If it costs the county $X million a year to run an airport, then the tax/rent should be equal to ((Airport running costs)/ arrivals + departures). This would have the additional benefit of making the short hops less cost effective than long ones.

I am all for major funding of Amtrak, as Mike already knows. To make the claim that Amtrak “should just run like a business” ignores the fact that 95% of the passenger rail infrastructure has been ripped out in this country. The airlines didn’t get their start by having to fully fund every airport they wanted to land at, and we shouldn’t expect Amtrak to be able to fully fund every new line they want to run.

As for airlines cramming more people into economy…. I’m 5’10″ 165lbs. There is no excuse at all for a seat on a 737 or A340 to not fit me or my legs comfortably. Because of these awful seat conditions, I’ve been using Amtrak more and more and just budgeting it into my schedule. I don’t live on the NEC like Mr. Mike does. All of my trains (both of them) are slow speed.

1. Is it possible to have airline workflows and resources tailored to make the best of a challenging situation? I would suggest there are many opportunities to make air travel more pleasant at no additional cost. Examples: optimize boarding by boarding window seatted passengers before aisle seat ones. Apparently the research shows this makes boarding much faster and results in less aisle congestion. How about a DIS-incentive to clog the aisles with all your travel luggage into that overstuffed carry-on you stuff into an overhead bin several rows away from your seat because your bin is already full? How about timely and accurate communication of various flight delays, and well tested and optimized contingency plans for the inevitable problems?

2. Rail travel could be vastly superior if it was funded on a more near equal footing with air travel. At the present time, taxes pay for significant airline infrastructure, but the political rhetoric is that it is rail travel that needs to be weaned off federal subsidy. Airports, air traffic control, and the interstate highway system are not subsidy, but train tracks to rural, unpopular, or unprofitable destinations is? I believe they both are, and that’s fine.

The optimal solution will be when a one hour flight between Boston and Philadelphia takes LESS time, not more time than the six hour train ride between those same destinations. Then you have real competition, and the profit model comes from customers embracing the service, rather than profits squeezed from service cut-backs and “yield management”.