I personally avoid traveling by plane whenever I can, the experience and added stress just isn't worth the time saved.
and trains are awesome!
High speed rail is awesome. Amtrak in the US is a slow, lumbering joke.
You should see rail in Canada, if you have a big bag of money and a LOT of time.
Welcome to Germany, where driving a car through the entire country for 8 hours is still a better experience than trying to go anywhere with Deutsche Bahn. 🤮
Fun fact: i had to take a train through Switzerland and change trains in Germany, on the day a major swiss tunnel collapsed.
I made it to Frankfurt perfectly on time despite having to go around a fucking mountain instead of through it, and still accrued 3 hours of total delay on the remainder, 2 of which were just the train being stuck at the station in Frankfurt itself.
I've taken to calling them Scheiße Bahn.
International trains are fun though. They're also DB, but they get privilige. I was stuck in Utrecht (NL) once, heading to Arnhem, because a tree fell on the tracks. No trains could go to Arnhem. Until the ICE came. I got to take a detour via S' Hertogen Bosch. A train taking a detour is pretty unique, but the ICE get's the privilege to do that. I was 2 hours delayed, but at least I got home.
You’re not from the UK are you?
UK trains are user-fee hell. It's okay to hate them.
1.5 days by car vs 2h by plane, I’ll take the plane, thanks. But you do you 😋
For that amount of time yeah I'll take the plane, but for travelling from Montreal to Toronto (1h plane vs 5 hours train) I'll take the train as I'll be able to work in the train, I won't have to check-in and go past airport security, be there xx hours before departure, etc
I love the VIA 🥰 too bad they're having so much trouble building a high speed rail there though, it's honestly such a perfect use case...
I wish there was a reasonable train line to where I'd want to go, but it's not like that for a majority of us in North America unfortunately. The few times I did have the ability to ride a train to my destination, I actually really enjoyed the experience.
It also use to be financially out of reach for most people. You can still pay for the nicer experience by paying for faster and easier security and first class seats. It's been made access to more financial groups, and most people choose or can only afford the cheaper option.
First class on most domestic flights is a joke. You get on first and get a nicer seat. That’s about it. Everyone still walks by you as they board the plane and bump your seat with their luggage.
Back in the 60s and 70s there was a bar with couches, room to dance, and a piano!
That's called a private plane these days and it costs the equivalent.
The airlines were deregulated in the late 70s. This meant they could compete on price, instead of just differentiating through features. It’s been going downhill ever since.
Flying is also dramatically cheaper and more accessible today than it used to be.
If you want the fancy treatment from back then, pay the prices people paid back then and buy first class.
I wish I could of tried a plane in those days
I don't. Every change in FAA safety regulations since then has been paid for in blood. The fatality rate per 100,000 flight hours was about 5x higher in 1970.
Does 5x higher means it's much? Because today's plan is the safest way to travel.
So would multiplying the risk by 5 make it more unsafe than cars for example?
Because we do use cars a lot, more than we should, just because we like it. And the fatality rate is pretty high.
I think I actually understated how much more dangerous it was then because the chart I was looking at stopped a couple of decades ago. I found a more recent study and it's more like 1 death per 7.9 million boardings currently, versus 1 death per 350,000 boardings (!) from 1968-1977.
Nice, i'm not surprised but it's still hella impressive. Aeronautics is truly outstanding engineering nowadays.
Still i think i would definitively take the risk to try a 70' plane once, for the experience. Like i said it would probably be way safer than regularly using a car. But i get your point, it really was different back then.
Same 70's era flying sounds nice, less like packing people into sardine cans
could have*
wakes up on a plane heading for the world trade center
Ok grandpa, let's get you back to bed.
Now compare what flying in the 60's cost to what it costs today. If you want some magical luxury experience, you can fly First Class and get a comfortable seat with extra amenities and preferential treatment, but you're still just buying the cheap tickets aren't you.
Yes, the airline is squeezing every penny they can out of everything they can, and they're doing it because consumers are dramatically more sensitive to price than quality. When you look at the booking selection and the available flights are all more or less going to get the job done, you and just about everyone else will pick the one that costs $20 less, completely ignoring the First Class option that costs $800+ more. It's why everything seems to be shitty and cheap these days, quality goods and experiences still exist, but we don't pay for quality when the economy option costs a third as much.
I counter this perspective with the fact that quality doesn't improve proportionally with the price. You pay more and get Incrementally less. That's actually not directly the consumers fault. If you paid two thirds more but got 150% more, then it would be worth it. But the only way to do that is probably to reduce the quality of the cheaper seats.
Wait till you hear about the aviation impact on climate change !
What are we tilling?
stop flying and take the train then, maybe you don't have to take a vacation to the canary islands every year
You can bring drinking water onto a plane. bring an empty water bottle through security, then fill it up at a drinking fountain in the terminal. You're good to go. Fun & Magic restored!
In the 60s it also cost 10x as much, took 2-3 times longer with constant layovers, was 20x more likely to get you killed, and a lot more likely to give you lung cancer from second hand smoke.
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