Item — HN Reader

People underestimate (total) transit time. Yes, flight from city A to B is only an hour. But you need another hour, each, for Ubering between home and terminal. And checking in. And waiting for everything in between. And delay. All that and 5 hours gone.

Personally, I prefer to get in a car, be a couch potato, and when I wake up, I've reached my destination.

3 comments

For short to medium distances I think trains offer superior comfort. Train stations can be put in cities so they're much easier to get to. No TSA (I think that's still the case?), you can walk into the train station and straight onto the train. When flying I plan on getting to the airport two hours early but when traveling by train I only arrive 5-10 minutes before the train is scheduled to board.

High speed rail is competitive even at a “medium” distance of 1000-1500km. It’s so much nicer to have a comfortable and completely predictable three and a half hour train ride compared to the air travel counterpart, especially at a similar price point, which means economy class, or economy plus at best. (I’ve taken plenty of these trips in China.)

But Chinese HSR stations are mostly located far away from city centers, so you are still stuck taking a taxi in heavy traffic to and from the station unless it is somehow connected well by public transportation.

It’s a wash to say Beijing to Changsha is better by HSR than plane, given where the HSR stations are (Beijing South was much farther from our apartment than BJS, and Changsha’s HSR station is as far out as its airport). But my wife’s hometown is one HSR station south of Changsha (on the BJ to GZ line) and wasn’t served by an airport, so an 8 hour HSR trip made sense. But now that they have an airport, I’m sure I would just prefer to fly.

You're describing tradition air travel. The point is to modernise this, with smaller planes that take off often, closer to you. With little need for check-in etc.

Hard to see use cases except for the wealthy.

There could be multiple pickup and dropoff points distributed throughout the city. Check-in could be streamlined through an app.