So Much for Air Travel being 'Free Market'

[kevin_standlee]

I will say up front that in my opinion, all forms of transportation are subsidized by the government in one form or another. There is no such thing as a true libertarian market for transportation. If you disagree with this, you'll probably disagree with everything else I say here.

Salem, Oregon, doesn't have scheduled commercial air service and hasn't for some time now. After Salem raised about $1 million, some of in the form of federal transportation grants, Delta ran service to Salt Lake City for a while, but they exited the market after about a year, citing high fuel costs.

Salem's problem is that, while it is the state capital, it's too close to Portland and too small on its own to support its own airport. People drive (about sixty miles north) to PDX or take the Hut Airport Shuttle. But that hasn't stopped local booters from continuing to beg airlines to start serving Salem again.

The latest news is that Salem will spend $10,000 and waive rent and landing fees if SeaPort Airlines will start serving Salem. SeaPort has been building up small-plane service between PDX and Seattle Boenig Field (not Sea-Tac), touting the fact that you don't have to go through TSA to fly them, which naturally means you gain roughly an hour and don't have to get groped. It looks to me like SeaPort will run a couple of flight daily on a puddle-jumper route of Newport-Salem-Portland-Seattle.

I assume that if you use this to connect to a major carrier at PDX, you'll have to do TSA there. You won't be able to connect at SEA because they don't fly there, so you'd need to get a taxi from Boenig Field to Sea-Tac. And for this, the city of Salem is willing to provide the airport service for free (which means the city is paying for it, because TANSTAAFL).

A much better solution would be an electrified high-speed (or at least conventional medium-speed, which means 125 mph like UK trains do every day, and not just on the Eurostar) running Eugene-Salem-Portland-Seattle (and probably Vancouver BC if we were being sensible). I suspect the market for short-haul flights such as the Eugene-PDX and PDX-SEA shuttles would dry up, especially with good station siting and connectivity between trains and planes. And we'd at least postpone the need for further widening of Interstate 5 on this corridor.

I expect that we'd see companies like Alaska/Horizon and SeaPort Airlines complaining bitterly about "government subsidies" if we got a true high- or medium-speed rail system under construction in the Pacific Northwest. But they're happy to tuck in to government subsidies for air travel public investment in critical air transportation services. Because of course air and highway travel isn't subsidized, oh no, never. I wish I was allowed to redefine terms so easily.

Thanks to Lisa for pointing out the story to me.

Comments

[fla-sunshine.livejournal.com]

I would grant your entire argument except that Salem is clearly getting off cheap at $10000 plus a waiver of rent and landing fees versus your proposed electrified high-speed train. I can't speak for the cost of a conventional medium-speed train, but I'd be surprised if the #10000++ would cover it either. Now if you wanted to talk about significantly cutting back on the highway budget to fund the trains, I might believe that.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but that's only going to provide a trickle of seats, and it won't make a significant impact on road traffic. And I expect this is only the down payment, because I doubt any air service on that route can be run without additional subsidy. Charge enough money to cover the cost and make a profit, and most people will just say, "Screw it, I'll drive."

Of course a rail system is going to be more capital intensive. But it really is a long-term investment. These are assets that should be considered as having 50-year or 100-year lifespans (less for the rolling stock). Instead of thinking about "turn something quickly," we should be thinking of ways to transport people that don't require importing oil from overseas and instead can be powered by energy generated here.

[travelswithkuma.livejournal.com]

Bears woulds fits ons these planes as theys onlys
holds 9 peoples. Bears woulds rathers takes the trains.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Please let Girls take you aboard, if you fly. You're well behaved, but some bears don't play well with planes. Did I tell you about the fellow who smelled something nice aboard a Piper Cub and went to look?

[nojay.livejournal.com]

The trickle of seats the subsidised flights provide will be high-ticket items, not affordable for regular economy-class flyers. This project is, I think, aimed at bringing business people into the area, folks who are used to flying to meetings but who aren't up to the level of being able to afford or use company bizjets. The belief is that they will bring jobs and insdustry with them, a faint hope perhaps but this comparatively small investment is within the local government's reach unlike the billion dollar cost of a train line that would serve perhaps a few hundred travellers a day.

Utah guzzles airport pork.

[theresamather.livejournal.com]

My town airport flights are subsidized to the tune of 1.25 million federal dollars a year, for one airline which only allows Delta connections and only goes to Salt Lake City. Just up the highway in St. George they just spent $169 million in tax dollars for a new marble floored extravaganza airport complete with special rooms for families to greet returning Mormon missionaries which also has the same single destination Delta only service through SLC. Most of the time we drive past both pork palaces and fly out of Las Vegas, as do 90% of people in the area because of the cheap flights, wide choice of airlines and more direct flights. Utah wastes literally hundreds of millions in tax dollars on these mostly useless tax black holes. Several shuttle services have even sprung up in St. George providing parking and shuttle service to Vegas airport for $20.

Re: Utah guzzles airport pork.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Exactly! We need to keep hammering on points like these when the anti-rail people insist that rail is the only form of transportation that is subsidized, and that roads and air travel are "free market" while trains are "socialism." The best I can think of such people is that they're deluded or misled because the subsidies to those non-rail forms of transportation are less direct than operating support for Amtrak and other forms of transit.