Reihan: Free Flight Revisited

I've long been a big fan of James Fallows' vision for the future of air travel: very simply put, replace an overreliance on big planes and big airports with a shift towards smalll planes and small airports. This would do a lot of good for all the reasons Fallows outlines in this post.

Pilots have seen first-hand that the only scarce resource in the air-traffic system is takeoff/landing slots at 15 or 20 big airports, and positions in the queue for those slots. Otherwise, the skies are virtually empty and most of the country's 4000-odd airports are underused. Of course that one scarce resource is the same one airline passengers confront day-in and day-out.

But making flying even more attractive than it already is would presumably have a very steep environmental cost. Yes, there are exotic research programs dedicated to sharply reducing the emissions impact of air travel, but they are very, very far from achieving viable commercial products.

This is why I was so disappointed in the near-universal condemnation of the Conservative party's Quality of Life report. ConservativeHome, no friend of the report, summarized it here. To me, it seemed like a mostly sober, modest response to real environmental challenges. Of course, the "optics" were all wrong, and it's certainly true that green issues are presently the concern of AB1 voters. The hope is that we'll eventually be able to articulate an environmental agenda that has resonance with working- and middle-class voters. But anyway, Gummer-Goldsmith put a lot of stock into discouraging domestic air travel. It would be extremely difficult for us to do the same in the US for obvious reasons, though there are certainly heavily-traveled corridors in which we could sharply improve the quality of air travel alternatives.

Comments

The problem is that most of those small airports aren't anywhere near where people need to go. The main reason that JFK airport is more crowded than Islip is because more people are going to New York City than eastern Long Island.

And the worst mix is small planes and big airports, because that makes everyone late and wastes fuel.

As an alternative, I would propose what Japan has-- big planes and big airports. They use 747's on one hour flights! The problem is our deregulated air travel system incentivizes all the airlines grazing the commons with small planes.

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 5, 2007 3:33 PM

But surely part of the problem is the overall crappiness of our rail system, something Jim Kunstler talks about endlessly (and convincingly, I'd add).

For instance, when I want to get to NYC from Boston, my options are either Fung Wah busses, a short cheap flight, or an expensive Amtrak trip that might stall for hours because of problems with the track (It took me 12 hrs to go from Albany to Montreal once because the track was in disrepair, or freight trains had priority).

Two observations: if I'm a business traveler, there's no contest, I'm taking the short flight.

And, there is something wrong and sort of crazy when flying in a jet is cheaper than riding on a railroad.

Posted by Ben Cronin | October 5, 2007 6:42 PM

Oh, that it was so simple. The complexity of aircraft scheduling coupled with air traffic control requirements means that big aircraft on popular routes between the principal airports will always prevail.

James Fallows idea that small is beautiful in air travel wil never catch on

Posted by Richard Havers | October 6, 2007 2:48 AM

Richard:

But that's not true. Most flights from Los Angeles to San Francisco, Las Vegas, or Phoenix-- all tremendously popular routes-- use relatively small 737's. Even long-haul routes like Los Angeles to Chicago and Los Angeles to New York, which used to use 747's and DC-10's and L1011's, now use 757's which are half as big.

The reason for this is that it benefits airlines to appear to have more flights at more times, so that a business traveler will always seen an available flight at a convenient time. Plus, any slot that a major airline doesn't take up at a major airport may be taken by a low-fare competitor.

The only way to stop this is to reregulate this aspect of the industry and require the airlines to put big planes on the most popular routes.

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