Business travelers use fewer short-hop flights
Steve Chiotakis: Airlines have cut back short-haul routes by almost 25 percent in the past five years.
Alex Goldmark reports now from station WNYC in New York, it’s the business traveler who’s feeling the pinch.
Alex Goldmark: Neil Shah used to fly a lot — eight to 15 times a month as a management consultant. But he started to feel like it wasn’t the best use of his time.
Neil Shah: Getting to the airport, waiting in the security lines. You know, there’s the potential for delay.
Shaving off 30 minutes may not matter much on a trip to Berlin, but it sure matters Boston to New York.
Shah: If all things were equal, my preference would be to fly. However, all of these other things have accumulated that make other means of travel just more convenient.
Scott Gibson is the head of ICF Skyworks, an airline advisory firm.
Scott Gibson: There are just fewer people flying in these short-haul markets.
Gibson gives the example of Kansas City to St. Louis. That route had as many as 30 flights a day in late ’90s; now there are nine. A big part of the trend is fuel.
Gibson: A lot of the fuel burn is in takeoff and landing. The airplane is really efficient when it’s up high in the air. And so as fuel costs have gone up, it actually impacts short-haul flights as a percent of the airfare more than it impacts long-haul flying.
Plus airports are charging carriers more per passenger. So one response has been to use bigger planes, but fewer flights.
John Happ: We actually reduced the number of flights but we gained more seats.
John Happ is the president of the Texas Airports Council and a pilot. At his small Easterwood Field in College Station, there are about 10 flights a day, mostly to Dallas and Houston.
Happ: I see more and more corporate aircraft coming through than what we used to have.
That’s because businessmen don’t want to waste time waiting for the next flight, he says. And even Happ admits the air schedules weren’t convenient the last time he had a meeting in Dallas.
Happ: If I’d a flown into Dallas, I’d have been there hours before my meeting, and that time is valuable to me.
So the pilot drove, three hours, each way.
In New York, I’m Alex Goldmark for Marketplace.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
