Hacker News Reader

Comment by kevindong | Hacker News Reader

Counterexample: in Summer 2019, I took a one way flight from Rome to Lisbon via Ryanair for $57.40 USD / ~€48.77 (current conversion rates, my receipt was denominated in USD).

That's a 1,160 miles / 1,870 km / ~2.75 hour flight (distance is as the crow flies). A train cannot compete with that. Not that a reasonable train itinerary between Lisbon and Rome exists.

For May 2021 [0], I'm seeing several roundtrip itineraries between Lisbon and Rome for USD$31 / €26 on Ryanair. I think the fact that such a low-priced flight can exist is actually a triumph of capitalism.

[0]: https://www.google.com/travel/flights/s/a5Ea

View on HN

Yes, the sort of "triumph" that got us into this catastrophically unsustainable situation. Flights are not cheap. It's just that the hidden costs are paid by all of us, including yet unborn humans. This cannot continue.

Work out the fuel costs per passenger mile and that’s a subsidized ticket. Now, airlines often have a surplus of seats on a route and will sell some of them at a nominal loss over flying empty seats, but they couldn’t operate the route if everyone was paying that.

I understood that the ban was only for flights within France.

Every retailer will tell you that cutting prices (or even accepting a small loss) on goods or services that don't make a big profit brings in customers whose happiness with finding a bargain is a more effective advertisement than any the business can issue itself.

It would be more of a triumph if those $30 flights were not using leaded fuel, or if there was at least some lead pollution task to encourage people to take different transit options until the airline industry figures it out.

I think, it was much less of a problem, when many less planes were flying.

-- Correction in the comment, Jet-A has no lead. Cursory research suggests its nasty products are mostly organics rather than heavy metals, which is much less bad. Thanks!

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15093276/

I don't believe Ryanair flies any piston planes and, thus, does not use any leaded fuel.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com