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P Follow Paleofuture car rentals nyc O Unfollow Paleofuture Related blogs Gizmodo C White Noise C Gizmodo en Español C LEG GODT C Sploid Blogs you may like Deadspin Gawker Gizmodo io9 Jalopnik Jezebel Kotaku Lifehacker Recommended by Matt Novak Attenborough s Next Amazing Nature Documentary Will Play on Oculus Rift 1984: The Tot robot, manufactured by the now-defunct company Comro,... This Week in Time Capsules: Zombies, Girl Scouts, and Columbus Buying Pieces of the Space Race at Bonhams Space History Auction The Late Great American Promise of Less Work 10 More Viral Photos car rentals nyc That Are Actually Total Fakes 10 More Viral Photos That Are Actually Fake What s Your Favorite Notepad? No, That s Not the Oldest Message In a Bottle. This Is. That Beeping Sound You Hear Is The Future It s the 21st Century, car rentals nyc So Where s My Monorail to LAX? Flash Boys Author Michael Lewis s Old Predictions For the Future How Would You Redraw North America? The Internet Hall of Fame s 2014 Inductees The Internet Archive Opens Its Historical Software Collection To All The TV-Guided Drones of World War II Not the kind of tweets you want to see from NORAD... car rentals nyc This 1947 Train of Tomorrow Puts Today s Trains to Shame Paleofuture P Follow Paleofuture O Unfollow Paleofuture Related blogs Gizmodo C White Noise C Gizmodo en Español C LEG GODT C Sploid car rentals nyc Blogs you may like Deadspin Gawker Gizmodo io9 Jalopnik Jezebel Kotaku Lifehacker S 4 1 O Matt Novak Profile Follow Unfollow O Matt Novak 11/05/13 3:45pm 11/05/13 3:45pm e Edit a Delete i Invite B Promote X Dismiss X Undismiss b Block for Paleofuture b Hide E Share to Kinja j Share to Facebook i Share to Twitter r Go to permalink car rentals nyc Are Airline Customers Fleecing the Industry by Getting Cheap Flights?
Derek Thompson over at The Atlantic has a new video about the costs of air travel in the United States. He goes through the history of deregulation in the industry and shows how air travel today is quite a bargain. While he gets a lot about the industry right, Thompson has some bizarre conclusions.
What Thompson fails to mention is the various ways that governments (on both the federal and local level) have bailed out and subsidized the airline industry since its deregulation in the late 1970s. Sure, deregulation brought car rentals nyc down prices, which was great for consumers. But when bailouts and sweetheart loans are tossed around with our tax dollars, it's hard to argue that we as tax-paying consumers didn't ultimately pay for a portion of that old fashioned ticket.
4 1 Reply Discuss 7/29/13 5:27pm car rentals nyc 7/29/13 5:27pm 1 O Matt Novak Profile Follow Unfollow O Original post by Matt Novak on Paleofuture e Edit a Delete i Invite B Promote X Dismiss X Undismiss b Block for Paleofuture b Hide E Share to Kinja j Share to Facebook i Share to Twitter r Go to permalink Air Travel Today is a Damn Bargain
It might not feel like it, but air travel's a steal compared to what it was a half century ago. Since the American airline industry car rentals nyc was deregulated in 1978, ticket prices have fallen by about 40%. Of course, air travel isn't quite as luxurious as some postwar car rentals nyc dreamers imagined , but you can't beat that price. So just how much more did it cost to fly in the 1950s? Quite a bit, once you adjust for inflation.
The May 27, 1955 issue of Collier's car rentals nyc magazine included an ad from the now-defunct Trans World Airlines (more commonly called TWA ), which gives a fascinating peek at the price of air travel at the dawn of the Jet Age. The world was indeed getting smaller thanks to the airplane. And compared to rail and bus, TWA wanted Collier's readers to know that if you took into account the travel time and cost for meals, going by plane wasn't that much more expensive. Don't forget, your travel time is worth money, too! the ad exclaimed.
A one-way flight from Los Angeles to Kansas City would set you back $68, or about $575 adjusted for inflation. Today, if you book two weeks out, you can get that same one-way flight for $183 on Alaska Airlines (according to a Travelocity search I just did). You'll also get there in 3 hours and 11 minutes, compared with TWA's 1955 quoted time, which is 5 hours. However, today's time-sucking dance of security theater probably makes that two-hour savings a wash.
I've included a scan of the prices from the TWA ad below, along with some inflation car rentals nyc adjusted numbers under that. Remember that these are one-way ticket prices car rentals nyc and don't reflect the price of getting home, which could be higher than the price to get you to your first destination.
Los Angeles to Kansas City — $68 in 1955, $575 adjusted for inflation Chicago to New York — $33 in 1955, $279 adjusted for inflation San Francisco to Chicago — $76 in 1955, $643 adjusted for inflation Boston to Los Angeles — $106 in 1955, $896 adjusted for inflation Kansas City to New York — $52 in 1955, $440 adjusted for inflation Pittsburgh to San Francisco — $96 in 1955, $812 adjusted car rentals nyc for inflation Las Vegas to Los Angeles — $13.70 in 1955, $116 adjusted car rentals nyc for inflation Phoenix to Chicago — $69 in 1955, $584 adjusted car rentals nyc for inflation Amarillo to Kansas City — $22 in 1955, $186 adjusted car rentals nyc for inflation New York to Columbus — $23.90 in 1955, $202 adjusted for inflation Washington, D.C. to Kansas City — $46 in 1955, $389 adjusted for inflation St. Louis to Los Angeles — $73 in 1955, $617 adjusted for inflation Wichita to Philadelphia — $68.55 in 1955, $580 adjusted for inflation New York to Pittsburgh — $16 in 1955, $135 adjusted car rentals nyc for inflation
Paris, France — $310 in 1955, $2,622 adjusted for inflation Rome, Italy — $360.20 in 1955, $3,046 adjusted for inflation Frankfurt, Germany — 328.10 in 1955, $2,775 adjusted for inflation London, England — $290 in 1955, $2,453 adjusted for inflation Madrid, Spain — $320.30 in 1955, $2,709 adjusted for inflation car rentals nyc Shannon, Ireland — $261 in 1955, $2,207 adjusted for inflation Lisbon, car rentals nyc Portugal — $296 in 1955, $2,503 adjusted for inflation Geneva, Switzerland — $328.10 in 1955, $2,775 car rentals nyc adjusted for inflation
So why has air travel become so relatively cheap? The answer can be found in fewer amenities (remember when meals and things like checking a bag didn't cost extra?), the cramming car rentals nyc of more seats into planes, and the rise of non-union carriers.
This all raises questions about the transportation technologies car rentals nyc of tomorrow. If you're under the age of 30, not much about transportation has changed that radically in your lifetime — aside from the price! Will Elon Musk's new much-discussed Hyperloop tech deliver that cool new futuristic mode of transportation we've been waiting for? And if so, can it be done at a price average Americans car rentals nyc can afford?
Of course, we see air travel as essential to the American economy today. So much so that most Americans figured it was a no-brainer to bail out the industry after the September car rentals nyc 11th attacks. But it's also become commoditized, a mundane and irritating chore that's far from the futuristic luxury it was sold as in the 1950s. That's the trade off for relatively affordable accommodations. And the price of any futuristic transportation, along with the political savvy of its boosters will determine its fate in these decades to come.
During World War II, many Americans had high hopes for what life would be like in the future. car rentals nyc Sometimes this was fueled by advertisers who promised… Read… Related Why the Biggest Obstacle for Elon Musk's Hyperloop Might Be Tunnels
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