Why is air fare cheaper than the bus?
 

I've been online checking some prices, and my preferred air carrier is cheaper round trip (about 10 days prebooked) than not only the train, but the bus as well. (from Raleigh Durham to Philly and back)

What gives?

You have to pay an entertainment tax for riding the bus. They charge exra for all of the 'people watching' you get to partake in...

It has been a dream of mine to take the greyhound to Memphis. I'd buy an old guitar, sit in the back seat and learn how to play 'Mammas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys' on the way there... on the way home, I'd learn to play harmonica...

I think I'd grow out my sideburns and probably a mustache for the trip. I think I'd also try to get a velvet suit and a bowtie for the ride home.

LOL, well that was if nothing else a highly entertaining post. :)

Can't say i disagree with you WRT the "entertainment tax."

it cost money to pump "hope" thru the bus vents.

I took Greyhound and Trailways when I was in the USMC, almost 40 years ago. The number of guys who want to show you their dick in the men's room at the terminals is amazing. I did two days on a bus and felt like I was born on that friggin bus.

by "hope", you mean meth right?? Seriously, almost everyone I've ever seen at a greyhound station looked meth'd out of their minds.

hope...

i retrofitted a bus terminal. the passengers looked like they have lost "hope" with life.

pretty sure that's a byproduct of the meth

Actually, it may be the other way round.

The bus is called the "Loser Cruiser" for a good reason.

Take a plane.

You can't carry a firearm any where near a commercial airplane, but they are not necessarily prohibited in a bus.

Maybe that's why you never hear of a bus sitting in the middle of the street for two hours with the doors locked closed, air conditioner off in the summer sun, and everyone forbidden to move around or use the bathroom. Some passenger will start bustin' caps! Bus riders won't take that stuff that airplane travelers put up with!

angela

Actually, while we're on that topic, is it legal to carry a firearm on a train (if you have a permit, obviously)?

Transportation regulations do NOT prohibit it, but the busline, e.g. Greyhound, might prohibit it in the passenger compartment (it would then go into luggage). Need to check their rules and ask "detailed" questions about their security e.g. their boarding process. Probably the same with trains, check and go forth armed with knowledge.

Personally, I've ridden Greyhound and if I ever do again, believe me baby, I'm packin'! What an interesting cultural experience... By the way, there are MUCH worse bus companies than the hound. I'll give you a hint, if you buy a ticket on the internet and show up at a street corner - it might be a good one to avoid...

angela

I only ever rode on a Greyhound bus once, in my youth, and i had a penthouse experience with a really pretty young girl from Pittsburgh.

I honestly cannot complain.

At any rate, it really strikes me as odd that flying is cheaper than the bus or train. Why does anyone take either on long trips, when they can fly for less?

Round trip from Raleigh Durham to Philly on Air Tran is only $139 on the dates i'm looking for. Greyhound was like $150 bucks plus tax. The train was even more. I never considered using either, but i was so struck by how low Air Tran was, i decided to check the others, just for comparative purposes.

Bill, I wouldn't be surprised if the average cost per mile per pound of average number of riders and their baggage and average number of empty seats is more expensive for a bus than an airliner.

Think of all the stops and starts for a bus.

Once an airliner gets up to 30,000+, it's incredibly efficient at ticking off the miles.

Trains... meh, pretty much the same thing as a bus re: fuel efficiency, but AMTRAK's run by the gubmint, right? :)

Have any of you guys flown commercially lately? It sucks. The gap between the experience of riding the bus and the experience of flying has narrowed considerably, probably due in large part to the ridiculously low fares.

If this sounds snobbish, so be it - the only way I can even remotely stand commercial flying now is with a set of noise canceling headphones and some sort of mindless entertainment to screen out all the stupidity around me for however many hours. One of the reasons to like JetBlue and their on-board TV service. Yes, most of what's on TV is stupid too, but it's typically less obnoxious and annoying than the stupidity of the people around you in the plane, and you can usually find SOMETHING on that's marginally less mindless than the norm, enough to tolerate.

I fly fairly regularly and have noticed a perceptible trend in the last 10-or-so years. People on aircraft have gotten far more rude, pushy, belligerent, obnoxious and just plain stupid. This is in addition to them being fatter and feeling the need to schlep ever-increasing amounts of crap along with them (with the mentality of entitlement to ever-increasing amounts of overhead bin space, floor space, seat space and everything else - and if it encroaches on one's fellow passengers, too bad - the most boisterous person gets to inconvenience everyone else!)

I truly hate the experience of flying commercially now and it isn't just the "being-treated-like-cattle" attitude from the carriers, the idiotic TSA security BS, the rip-off parking prices, concession prices and everything-else prices at airports or even the thought of being "ground held" for six hours. It's being crammed in such close quarters with other people who by-in-large are increasingly more impossible to deal with and who really deserve to be "going Greyhound".

I swear the next time I get stuck next to some won't-shut-up, perptuallly fidgity and uncomfortable, "must-tell-you-her-life-story" broad who doesn't understand that my sunglasses, headphones and staring out the window are a clue that I don't want to be bothered every 30 seconds, some jackoff sideways-hat-and-baggy-pants wearing, gangsta-glorifying, ebonics-speaking douchebag with an faux-attitude, some self-important fat guy who expects everyone else to bow down and respect him because he's a successful vibrator salesman or whatever or some strung-out, stressed-out 20-something mom with four screaming brats from three different daddys in tow, I'm going to end up finding myself on a do-not-fly list. And you know what, I'd probably be okay with that - if there were any sort of viable alternative.

I will welcome increases of 50%-100% in fares to keep some of the 'low-rent-district", "should-be-riding-the-bus" crowd the hell off the airplanes.

Yeah, maybe I'm getting old and crotchety but I just hate dealing with stupid, obnoxious and rude people, and they seem to be representing an increasing percentage of the flying public - at an even greater rate than society-at-large. Given the choice of associating with such individuals, give me the idiot box, my sunglasses, noise-cancelling headphones and a window seat and let me distract myself from the reality of Stupid that surrounds me for the next several hours. That's the only way I can deal with it anymore.

I suppose the bus offers a niche for those not allowed to fly- no ID, etc, or those who are afraid to fly.
One of the reasons they flying experience is different now than 10/20 years ago is that much of the bus crowd does now fly.
Another thing this tells you is flying is an incredible bargain--much to the chagrin of the airlines that would like to make a profit.

Southwest Airlines was born beating bus prices. They could get you there a ton faster & cheaper.

Well, it beats flying...

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1017/...2228ff1271.jpg

POP Man: This is an instant classic rant. Pure internet gold. Thank you. SmileWavy

POP has hit the nail right on the head. Commercial airlines are now nothing more than a bus with wings.

Yes, you are getting old and crotchety. If you don't like coach pony up some extra bread for business or 1st class.

Coach has always been "ghetto" IMO.

Come on down unclebilly, Beal Street is just a short walk from the Greyhound station. I'll meet you down there.

I used to ride Peoria Charter from Normal to Joliet in college to get home. That line was mostly college students when I was on the bus (to and from breaks).

I also used to ride Illini Swallows from Normal to Champaign to visit friends at U of I. Once again, mostly college students.

A few years ago, I found a mechanic in Champaign who specialized in 944s to do some major work for me. I drove the car to Champaign, then took the bus home, then did the reverse trip a week later. On the reverse trip (which was during the day), it was NOT mostly college students. In fact, most of the people on that particular bus were fresh out of prison in Pontiac and making there way home to various locations in southern Illinois.

And to answer the original question...

Railroads have MUCH higher maintenance costs than airlines. They have to maintain trains, cars, stations, and all the track between the stations. It's a business model that works well for freight but sucks for passenger traffic. When you can string a train over a mile long of 300+ cars of cargo, it pays for itself very well. When the longest trains of paying passengers cars you can string together have less than 10 cars, it isn't very economical, even with the generous government subsidies.

Buses have a different problem. Their problem is throughput relative to airplanes. A bus from Chicago to Nashville will take 8 hours to make the drive. An airplane flying that same route can do it in an hour. Even when you account for turn-around time, that airplane can make 4 roundtrips to Nashville in the same amount of time it takes a bus to make one. That means that if a bus ticket and a plane ticket cost the same, the airplane can generate 4 times the revenue for a given period of time. But the reality is that the plane ticket can be much cheaper because of the higher throughput.

Just for the record, like Jeff, i also hate commercial flying. In honesty, i don't disagree with most of what he said.

Another option would be to take a boat... is there a paddlewheeler service that makes this trip along the local river system?

Whens the last time anybody took regular Amtrak coach to Fl? Shyte, ya wanna talk dregs of society!!

Although Ive taken the AutoTrain a few times and that wasnt bad.

If you're serious, there's always first class. However, there may well be screaming babies up there too.

Never been in first class and I don't fly anyway. I was last on an airliner before 9/11, so I don't know about all the schit personally. My wife tells me. And, she's been upgraded a few times and says FC is great.

If I need to go across country, I'll grin and bear it. That's what Valium is for. No bus. However, if it can be done in 10 hours or less, I'd consider the train at whatever cost. Sleeper bunks are really pricey, so I wouldn't care to spend rail time like being in a submarine.

I get to take FC when I fly oversees. Air New Zealand and Lufthansa are way better than United. Individual TV screens which you can watch what you want when you want, and Recaro true lie flat seats. United needs to catch up.

PoP's rant, though funny, is describing the outside occurrence of air travel. After nearly a million air miles spread over AA, US Airways (America West), and United I can honestly say flying beats the pants off the alternative. Yes FC is substantially better than coach and as a frequent flyer I have ridden FC many times but as long as you can avoid a middle seat I have no problems with coach either. I rode Greyhound once as a kid - Los Angeles to Santa Barbara and the memory still lingers. I rode Amtrack once San Diego to Santa Barbara - never again.

I have a lady friend who works for the dog. During discussions about her job I noted that they seem to base their fares on what it would cost you to drive the same route in your own vehicle. I checked several trips using the dogs posted rates and checking the mileage using mapquest and the dog is slightly cheaper than driving my truck over the same distance.

The dog has security (rent a cops with wands) ever since that nut job cut the kids head off.

Let's not forget that the US airline industry is a big money-loser. The industry has lost more money than it has earned, during its history and certainly during the past few decades. Many of the companies have been in and out of bankruptcy. Overall, the price of airplane tickets do not actually reflect the cost of providing the service - if it did, this industry wouldn't be such a basket case.

Therefore, trying to analyze ticket prices based on those costs is going to be tough.

I don't know the economics of inter-city buses or how they set ticket prices. My impression is that there isn't that much competition on most routes.

As for passenger rail, nationwide Amtrak is crippled by (among other things) the fact that they run on freight rail lines that they do not own/control, which means slow speeds and huge delays. In the Norheast Corridor, which Amtrak actually owns, they make money (as of 2007 they did anyway) - it subsidizes the rest of Amtrak.

I personally like to see
- About 1/3 of the US airlines to disappear.
- The rest raise ticket prices by +50% and be profitable, pay pilots and other employees decently, and allow a nicer experience for passengers (like more legroom).
- High-speed rail where it makes sense. At 120+ mph, NYC-LAX or LAX-SEA are too long to be appealing but SFO-LAX or SEA-PDX would be fine. At higher speeds, longer trips start to make sense. China is expanding high-speed rail across the country, and that is a pretty darn big area.
- Bus - ehh, I don't care. I guess bus service matters for rural areas, but I'm not planning to live in North Dakota any time soon.

This thread needs a bus picture and what do you know, I have one........go figure.



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1272058466.jpg

You have not become a Man if you haven't spent at least 24 straight hours on a Greyhound at least once in your life.

I almost called BS on Sniper not finding cheaper bus fairs, but holy cow have they gotten expensive!! Used to be (10 year ago) that you could travel almost anywhere for $40 each way with 3 weeks notice, usually less.

Well i will admit i did not scour the ends of the internet for the cheapest possible bus fare, i just did a quickie search with about 2 weeks notice on greyhound.com

Why not drive? Are you dropping off a car?

It's a girl.

Enough said..........

I concur, which is why i said what i said, and no more. ;)