Apparently my gloating about our Toronto trip was too much for the travel gods, so they’ve decided to humble me. AirTran is no longer offering direct flights to Boston (they offered to still take us, but connect in Atlanta – Atlanta?), so I’ve had to rebook our trip in March on United, for double the original cost (yeah, the original was a great deal, but still…).
And why is Amtrak so expensive? Jill’s not a huge fan of flying, and likes trains, but their prices are nearly double waht I just paid for airline tickets. I often check them out when I’m traveling on the east coast, but I never use them – if you’re going to get me there later than an airplane, your prices should at least be comparable.
Amtrak is run backwards. With transportation that works cheaply, the government owns and runs the medium, and private industry owns the transport. Roads, shipping ports, airports work that way. The rail lines are owned by shipping companies, whose priority is shipping, not people moving. But that’s why rail service is bad. Rail prices are bad in the northeast becuase that’s the only place there’s real demand for rail services, and every single US Congressman considers rail service for their district to be important. So they raise the rates as far as possible where there are customers to support places where there aren’t any.
I used to think that Amtrak set its northeast rates to compare favorably against last minute flying, but a round trip airline ticket for tomorrow from Boston to Dulles is $124, instead of $176 for the train.
Who knows? Maybe they set the rates high becuase their only remaining passengers will pay any price to avoid the airport.