Although this is a young industry, I am saying for the record, it is serious trouble. I have had the pleasure of traveling by air recently, and the delays and cancellations are growing at a record pace.
If we as citizens of the USA, could have dumped as many dollars into the high speed rail system we would have been FAR better off. Today we have over bloated, expensive and outdated system.
Many will say that air travel is the best and safest today. Perhaps they are right, and as Americans we have chosen to have time over customer service. We should have listened to our European ancestors on this one and scrape the air industry except for overseas and dump that stimulus money into high speed electric rail trains!
One other point, I dare any terriost to take over a train, BIG DEAL~!
Venting over, but will come out if we don't get on at 6:46 to ATL!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I've been saying this for years!
Business travelers keep the industry alive. Companies pay full fares to get them from Point A to Point B for them to do their job and get home at the end of the day. It's shocking! A select 10% of our passengers bring in over 50% of our revenue...and that was 8-9 years ago. I'm sure they make up about 85% now.
The industry is hurting though. It started after 9/11 when people weren't flying and, in the last few years, our fuel prices have quadrupled yet our ticket prices haven't. People no longer consider flying a luxury but an expectation within their price range. With increased demand comes increased air traffic (longer taxi times, delays and less wiggle room), lower ticket prices (making it hard for any airline cover operating costs) and increased maintenance (the more you drive your car, the more issues you will have...even when you're really good about the routine mx). As for the weather, we can't really control that BUT once an aircraft is behind, it's behind all day long. Every person has to do ther part to ensure a flight goes out safe and on-time. We depend on cleaners, caterers, lav service, gate agents, rampers, fuelers, ATC, ramp control, dispatchers, crew members, passengers, MX and more just to turn a flight in less than 30 minutes. It's frustrating to all of us when things to go according to plan. It means everyone's day is going to get a LOT longer. :(
I'm not saying the industry is perfect and I don't think trains are a bad idea. There are many positives and negatives. They aren't very cost efficient right now, it would take too long to satisfy most people and you would still encouter delays. The more they are utilized, the more delays they would have...just like aviation and the big city highway systems.
Post a Comment