On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 01:48:08AM +1300, Chris Bannister wrote: > On Thu, Mar 01, 2007 at 10:00:02AM -0500, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: > > On Thu, Mar 01, 2007 at 09:39:58AM -0500, judd@wadsworth.org wrote: > > > > > > By the way, isn't air travel an example of fairly efficient (and > > > government subsidized) public transportation, at least long distance > > > flights? > > > > > Oh great. Here go with a discussion about how corporate welfare is > > keeping things from improving. > > I smell a strawman. > In what way? Air travel happens to usually be efficient, but it could be better. Government subsidies to the big airlines, however, prevent most improvements in the marketplace. Just look at Amtrak for a glaring case of the same situation. Now, with air travel, it is not like with rail, where tracks must be laid and there is lots of distributed infrastructure. It is much easier for carriers to get into the air travel market, which is why airlines like Jet Blue, Southwest and some of the other smaller carriers were still turning a profit after 9/11 while the bigger carriers were screaming for congress to shovel cash at them or else they would go under. Hence, with a discincentive for the big airlines to improve we are dealing with declining levels of service (remember when they actually used to serve meals on 4+ hour long flights) and increasing inconveniences (how many more bags are lost today compared to the past). Regards, -Roberto Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com
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