Impact of TSA on travel

All good points, and agreed.

However, get to "flyover" country, and forget train travel. Just forget it. I'm currently in Atlanta. If I want to go to Florida I have to go to Washington, DC, first.

No, thanks.

 

Only in areas that aren't suitable for high-speed rail. It's a lot different when you're hauling (expletive deleted) at 200+ kph.

On many European trains, you get an assigned seat at a nominal price with your 2nd class ticket, often in a fairly cozy, relatively quiet 6-person cabin. There is no check in hassle, just be on the platforum & get on the train before the departure time, which tends to very much on time. Your departure & arrival points usually share facilities with the local rail systems, so you don't need any special transportation to get in from the airport. Many European airports are not connected efficiently to the local train systems, e.g. Prague & Berlin/Tegel you have to connect by bus to the train; at Oslo & Stockholm you have to buy expensive airport rail tickets; Vienna tries to trick you into doing the same but if you can find your way through the airport train station & manage to ignore all the pressure to buy express train tickets, you can get a local train into the city.

In addition, early morning airport departures often require that you take a cab because the trains aren't running yet.

On the flip side, there are also some real gems when it comes to airports with local rail connections, e.g. Frankfurt, Munich, Zürich, Geneva, Amsterdam.

In the last 2-3 years, we've done Salzburg --> Vienna, Prague <--> Dresden, Vienna --> Berlin, Linköping <--> Stockholm, all by train. Only Vienna --> Berlin probably would have been faster by plane, but then we wouldn't have seen the countryside.

 

Here's another figure: $65B total losses by U.S. airlines in 2001-2009 ...

Dayton Daily News: Threats remain despite air safety improvements