Do the math, if flying no longer saves time, few will bother!
 

Once the new airline security bill kicks in and they start doing those hand searches of everyones' baggage few travelers will bother to fly.<BR><BR>Here is my logic:<BR><BR>Most of the money the airlines make comes from business travelers who pay full coach. The majority of those people are in marketing and in marketing, time is money. If it takes 5 hours to get through security, the business person will have to find another way to get the job done, maybe videoconferencing. <BR><BR>I understand the need for security and may wait my self but the typical highly pressured business traveler can't afford to.

Greg, you unfortunately make sense.<BR>Take the recent Atlanta situation where one guy could easily bust past the guards. The reaction was to shut the whole airport for hours. Absolutely crazy. The airport security people have gone bonkers. First, what they are doing will not catch a terrorist.<BR>He or she will simply go through the lineups as legitimate passengers like they did the first time. Secondly, they are ineffective with current measures.<BR>The delays will cause people to drive or take alternative measures such as you describe. <BR>We either rethink the policy, or the number of people flying is going to stay down.

If 85 % are traveling again and the airlines have reduced their schedule by 20%, then they are already ahead. My flights since 9-11 have been full. I suppose for every person cancelling a trip there are those of us taking advantage of the cheap deals. Not sure what the airlines are complaining about. And what security, no better, just longer lines and horrible time consuming. Luckily I have no fear.

SO: beef up the train system. It's so simple.

I'm with you, March. The goal should be to make it completely unnecessary to fly anywhere within the continental U.S.

Trains are nice for locations within 200 miles but not for distances greater than that.<BR><BR>I think the question is this: Will enough high paying travelers put up with the long lines at security (once they start going through everyones checked luggage BY HAND, to make the airlines profitable. I for one doubt it.<BR><BR>This will deepen our recession.

Why is it so hard for people, esp. policy makers, to think of our transportation as an inter-related system? Why does it have to be planes competing with trains competing with buses competing with cars competing with staying home? Put together a plane-train-bus system that works together, why not? The paranoia about centralized planning seems to have completely "derailed" any efforts to make travel around the country a sane experience.<BR><BR>I think trains are esp. useful in densely populated regions where the airport-to-airport distance is so close that it doesn't pay to go through the security, boarding rigmarole, etc. plus the hassle of getting from downtown to airport. Boston-NY, NY-Wash, is a perfect example. Trains are also useful to connect distant cities or semi-rural areas where the number of travelers may not justify a full-size airport -- but they have to be augmented by a bus system to get people out to the more spread-out towns.<BR><BR>We need the security. We need the airline system but we also need trains and buses and, I'm afraid, private cars. Why, pray tell, would having such an integrated system hurt the economy? Seems to me that facilitating smooth travel around our nation would go a long way toward helping it.

March, you are so correct. The rails have been in terrible shape ever since they were nationalized, just like they want to do with...OOPS, never mind...

Kenneth-it's hard to deepen something that doesn't exist. There is no recession yet. A recession is two consecutive periods of negative growth. This has not happened to date.

We have been in a recession since 3/1/00 when the market crashed and industrial production started its decline. Add the security airline woes and you have a depression!

Just for accuracy: the rails used to be nationally maintained and they remained in decent shape. Amtrak was "de-" nationalized and ever since . . . .

It's amazing that our government hasn't heard of you experts and hired you to solve our problems!