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by Patrick_Devine
2379 days ago
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I've seen a lot of skeptics and nay-sayers talking about this project, but I feel like there is a fundamental mis-understanding of why this is significant. No, it's not going to compete with jet airliners even in the remotely near future. High-bypass turbofan engines have enormous cost advantages over traditional piston engines. It's almost always more economical to use a turbofan engine to power aircraft in anything more than a short hop. I see this being a classic case of something like Mainframes vs. PCs however. Most people don't equate flying with General Aviation because GA has traditionally been so cost prohibitive, much the same way that mainframes were so cost prohibitive in the 60's and 70's. There are a few airlines, like Harbour Air, and Mokulele, that currently offer a short haul flights (usually over water) where people are willing to pay a lot more money. There are benefits like frequency of flights, but the big ones for me are not having to queue up for security, and being able to bring liquids on board. My wife once brought a can of soup on board Mokulele. Try doing that on Hawaiian. If this can bring down the cost of short haul flights, particularly those around 200-250 miles, it could be extremely appealing, especially when coupled with ride hailing. I would much rather take a 45 minute flight and get Lyft on the other side, than spend 3 hours sitting in a car stuck in traffic. GA can fly out of smaller terminals and smaller airports. San Carlos (SQL) to South Lake Tahoe is a 40ish minute flight in a GA aircraft, but can be 5+ hours in traffic on I-80. |
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