Air Canada may have to die if they keep getting into financial trouble too often. With Jets-Go, West-Jet and a few others that could take up the slack, it may not be needed to keep them on if they continue to act stupid with money. Me personally, I would have fired both president and board of directors and hire someone who knows what the heck they are doing in the airline industry.
US Air long ago conceded these west coast routes to Texas-based Southwest [no relation to the former Pacific Southwest <PSA-“Catch our smile”>, while American and United and a few other players struggle along on the route also.
You are right Amtrak is no competition time-wise on this west coast route, but if my boss ever lets me take the train vs flying, I’ll take him up on it.
Maybe we should stop seeing them as a rival that lost, not to the mysterious and vague “market forces”, but make a mighty airline admit it got it’s pants whipped in the NEC by AMTRAK!
I realise this is a possibly subversive thought, but…
should we be considering passenger rail and air passenger service (or freight, for that matter!) as rivals? Seems to me… perhaps I’m naive… that there are things both of them do very well indeed, but that they are very different. If you have no time to lose, and don’t care how you get there, passenger rail simply can’t compete for the longer distances – but if you do have a little extra time and want a nice trip, then air travel loses out. On shorter hauls (such as the NEC) air travel is trying to do something it is poorly suited for, while passenger rail makes all kinds of sense.
As I say, perhaps I’m naive, but… if all forms of transportation competed on an even or reasonably even footing, wouldn’t this sort itself out?
And ‘even footing’ extends to the various government interventions (free market in transportation? Don’t make me laugh! There are so many hidden and overt subsidies for various modes it boggles the imagination!) on all levels – but for passenger service, it also extends to corporate dimwits, who require air travel for all trips (and coach, at that!) as MP57313 implies. At least mine does, against all possible logic (at this place of toil and woe, if you want to get from New Haven, CT, to Boston, MA, you are allowed to take your car (3 hours on a good day) or fly (5 hours, from the office to downtown Boston), but not Amtrak (2.5 hours, day in and day out – and cheaper). Go figure…
The best way to beat the airlines in this is have smoking cars, very comfortable seating, install t.v screens with headphones like they do in planes, better food, bar car with video games and sports t.v.
Also instead of having MHCs on the train, start bringing auto train cars along.
Junctionfan,
You do bring up some good points. Actually, the train is a better choice for those who want to use their computer, yak on the cell phone, etc. There are no “take off and landing” dead zones, and you can always stay plugged-in. There’s more room to do ‘real work’. But the headsets should be mandatory!!
On my last trip on the NEC some knucklehead was playing a DVD movie on his laptop but he had “lost” his headset. Bam/boom/crash aaaah! (It was a battle movie). I suppose it wasn’t as bad as some of the one sided arguments you hear with careless cell phone users.
MP
Could have been worse. A friend of mine who is a ticket master for VIA said that once someone had to be thrown of the train for watching porn on their lap top.
Yes But…The Chinatown buses and Greyhound are doing just fine…
US Airways may die but other airlines will be ready to pick-up the slack. Except in a few specialized corridors, airlines and cars will always be the preferred choice of travel for the majority of people - at least until they are displaced by a new invention. Even in Europe with all of the different rail travel options, the cities are clogged with cars and skies full of planes. Some of the world’s most successful low-cost airlines such as EasyJet and Ryan Air operate very successfully in Europe. For example, you can fly one-way from Barcelona to London for as little as $37US. Try and find a train ticket to compare with that . It is just a fact of life in the 21st century.
Airline tickets EVERYWHERE are artificially cheapened by the fact that the airlines don’t have to pay for the infrastructure they use (i.e., airports and air traffic control systems). By contrast, rail prices reflect much more of their infrastructure costs in ticket prices, so comparing the two is apples to oranges. European high speed rail systems have actually recouped their cost of capital, even WITH heavily subsidized auto and airline competition, over a relatively short time span - show me airports and highways that do that - they don’t exist and NEVER will!