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from the Airbus-Wants-Your-Flight-to-Suck-Even-More dept.
Airbus has been working on making the economics of the A380 even better for airlines who buy it: pack 11 seats into a row:
Airbus has found a way to make flying economy even worse. That’s quite a feat, given how crummy the experience is these days. The trick, it turns out, is eliminating one the few remaining saving graces of air travel: better than even odds you won’t be squeezed into a middle seat. Generally, you’ve got a two in three chance of landing an aisle or a window.
But now, airlines flying the Airbus A380, the largest commercial jet on the planet, can reduce those odds. The European plane maker announced this week that it will offer a 3-5-3 cabin configuration, creating rows with 11 seats.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the future of civilized air travel lies with airships.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TrumpetPower! on Saturday April 18 2015, @07:31PM
The "value-add" is a lot more than a single night in the hotel. It's also a day's worth of car rental, whatever meals are served, and potentially that much of the per diem.
And, on top of it...you get an entire extra day of productivity. Today, you lose an entire day, for all intents and purposes, to travel across the country. You're either spending enough time traveling that there's not enough time left to get anything meaningful done, or you're doing the redeye thing and not at the top of your game the next day. This way, you don't lose any productivity; you leave work as normal one day in one city and go to work as normal the next day in a different city.
The same sort of benefit applies to non-business travelers. Want to visit family for the weekend? Go from work to the airfield on Friday, show up at your family's doorstep Saturday morning, stay just Saturday night with them, sleep on the airship Sunday night, back to work like normal on Monday. Or, start your European tour Sunday night in New York and go straight to the tour bus in Paris on Monday morning.
You can also imagine, without much trouble, much smaller versions with the passenger area of a motorhome. Tour the world by air, if you can afford to buy the thing.
Initially I'm sure they'd use existing airport infrastructure...but they're VTOL craft. They don't need much more infrastructure than an hitching post and a fuel supply.
And they should be incredibly safe, too, with the only real requirement being to not fly into the same sorts of storms airliners already avoid. Even a complete engine failure isn't going to be too terrible; with adjustable ballast, you can still navigate the same way hot air balloons do and manage a soft landing anywhere ground winds are slow enough.
Potentially pretty exciting stuff!
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Saturday April 18 2015, @09:06PM
This way, you don't lose any productivity; you leave work as normal one day in one city and go to work as normal the next day in a different city.
I've eaten a couple steaks in first class on the Amtrak from Chicago to NYC. Given stereotypical delays I wouldn't plan anything critical right at 9am but you'll have no problem at all with a business lunch.
The first class lounge in CHC is really nice. I donno if NYC even has a lounge. The OLD cars east of the mississippi are kinda dumpy, the cars west of the mississippi are nice, and the new cars in the east are supposed to be nice although the stars have never aligned for my travel plans to take them. Something to do with tunnel dimensions and turn radius limitations.
Amtrak service sucks because most routes only have one departure per day and from memory the NYC to CHC return trip leaves just after lunch hour and you'll be back in CHC pretty early in the morning the next day (safe to plan on doing something at 9 in CHC). On the other hand if you want to go to minneapolis I hope you enjoy arriving at 1am or whatever it is, because thats when the ONLY daily train arrives. Blah.
As a warning, sleeping in a train is kind of annoying the first few times, the train is always wiggly a little. Some people get a little seasick but its not nearly as bad as a little sailboat...
I haven't made this run from CHC to NYC in a couple years but from memory its "moderately expensive" for an overnight hotel but nothing too terrifying. Not like $1K but its going to be more than a $150 hotel room.
I used to go to the HOPE convention at the hotel penn which is across the street from the amtrak station in NYC.
Its a different sort of mentality, with security theater and delays if you fly you give up a day for travel, but if you train you give up a night. Also my laptop worked fine on the train and its comfy so I didn't really give anything up.
Something to think about is sightseeing. There is nothing different geographically between NYC and CHC, but if you go out west you can start in forests and go thru deserts and generally see cool stuff.