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Comment by nickserv | Hacker News Reader

If it lowers air travel then it's a good thing, since it's probably the only way the US will meaningfully invest in high speed rail.

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Quite the opposite. You reckon taking planes out of the skies will lower the cost flying? Supply and demand.

Yes, it will likely raise prices.

My point/question is whether this will reduce air travel and increase demand for rail.

Doubtful. People will either just eat the higher costs or simply drive. The infrastructure is lacking (relative to airports), and there's unlikely to be any support for expanding it anytime soon - passing costs on to consumers is the current US culture.

I think OP meant whether this might "lower the demand" for air travel...due to the expected spike in prices

Those airplanes aren't going to be scrapped. Demand for flights hasn't reduced much. Other airlines will buy up the airplanes and put them back into service.

Spirit's business model was a threat to most airlines and had forced them to lower prices. This just takes away that pressure to lower their prices.

Really? Spirit had a very limited route network. And Delta and United have been successfully pursuing a market strategy based more on service quality than low prices. They account for the majority of profit in the whole industry.

All for this if the train cruises at 600mph.

For cities where the flight is an 1.5 hours or less high speed rail (300kph) is usually about the same (if not slightly faster) because it's much faster to get in and out.

This works even better when the train station is closer to downtown than the airport.

I think, if you follow the airport guidelines (at least in the USA), trains win (or at least come close) for even longer distances than that. Most airports recommend that you arrive at least two hours early to ensure that you can make it through security and get to your gate on time. That means that a 3 hour flight is actually a 5 hour time commitment. And, as you noted, you've also got to get to the airport first, and airports tend to be far away (45 minutes+) from the main part of the city in a lot of places. So, a 3 hour flight might actually require 6 hours of transit time / waiting in many cases.

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