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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

When the Concorde was flying, my dad was flying first class from JFK to Europe on a regular basis. He told me that at one point he got upgraded to a Concorde flight which was normally something like a 30% premium over first class at a time when tickets tended to cost more than today. (So probably something equivalent to maybe a $10K ticket today.)

He told me that it was a cool experience once. But now, rather than having a relaxed first class meal on an overnight flight [EDITED: He may have taken daytime flights], he was getting into London in the middle of rush hour. He could probably have flown the Concorde had he wanted to but didn't have any real interest in taking it again.

And, today, with modern lie-flat business class and entertainment systems, there's even less reason to fly supersonic IMO, unless you're a CEO, lawyer, investment banker etc. flying from NY to London to have lunch with someone, seal some deal, and be back home for dinner.

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> And, today, with modern lie-flat business class and entertainment systems,

AND teleconferencing. Having a team, and not just CEO/lawyer/ibanker/etc, in NY working with a team in London is far easier today, compared to before the era of cheap video conferencing. Still too far from the real thing, but jetting over to the Atlantic for a quick conversation to clear something up, and coming right back isn't as necessary as it once was.

And also presumably handling physical documents and such.

Coming out of the current situation I certainly hope that travel gets back to some semblance of normal. But I do expect that we'll probably collectively decide that some of the in-person ritual can be cut back on.

Dad got to fly it once too. Air France was about to go on strike at any moment and the agent at CDG looked at the clock, looked at dad, looked back at the clock, and changed the ticket to Concorde.

He said it was an amazing experience. But he'd never pay for a ticket himself, and the company was pretty tight with expense money, so they weren't going to do it either.

I remember people flying out to NY on Concorde from the UK (left at about 11am?), getting in almost a whole day of business, and then flying back 'slowly' on a 747 overnight. Was still expensive though!

The same argument would suggest that spacious and luxurious ocean liners would be much preferable to flying across the ocean in a cramped tube. Sure flying is a cool experience but unless you're a CEO, lawyer, investment banker, etc do you really need to be in London by tomorrow morning?

If you only have a week of leave to take, going from Paris to New York by liner means you'd need to arrive and immediately hop on a ship back. If you're quick, you might just have time to get a bagel with schmear and almost run over.

To me, there's a significant difference between a trip where you can get up at home early in the morning but get to bed in your hotel late the same evening, and one that is even a few hours longer. There is a much less significant difference between that and one a few hours shorter - if i arrive in the early evening, i'm still not going to do much with the day. The next significant difference is when a trip is short enough to do the outbound and return legs in one day, and still have a useful stay. Concorde wasn't quite fast enough to that.

If ocean liners cost significantly less than flight and only took twice as long I think they would be quite popular indeed. However the real trade-off is not comparable to Concorde.

Ocean liners did cost significantly less than airliners in the beginning. A transatlantic ocean liner ticket in 1950 cost about $1200 in 2020 dollars while a one way flight to europe in 1950 cost around $3000 2020 dollars.

Taking a 5 day longer trip to save $1800 is equivalent to getting paid $360 per day. If your salary is less than $90,000 per year, you'd be better off taking the ocean liner.

And in the 1950s--at least before the very end of the decade--you're talking prop planes likely with fueling stops in Gander and/or Shannon. So transatlantic air travel was probably not the most comfortable experience.

well, people in Russia do take long train rides like even from Moscow to Vladivostok - 7 days - instead of air. And 2-3 days train rides are nothing exceptional. When you have more time than money...

We generally don't, most of the passengers on these trains only go part of the route. Train trips taking 2-3 days (like Moscow to Urals) used to be more common, but flying has become cheaper years ago.

I think it's the opposite. If I'm a regular "grunt" employee being sent to say Canada for a conference, you can be 10000% certain I will refuse to go if it involves spending weeks on a ship somewhere. I have a family and life outside of work, having to take two 8-hour long flights just to be somewhere for work is hardly acceptable as it is. I'd be far more keen to go if the travel time didn't require adding another day on each side of the trip.

In some countries, the law or standard practise is to pay or give time off in lieu of pay for travelling. An 8 hour weekend flight means a day off when you're back.

My previous contract had these terms, although I rarely claimed all the time off to which I was entitled. It seemed a bit ridiculous when I'd already bent the travel rules as far as they could go, in order to take a holiday abroad after most trips.

https://www.peninsulagrouplimited.com/guides/travelling-for-...

In the US, for better or worse, this sort of thing is usually pretty much agreed to informally with one's manager for salaried (exempt) employees. Formal contractual agreements are probably much more a Europe thing. To be honest, I've always been fine. I've taken time off around business trips and I've taken what time off in the system that's seemed reasonable. I've admittedly rarely been in a system where time-tracking was formal because of client billing--and even in that case I was still salaried so it didn't matter.

There's a big difference between saving a few hours and saving a few days. The ship will likely also be quite a bit more money and have a very limited set of departures. And somehow I doubt very many companies are going to give you that time off and pay for your trans-Atlantic trip on the Queen Mary 2. I doubt most companies would be big on you taking a trans-continental train trip in the US for business either. (Though I've taken overnight trains in Europe.)

The queen mary 2 is expensive today because it is nothing but a luxury tourist trip. Back in 1950 when there was serious ocean liner travel, an ocean liner ticket was much less than a transatlantic flight. Trains were also substantially cheaper. It is only absurd today to travel long range by ship or by train because people overwhelmingly paid a premium for faster travel to the point that the market for the other methods collapsed.

I suspect that it's mostly that air travel has gotten a lot cheaper relative to other modes of travel. It's true that you can't really travel "in the back of the bus" in an ocean liner any longer but I doubt if roughly equivalent first class tickets and dining are all that more expensive today. (Although I haven't done the calculations.)

Even today, when there is essentially no utilitarian travel by ocean liner, a transatlantic crossing in a balcony room on the QM2 is $800. An economy flight from new york to paris on Air France is $849. First class is $9,262.

That sounds more like what I'd pay for a round-trip economy ticket to Europe and there are probably going to be other costs for lodging etc. associated with the ship. But, fair enough, like (sometimes) long distance train, air isn't necessarily hugely cheaper.

(And, yes, business or first class that you actually pay directly out of pocket for is priced like a luxury good. Of course, you can pay a lot more for the cabin too.)

> quite a bit more money

You can get a taste of this when you look at the cost of long distance rail— for example, a trip like The Canadian (four days in total), which VIA understandably sells as a cruise ship type experience rather than practical travel:

https://www.viarail.ca/en/explore-our-destinations/trains/ro...

Obviously some of the cost difference is just the massive economy of scale enjoyed by airlines, but at the end of the day there are certain fixed costs associated with being in their care for such a long period of time. Even with a cheap ticket where you don't get a sleeper bed and have to buy/pack your own food, they still have to staff the train that whole time.

The last time I needed to go to Chicago (from Boston), just for kicks I looked at taking a sleeper train. There was really no way I could justify either the time or the money for a business trip.

I did take the overnight from London to Edinburgh a year or two ago. It was actually pretty convenient but it still almost certainly cost more than flying.

> somehow I doubt very many companies are going to give you that time off and pay for your trans-Atlantic trip on the Queen Mary 2.

Honestly, I'd guess that depends on your job function, whether you can work effectively remotely, and the cost of the ticket.

As a remote employee, I can totally see justifying it to my employer. It wouldn't be typical, but if it costs about the same and the trip there and back would involve me getting as much or more done than I normally would... I'd definitely pitch the idea, and don't see any reason why it would be out of the question.

In fact, I'm making a mental note to investigate the cost when/if I need to attend a conference or something in Europe.

Of course, who knows if the option will even exist any longer. Costs cover quite a range but they're probably more than a business class ticket and there are relatively few straight ocean crossings (vs. longer cruises).

On the eastward leg, I guess it’s a difference of sleeping on a lie-flat seat vs. sleeping at home (unless you get one of the few daytime flights).

But if you arrive in the morning in London, isn’t that rush-hour too?

Possibly. This was a long time ago and I have no idea what specific flights he tended to take. Maybe it was a daytime flight. (When I'm going to London these days, I tend to take a daytime flight if possible even though it means getting up at some truly god-awful hour in the morning. I'm too old to take red-eyes unless I have absolutely no choice. And then I try to upgrade.)

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