I cannot fathom why you think airport subsidies matter here. Airports are way, way cheaper than HSR. Yeah drag grows quadratically with speed but reduces with

I cannot fathom why you think airport subsidies matter here. Airports are way, way cheaper than HSR. Yeah drag grows quadratically with speed but reduces with altitude. At 40k ft a modern jet delivers up to 150 pmpg. Yes the carbon emissions argument is a good one, and I personally prefer taking trains when they're available. I think that people are not appreciative enough of how efficient air travel is.