Nasadowsk wrote:Doubtful:
* Where will the traffic shift to?
It won't shift to anywhere. Rather, as the cost goes up the demand will just be reduced like any other commodity. The majority of trips people take by plane are completely optional, hence demand is highly elastic. After 9/11 we discovered that people traveled for business not because they had to, but because they wanted to. Since many no longer wanted to, the number of business trips was sharply down. It will drop even further as plane trips become more expensive. Ditto for vacation travel, the demand for which is even more elastic than business travel.
Other problems besides high fuel costs affecting the airline industry are that plane travel is increasingly being perceived as inconvenient and unsafe. The very fact that an AirTrain is needed illustrates one crucial drawback of plane travel-the need to locate airports miles from city centers, thus negating much of the average speed advantages planes provide. Air travel also includes lengthy security checks, and of course the ever present problem of crashes, most of which are 100% fatal.
Airliners also cause severe environmental problems such as pollution and noise. Don't underestimate this last problem. People near airports are becoming increasing tired of enduring constant noise caused by a method of transport most seldom use. New airliners may be somewhat quieter, but they're still noisy, and airlines cutting costs to the bone will continue to use the older, noisy airliners for as long as they can. You're not going to see any of the new, more fuel efficient airliners you described in use until much higher fuel prices force the issue. It takes a lot of fuel savings to pay back the multi-billion dollar investment that a new fleet of planes represents. Even then, if you're going to spend so much on new planes, then building a high-speed rail line instead doesn't seem so bad after all. At least the railway fits into a sustainable economy model, the new planes really don't since they depend upon a non-renewable resource for energy.
The hard fact is that within 50 years planes will have to be replaced with something else that doesn't burn fossil fuels. A fusion-powered airliner might be one (highly unlikely) possibility. More likely is conventional high-speed rail for medium distances, maglev for somewhat longer distances, and maglev in a vacuum tube for very long distances. All can run on electric generated from any number of non-fossil fuel sources. An airliner can't. Better yet, all can offer average door-to-door speeds better than airliners over their respective distances.
A viable high sped rail system (i.e., average speeds between 90 and 110mph. That's average speed, not top speed) might shift short haul traffic to rail. Don't expect this to happen in the US anytime soon.
Well, I'm not sure I consider 90 to 110 mph average speeds "high", but I am sure that I don't share your skepticism. Sure, we won't build high-speed rail solely to replace air traffic, but rather to replace air and most long-distance auto traffic. I personally think the idea will be viable once gas stays above $5 per gallon. Many economists feel this is only a few years away. In Europe where gas prices have been at this level high-speed rail works quite well. I imagine the first lines will be medium haul, and will entirely eliminate the shuttle portion of the airline business plus a lot of interstate car trips. After that, we might have 225 mph trunk lines which could capture the plane trips up to 1000 miles. NYC to Chicago in 4.5 hours would all but eliminate flights between those two cities. What will be left? Longer domestic flights and overseas flights. Those can easily be served by one regional airport. Eventually when the fuel runs out we'll have to find a way to replace those last remaining flights. My guess is by 2050 or sooner you'll see those maglev in a vacuum tube ideas become reality.
I personally wouldn't hedge my bets on anything of the airline industry surviving much past the next 50 years. The only sensible venue for flight in the future is to get into space so we'll probably have space ports of some sort. I really wish the city would start making long-term plans to shut down at least one of the airports, preferably LaGuardia since those flights are more amenable to replacement by rail.
