US Air Service Policy & High Speed Rail… A Lot In Common, Besides Ignoring The Future

In various media stories this past week, there were a couple of nasty wake-up calls in regard to US communication planning for the future.

Passenger transportation is part of the communication system, but today it’s still considered anything but. Every other mode of communication has evolved and conformed to new technologies and new consumer patterns.

In the USA, conceptual planning and policy, however, is working hard to make sure that passenger transportation systems don’t evolve consistent with these new dynamics, but instead stay comfortably in the context and needs of the 1950s.

Wake Up Call #1 – California’s Obsolete High Speed Rail Program. We had the revelation last week that the planned California high-speed rail boondoggle continues to come off its financial wheels. Now, it seems that the estimated cost of the first planned 119 miles has jumped from a promised $6 billion to over $10 billion.

That involves only about 20% of the total mileage planned, and is only for a section that’s mostly in rural areas. The other 80% should be lots of financial fun.

Wake-Up Call #2. Local Small Community Air Service. The second wake-up call was the message conveyed in several media stories of small community airports planning to attend “speed date” events to “lure” more airlines to town.

Now, we’re referring to the many small airports that have no airline targets in particular. No specific connectivity contemplated. The goal is just to get in front of the supposed faceless mass of carriers that can put a scheduled flight at the gate – regardless of where it’s headed.

Two Different Modalities. The Same Ostrich-Level Planning. High speed rail on one hand and the “need” for air service at local airports – these two seemingly disparate areas are really part and parcel of a single major issue:

Much of America’s infrastructure planning is about passenger transportation, instead of the futurist imperative of developing new forms of efficient communication. In fact, much of the transportation planning has very little connection with consumer needs and trends in the 21st century. Transportation is just a part of the total communication system, and it is imperative that it be planned consistent with changes in other areas of communication – changes which alter the utility and value equation of the physical demands to move people from A to B.

In the case of high speed rail as well as that of air service at local small community airports, the flaw is the same: they both assume that consumer travel and communication trends are static. They both ignore new communication trends, as well as alternative consumer options.

Indeed, high-speed rail and much of the efforts to bring scheduled air service to some small community local airports have a lot in common: they are based on obsolete assumptions that gravitate around obsolete thinking and dead technologies that actually inhibit America from moving aggressively into the future.

High-speed rail – as planned in California – is as outdated as trying to re-establish passenger riverboats on the Mississippi. The cost issue – which almost universally originates with “studies” that are about as credible as a rigged carny game – represents a barrier that in most cases makes the whole concept a joke.

Then there is the nonsense about “high speed” – defined as over 200 miles per hour average. If it’s a line between, say, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, with no stops through the uninhabited desert, then it might work – assuming that the “Los Angeles” end of the line isn’t a two hour drive from, well, Los Angeles.

But between Los Angeles and San Francisco, or Chicago and Minneapolis, only someone just back from Pluto could believe that the politicians at every town on the route won’t demand it stop there. That will kill the “high-speed” part. Hint: it takes a lot of distance to get a train up to 200 MPH and a lot more to get it back down to stop at East Cupcake.

Now, related to this is the issue of small community air service. Today, most of the discussions, planning, and “accepted thinking” in this regard focuses on “small airports” – and not on solutions for assuring rural access from the global economy.

That’s the giant fly in the current planning ointment – the sheer political nonsense that it’s all about keeping service at the local aerodrome, and not on looking to keep rural America connected to the global economy.

And that’s where the “speed date” event comes into play. It can be massively misconceived as a panacea for small airports, when there is no such future for re-establishing air service.

Let’s be clear: most of these speed-date get-togethers have clear and demonstrative benefits. To have the opportunity to tag up with a carrier that is already in town, or has a clear corporate strategy that makes sense for new service, is a very cost-effective way of building future communication.

But too often, small communities get hornswoggled into going to one of these events with virtually no understanding of the structure of the airline industry, or with the misguided notion that they will find an airline – any airline – to fly to town. It’s just to talk to the supposed faceless mass of airlines, and convince one or two to start service.

To fly to where? Many of these small communities come to the event not really sure, except that maybe a recent “market analysis” clearly showed that a lot of people want to go to Washington… or Dallas… or Chicago. No scientific data, and zero research on the existing consumer alternative options that will compete with the supposed point-to-point 9-seat departures at the local airport.

Sometimes this expensive misconception is just local lack of understanding of the structure and economics of air transportation. And, sometimes it’s the result of semi-ethical “studies” that fail to advise the client of the realities of air transportation. But, boy that $20K report has lots of cool data and charts and heat maps.

To state it bluntly, a large part of today’s air service development schemes is based on making sure no mention is ever made regarding the structural realities of the air transportation system – the most egregious being hiding the fact from small communities that there isn’t a giant pot of airlines at the end of the speed-date rainbow. To do otherwise would kill off the project.

That’s not any different from much of the body of “studies” of the potential for high-speed rail. Key realities, such as the low-balled cost estimates, the political pressures, not to mention the dismal economics, tend to get glossed over amid flashy pictures of racy locomotives and glorious claims about reducing “carbon footprints” or vanquishing “climate change.”

Also not considered is whether ridership estimates are within several galaxies of reality. Travel patterns change. Just take a look at air markets such as DAL/DFW- Austin, or ALB-BUF. You can take it to your bookie with confidence that the passenger volumes for “high speed” rail are directly out of fantasy land, just as are the conclusions in a lot of “market studies” done for small airports.

The Future Is In Building New Communication Channels. Local Air Service May Not Always Be A Part of It. The chase after “high speed rail” is a blood-brother to the bogus and obsolete – and impossible – concept of keeping air service at every local airport.

Regardless of the political and trendy stories and fantasies surrounding these issues, economic gravity cannot be reversed.

Let’s Move Transportation Planning Into The Future. What US planning needs to focus on are the levels of communication that regions of the nation have with the global economy. In some cases, there will be huge challenges – particularly on the relatively few cases where the population bases cannot support even regionalized air access.

We need to candidly recognize that tossing airplanes into small airports at communities where consumers have better alternatives, or building rail lines that are based on past travel and communication modalities, are heading the US into the past, not the future.

Join Us For More Straight Talk. Naturally, this isn’t consistent with “consensus” or “ambient” thinking. But it does open issues that a lot of folks in public policy planning aren’t too keen to discuss.

On August 19-21, at the 23rd Boyd Group International Aviation Forecast Summit, we’ll be openly exploring these and other global issues that will affect aviation planning.

As our regular attendees know, this event does not allow political correctness in the door. The industry leaders from across the industry and across the world will be there to tackle the issues that will shape how aviation will evolve as part of the global communication system.

For more information, and to get the special New Year’s registration rate, click here.