5 ms·

It's funny that a huge part of the reason that a business like this exists is the TSA. If flying commercial airlines didn't require an hour and a half of waitin

by natnat 13y ago

It's funny that a huge part of the reason that a business like this exists is the TSA. If flying commercial airlines didn't require an hour and a half of waiting in line for security and a fair dose of humiliation, I think people would be much more willing to fly from SFO to LAX. Instead, we're running inefficient propeller planes for short distances and really high prices, and people are treating it like it's some amazing new innovation.

tptacek 13y ago
I fly a fair amount and don't find that I wait significantly longer for airport security now than I did before 9/11. I don't like the TSA any more than you do, but I don't think they're the major cause of commercial airport delays.
- objclxt 13y ago
  In the case of California and the SFO-LA route, isn't it pretty much universally acknowledged that SFO is one of the better airports for security, precisely because it's not run by the TSA but out-sourced instead?
- temphn 13y ago
  But of course they are, or more general the web of DHS/TSA/FAA/etc. regulations is the reason why commercial air travel has not advanced in door-to-door speed. Without the regulations you could imagine an airport that pre-screened travellers. You roll up to the curb, get valet parked, and your bags checked, and then you get on the flight. You'd build the entire airport around this rapid on/off experience. You could have an airline that would run an Uber-style service to pick you up at your door. You'd solve the whole problem. But there's no Toyota-style optimizations applied because these optimizations are illegal. Prime among them is that efficiency of this kind would make the airport more of a target IF it was also prevented by law from discriminating against potential dangerous passengers, which it would be. And that's why when you ban selectivity at the federal level the necessary consequence is mediocrity.
  - snowwrestler 13y ago
    Pre-screening is not only legal, it has just been expanded to the general public.
    - temphn 13y ago
      You can't run an airline that is free to exclude any passenger at will. TSA pre-check is based on the fallacious inference that rich frequent flyers and terrorists are a distinct set. Saudi royal-funded operatives may well be more likely to be frequent flyers than the general population.
      - Dylan16807 13y ago
        It's more that if you didn't flag them the first N times you're rather unlikely to flag them in the future. The screening isn't perfect but screening these people more won't help.
  - mseebach 13y ago
    > pre-screened travellers The problem is that you can't reliably pre-screen for terrorists, the signal is plainly undetectable in the noise - there are 95 million passengers a year at Atlanta alone and 19 hijackers on 9/11. You're bound to get a lot of false positives, and then what do you do with them? In the meantime, the actual terrorists just wait until they successfully get a guy pre-screened, and he then just walks on board with a bomb.
rdl 13y ago
Turboprops or even piston are a better choice for routes like SB to Burbank than turbofan aircraft; it's just that passengers strongly associate turbofan aircraft with "quality and comfort", so the commercial market loves those. And, for commercial service under some parts, you're forced to use twin engines. Single engine aircraft are objectively better in a lot of ways, and on par for overall safety (it's better to lose an engine in ideal cases in a twin, but things often go wrong with the recovery procedures, and engines are very reliable, and with twins you have twice as many engines to potentially break anyway...) Some of the badness is actually FAA not being able to fund better ATC allowing more flexible routing.
- sjtgraham 13y ago
  > Turboprops or even piston are a better choice for routes like SB to Burbank than turbofan aircraft. > Single engine aircraft are objectively better in a lot of ways. Do you feel like giving us any reasons? :)
  - Recoil42 13y ago
    I don't objectively agree with the latter point, but rdl is correct about the former. It takes high altitudes for tubofans to come into their element in the efficiency gradient, and short routes don't really stay in that area of altitude long enough to give them an advantage. Turboprops are more efficient at lower altitudes, which is perfect for short hop flights -- where you're spending half of the time climbing/descending anyways. This is partly why Porter Airlines in Toronto flies Q400s.
    - rdl 13y ago
      They're clearly objectively better in a lot of ways; you could just argue that they're not net-better overall, since there are also advantages to twins. Single is undeniably cheaper to buy/operate. Since you never push off without both engines good, there's no way a twin would have higher dispatch rate than a single (since there are ~twice as many parts to deadline your aircraft). You may still value "has extra engine in case one dies in flight" more than this, though. (and I did, until I saw how singles actually had approximately the same safety stats as twins, at least for private pilots most like what I'd be.)
davidwihl 13y ago
The Pilatus PC12 single engine turboprop is far more efficient for this sort of mission than a twin engine turbofan jet. This lowers operation and maintenance costs which this airline is passing onto consumers.
- coin 13y ago
  Yup, turbo props are far more efficient than turbo jet at low altitudes.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
vacri 13y ago
I was in California in 2009 and found it weird that there was no daily train between LA and SF - it only runs (ran?) every second day. The day I left, I had to get a bus to Bakersfield to connect to the train. The other striking thing was train travel in the South being heavily subsidised - huge distances travelled for not much money, with power for your laptop and lots of space to move around. If the train schedule was appropriate for you, you'd be crazy to fly instead.
- britta 13y ago
  The Coast Starlight (http://www.amtrak.com/coast-starlight-train http://www.amtrak.com/coast-starlight-train) has been running once a day between LA and Oakland for years, with a connecting bus to SF - here's its schedule: http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/935/314/Coast-Starlight-Schedule-071513,0.pdf http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/935/314/Coast-Starlight-Schedule... It takes about 12 hours if there are no delays. It's a lovely and relaxing trip, but that's a long time compared to flying or driving. If you want to leave SF/Oakland later than 9 am or LA later than 10 am, you have to take some long bus connections (which aren't very fun) and the San Joaquin or Pacific Surfliner.
  - kaybe 13y ago
    Would that trip be interesting for a high-speed train connection? It's approximately 600 km (380 miles), that should be possible in about 3 hours. The terrain doesn't look too bad either at first glance.
    - Aloha 13y ago
      They appear to be working on that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
    - Sanddancer 13y ago
      As was stated, it's being worked on. It also runs into one of those things that a lot of people from outside of California don't realize about the state. There are a /lot/ of mountain ranges. The Starlight itself meanders along and through various bits of the coastal ranges of California, which, while absolutely gorgeous, leads to a path that's not particularly amenable to high speed travel. So, the state needs to build new trackage through a 3000 ft (~1km) pass getting out of LA, and more trackage through a 1500 ft pass getting out of the SF area in order to use the much more straight and speedy right-of-way going through the middle of the state. Once that's done, and the rights of way along the corridor are upgraded, high speed rail will run between the points. Just gonna take another 15-20 years to do so.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
And the economics of air travel, such as they are, make a round trip flight to Santa Barbara $500 as the 'cheap' fare [1] in coach. If you fly four times a month you save money with this plan. But the TSA thing is a real pain too. A friend of mine who has his pilots license requires all passengers have at least 16 oz of fluids and a knife with them when they fly :-) We joke but he did point out that if you were in flight 214 trapped under a stuck seatbelt or malfunctioning escape slide with no pocket knife you could have died. [1] Plus fees of course
Jazonk 13y ago
It's not just the TSA that will make this popular - I see the convenience as a big draw. As this expands to more regional airports, it will be even more practical. Being able to drive to a smaller, less crowded airport will be a selling point. You don't have to deal with the stresses of huge terminals and tons of people.

by natnat 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago

I fly a fair amount and don't find that I wait significantly longer for airport security now than I did before 9/11. I don't like the TSA any more than you do, but I don't think they're the major cause of commercial airport delays.

objclxt 13y ago
In the case of California and the SFO-LA route, isn't it pretty much universally acknowledged that SFO is one of the better airports for security, precisely because it's not run by the TSA but out-sourced instead?
temphn 13y ago
But of course they are, or more general the web of DHS/TSA/FAA/etc. regulations is the reason why commercial air travel has not advanced in door-to-door speed. Without the regulations you could imagine an airport that pre-screened travellers. You roll up to the curb, get valet parked, and your bags checked, and then you get on the flight. You'd build the entire airport around this rapid on/off experience. You could have an airline that would run an Uber-style service to pick you up at your door. You'd solve the whole problem. But there's no Toyota-style optimizations applied because these optimizations are illegal. Prime among them is that efficiency of this kind would make the airport more of a target IF it was also prevented by law from discriminating against potential dangerous passengers, which it would be. And that's why when you ban selectivity at the federal level the necessary consequence is mediocrity.
- snowwrestler 13y ago
  Pre-screening is not only legal, it has just been expanded to the general public.
  - temphn 13y ago
    You can't run an airline that is free to exclude any passenger at will. TSA pre-check is based on the fallacious inference that rich frequent flyers and terrorists are a distinct set. Saudi royal-funded operatives may well be more likely to be frequent flyers than the general population.
    - Dylan16807 13y ago
      It's more that if you didn't flag them the first N times you're rather unlikely to flag them in the future. The screening isn't perfect but screening these people more won't help.
- mseebach 13y ago
  > pre-screened travellers The problem is that you can't reliably pre-screen for terrorists, the signal is plainly undetectable in the noise - there are 95 million passengers a year at Atlanta alone and 19 hijackers on 9/11. You're bound to get a lot of false positives, and then what do you do with them? In the meantime, the actual terrorists just wait until they successfully get a guy pre-screened, and he then just walks on board with a bomb.

rdl 13y ago

Turboprops or even piston are a better choice for routes like SB to Burbank than turbofan aircraft; it's just that passengers strongly associate turbofan aircraft with "quality and comfort", so the commercial market loves those. And, for commercial service under some parts, you're forced to use twin engines. Single engine aircraft are objectively better in a lot of ways, and on par for overall safety (it's better to lose an engine in ideal cases in a twin, but things often go wrong with the recovery procedures, and engines are very reliable, and with twins you have twice as many engines to potentially break anyway...) Some of the badness is actually FAA not being able to fund better ATC allowing more flexible routing.

sjtgraham 13y ago
> Turboprops or even piston are a better choice for routes like SB to Burbank than turbofan aircraft. > Single engine aircraft are objectively better in a lot of ways. Do you feel like giving us any reasons? :)
- Recoil42 13y ago
  I don't objectively agree with the latter point, but rdl is correct about the former. It takes high altitudes for tubofans to come into their element in the efficiency gradient, and short routes don't really stay in that area of altitude long enough to give them an advantage. Turboprops are more efficient at lower altitudes, which is perfect for short hop flights -- where you're spending half of the time climbing/descending anyways. This is partly why Porter Airlines in Toronto flies Q400s.
  - rdl 13y ago
    They're clearly objectively better in a lot of ways; you could just argue that they're not net-better overall, since there are also advantages to twins. Single is undeniably cheaper to buy/operate. Since you never push off without both engines good, there's no way a twin would have higher dispatch rate than a single (since there are ~twice as many parts to deadline your aircraft). You may still value "has extra engine in case one dies in flight" more than this, though. (and I did, until I saw how singles actually had approximately the same safety stats as twins, at least for private pilots most like what I'd be.)

davidwihl 13y ago

The Pilatus PC12 single engine turboprop is far more efficient for this sort of mission than a twin engine turbofan jet. This lowers operation and maintenance costs which this airline is passing onto consumers.

coin 13y ago
Yup, turbo props are far more efficient than turbo jet at low altitudes.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

vacri 13y ago

I was in California in 2009 and found it weird that there was no daily train between LA and SF - it only runs (ran?) every second day. The day I left, I had to get a bus to Bakersfield to connect to the train. The other striking thing was train travel in the South being heavily subsidised - huge distances travelled for not much money, with power for your laptop and lots of space to move around. If the train schedule was appropriate for you, you'd be crazy to fly instead.

britta 13y ago
The Coast Starlight (http://www.amtrak.com/coast-starlight-train http://www.amtrak.com/coast-starlight-train) has been running once a day between LA and Oakland for years, with a connecting bus to SF - here's its schedule: http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/935/314/Coast-Starlight-Schedule-071513,0.pdf http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/935/314/Coast-Starlight-Schedule... It takes about 12 hours if there are no delays. It's a lovely and relaxing trip, but that's a long time compared to flying or driving. If you want to leave SF/Oakland later than 9 am or LA later than 10 am, you have to take some long bus connections (which aren't very fun) and the San Joaquin or Pacific Surfliner.
- kaybe 13y ago
  Would that trip be interesting for a high-speed train connection? It's approximately 600 km (380 miles), that should be possible in about 3 hours. The terrain doesn't look too bad either at first glance.
  - Aloha 13y ago
    They appear to be working on that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
  - Sanddancer 13y ago
    As was stated, it's being worked on. It also runs into one of those things that a lot of people from outside of California don't realize about the state. There are a /lot/ of mountain ranges. The Starlight itself meanders along and through various bits of the coastal ranges of California, which, while absolutely gorgeous, leads to a path that's not particularly amenable to high speed travel. So, the state needs to build new trackage through a 3000 ft (~1km) pass getting out of LA, and more trackage through a 1500 ft pass getting out of the SF area in order to use the much more straight and speedy right-of-way going through the middle of the state. Once that's done, and the rights of way along the corridor are upgraded, high speed rail will run between the points. Just gonna take another 15-20 years to do so.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

And the economics of air travel, such as they are, make a round trip flight to Santa Barbara $500 as the 'cheap' fare [1] in coach. If you fly four times a month you save money with this plan. But the TSA thing is a real pain too. A friend of mine who has his pilots license requires all passengers have at least 16 oz of fluids and a knife with them when they fly :-) We joke but he did point out that if you were in flight 214 trapped under a stuck seatbelt or malfunctioning escape slide with no pocket knife you could have died. [1] Plus fees of course

Jazonk 13y ago

It's not just the TSA that will make this popular - I see the convenience as a big draw. As this expands to more regional airports, it will be even more practical. Being able to drive to a smaller, less crowded airport will be a selling point. You don't have to deal with the stresses of huge terminals and tons of people.