[cicero2k]

Per the replies I did some research on discount airline’s costs and came up with this example:

http://sec.edgar-online.com/2005/04/27/0001193125-05-086404/Section7.asp

It seems in the quarter they burned 58 million gallons of fuel to produce 3.5 billion seat miles of travel. My calculation yields 60 seat miles per gallon. Even at their load factor of 70% it’s 42 seat MPG. Much higher than I thought.

Yes the bullet trains are expensive. In France the Paris to Strasburg run would have been 480 euros for two. So we rented a car.

C2K

[Reeses]

Interestingly fuel costs are similar to employee costs. Excluding the time value of their passengers they could increase fuel mileage times 4, and decrease emissions by 4, by flying at half speed but this would double their employee and maintenance costs. Inconveniencing passengers and creating makework should be an idea the EU socialists would love.

Airlines usually take extra cargo and mail which decreases their miles per gallon. To get a true mileage comparison you have to fly the airplanes at their best glide speed which would push up their MPG tremendously.

Now that the military has developed robotic aircraft you may see flying freight trains in the future. Robots don't mind working slow, taking 24 hours to fly a route a human wants to do in 4. A robot freight train would use much less fuel than a conventional train running at a similar speed on the ground. The only reason this is not possible now is the employee costs.