pitch in economy.) To give a bit of comparison, there are 16k employees at JR Central, who operate the Tokaido Shinkansen in addition to normal rail lines; there are 90k employees at Delta. (JR Central has a market cap of $26B and Delta has a market cap of $23B.)
- labcomputer 3y agoNotice that I did not specify the number of crew members, just the number of labor hours.
- bobthepanda 3y agoThat's fair. I suppose one benefit of trains is all the intermediate traffic. Every flight attendant is only really serving an A->B flight, or an A->B->C flight with an intermediate stop. Trains can make many stops and have higher turnover, and combined with the generally higher capacity of a train, I wonder if the passenger-hours per employee ends up being a wash.