Flying domestically is usually cheaper than driving once you get past the range of a tank of gas or two. Also, RealID isn't fully permeated yet - my state won't fully phase out non-RealIDs until 2029.
"once you get past the range of a tank of gas or two."
This is like the folks who say flying is more carbon friendly than driving. It's wrong, you're comparing a vehicle running cost with one passenger vs a full vehicle normalized by its capacity.
That does not mean that they have someone to travel with though. It would make sense that more trips in groups are by road. But is that much group travel happening in the first place?
The point is that it's nonsensical to say flying is cheaper than driving. Its oranges vs apple. Apples and oranges are fruit, flying and driving are transportation. But they're totally different.
1. You're normalizing one cost by the occupancy but assuming the other is single occupancy.
2. The assumption that folks are alone in a car is only true only for short trips, trips that are unpractical and expensive by plane. Folks don't fly 600+ mi because it's cheaper (the fuel isn't cheaper until about 1600 mi), but because it's faster.
No one is saying flying is cheaper than driving full stop. The claim from the beginning was flying is cheaper than driving beyond a certain distance. The point of comparison is what it costs an individual to move from point A to point B. The fact that planes have significantly more occupants is an important part of the comparison. Likewise bus travel is cheaper than either flying or driving.
> Folks don't fly 600+ mi because it's cheaper (the fuel isn't cheaper until about 1600 mi)
There are costs besides fuel. Tolls, wear and tear on the vehicle, food and lodging expenses from the longer duration trip, etc. A 1000 mile drive will cost roughly double a 1000 mile plane ticket.
> The assumption that folks are alone in a car is only true only for short trips
> Asking people to drive 600+ miles for business is not a good use of business time, even if it is more expensive, typically.
It isn't more expensive typically, but yes when the value of a person's time is considered it's not even close.
> And when people travel 600+ miles on their own dime, the most common reason is leisure/vacation
Perhaps it is the most common single reason, but that doesn't mean it's even a majority, nonetheless an overwhelming one for that subset.
> which people typically do with friends or family.
Which does not actually require the friends or family to drive with you if you are meeting them at a destination, such as if you live far from a person you are going to visit.
So some fraction of all trips are leisure, some fraction of leisure is with other people, some fraction of leisure with other people involves travelling. Again, no one is arguing that driving never makes sense, only that the cases where flying makes sense aren't a small niche.
I would not describe travelling alone as "very specific circumstances." It is extremely common. 70% of all car trips are solo, and the average number of occupants for all car trips is 1.5. That you can get more bang for your buck driving if you have enough passengers and luggage doesn't change the fact plenty of people don't.
You are entirely right, because 98%+ trips in a car are commutes or errands that average 6 miles in distance.
But, that is not the topic of conversation above -- we were talking about trips 600+ miles in distance. These are almost exclusively not commutes.
Averages don't necessarily describe your whole data set. Just like how the average person has around 1 testicle, this data is also multimodal :) ... People commute alone, but they go on vacation with friends/family.
> You are entirely right, because 98%+ trips in a car are commutes or errands that average 6 miles in distance.
My figure was based on miles travelled, not trips. Further, your assumption that local travel would severely skew the data seems at best unsupported. Think about all those trips taking the kids to school/soccer practice/etc. Having a lot of people in the car is going to radically skew the average number of occupants up.
> Just like how the average person has around 1 testicle, this data is also multimodal
Then why are you essentially arguing that people with two testicles are a niche case?
The overwhelming majority of car trips that happen are going to be car trips that make sense to be car trips. That's not evidence of driving's economic sensibility, it is selection bias. The question is of all trips where a person needs to go a certain distance, how often is flying the cheaper option, and for long trips it is a lot.
Yeah, the cost of a flight alone is often cheaper than driving. The issue that I am getting at is that flights do not provide door-to-door service.
The transportation to/from the airport at either end can often be significant, as many parts of the US are not accessible via public transit. And rural destinations often have no final-destination options other than an expensive rental car. It is common to incur these costs.
And even if there is an airport, it costs a lot more to fly into a small captive airport. For instance my parents live in South GA where the local airport has three commercial flights a day all on Delta and all fly to and from ATL
Yeah, that's part of what I'm getting at. Smaller airports can be much more expensive and lack options for transportation to the final destination. For exurb or rural destinations a rental car may be required.
