[natnat]

It's funny that a huge part of the reason that a business like this exists is the TSA. If flying commercial airlines didn't require an hour and a half of waiting in line for security and a fair dose of humiliation, I think people would be much more willing to fly from SFO to LAX.

Instead, we're running inefficient propeller planes for short distances and really high prices, and people are treating it like it's some amazing new innovation.

[rdl]

Turboprops or even piston are a better choice for routes like SB to Burbank than turbofan aircraft; it's just that passengers strongly associate turbofan aircraft with "quality and comfort", so the commercial market loves those.

And, for commercial service under some parts, you're forced to use twin engines. Single engine aircraft are objectively better in a lot of ways, and on par for overall safety (it's better to lose an engine in ideal cases in a twin, but things often go wrong with the recovery procedures, and engines are very reliable, and with twins you have twice as many engines to potentially break anyway...)

Some of the badness is actually FAA not being able to fund better ATC allowing more flexible routing.

[sjtgraham]

> Turboprops or even piston are a better choice for routes like SB to Burbank than turbofan aircraft.

> Single engine aircraft are objectively better in a lot of ways.

Do you feel like giving us any reasons? :)

[rdl]

Turboprops (and some pistons) are way more efficient at low altitudes. For a short route, most of your time is spent a lot altitudes, so the prop is going to be a lot more efficient. Saves fuel, makes it cheaper to fly, thus lower fares.

Single engine aircraft have been shown to be essentially as safe as twins, at least on light aircraft like these. Engines very rarely fail, and a twin engine light craft failing often fails in a way where the plane still is unflyable, or the pilots of those aircraft aren't able to recover (more of an issue for private single pilots vs. a charter with two). There are some ways where it doesn't matter how many engines the aircraft has, and the twin engines add complexity which increase the odds of problems (which generally cause ground stops or non-crash incidents, but which could possibly cause crashes). Twins also cost more per hour to operate (in fuel, and especially maintenance), and cost more to buy. Inexperienced pilots also manage to crash aircraft with two working engines by doing stupid things with the engines, where they may not in a single, although this is less of an issue with FADEC I think.

For a long flight over the ocean, a big twin turbofan ETOPS certified or maybe even a trijet or 4-engine aircraft is the way to go, but for short domestic flights over land, a single (turboprop, ideally, but even some pistons) would be my choice. My dream aircraft is a CH801 (kit) with a diesel engine (super slow, ~$100-150k), or a Cessna Grand Caravan ($300k and up to low millions if new and highly outfitted).

[cscheid]

I remember reading (~10-15 years ago?) that although the general public's impression was that propellers make planes unreliable, it was actually turbines that made airplane engines reliable (which means you really want turboprops rather than piston-propeller aircraft)

Have airplane piston engines become as reliable as turboprops?

[Recoil42]

I don't objectively agree with the latter point, but rdl is correct about the former. It takes high altitudes for tubofans to come into their element in the efficiency gradient, and short routes don't really stay in that area of altitude long enough to give them an advantage. Turboprops are more efficient at lower altitudes, which is perfect for short hop flights -- where you're spending half of the time climbing/descending anyways. This is partly why Porter Airlines in Toronto flies Q400s.

[rdl]

They're clearly objectively better in a lot of ways; you could just argue that they're not net-better overall, since there are also advantages to twins. Single is undeniably cheaper to buy/operate. Since you never push off without both engines good, there's no way a twin would have higher dispatch rate than a single (since there are ~twice as many parts to deadline your aircraft).

You may still value "has extra engine in case one dies in flight" more than this, though. (and I did, until I saw how singles actually had approximately the same safety stats as twins, at least for private pilots most like what I'd be.)

[Recoil42]

I wonder if twin-engined aircraft are less better maintained for the reasons you mentioned. Since you only have one engine to 'push off' with on a single, you better make damn sure it's in good working order.

[rdl]

That's ETOPS vs. 3/4 engine aircraft, I believe, but I don't think the maintenance and reliability standards are appreciably different for civilian 1 vs. 2. Mainly because no scheduled service is done using a single engine, so it doesn't even come up.

I'm pretty sure military maintenance standards are so entirely different that their extensive experience with single engine aircraft isn't meaningful -- plus, their singles are mainly either very military specific (F-16 and other light fighters) or historical. Most of their transport aircraft have something in common with commercial, now, except maybe C-130s. And the USN has generally favored twin vs. single for "reliability over water" anyway.

[tptacek]

I fly a fair amount and don't find that I wait significantly longer for airport security now than I did before 9/11. I don't like the TSA any more than you do, but I don't think they're the major cause of commercial airport delays.

[temphn]

But of course they are, or more general the web of DHS/TSA/FAA/etc. regulations is the reason why commercial air travel has not advanced in door-to-door speed.

Without the regulations you could imagine an airport that pre-screened travellers. You roll up to the curb, get valet parked, and your bags checked, and then you get on the flight. You'd build the entire airport around this rapid on/off experience. You could have an airline that would run an Uber-style service to pick you up at your door. You'd solve the whole problem.

But there's no Toyota-style optimizations applied because these optimizations are illegal. Prime among them is that efficiency of this kind would make the airport more of a target IF it was also prevented by law from discriminating against potential dangerous passengers, which it would be.

And that's why when you ban selectivity at the federal level the necessary consequence is mediocrity.

[mseebach]

> pre-screened travellers

The problem is that you can't reliably pre-screen for terrorists, the signal is plainly undetectable in the noise - there are 95 million passengers a year at Atlanta alone and 19 hijackers on 9/11.

You're bound to get a lot of false positives, and then what do you do with them? In the meantime, the actual terrorists just wait until they successfully get a guy pre-screened, and he then just walks on board with a bomb.

[snowwrestler]

Pre-screening is not only legal, it has just been expanded to the general public.

[temphn]

You can't run an airline that is free to exclude any passenger at will. TSA pre-check is based on the fallacious inference that rich frequent flyers and terrorists are a distinct set. Saudi royal-funded operatives may well be more likely to be frequent flyers than the general population.

[Dylan16807]

It's more that if you didn't flag them the first N times you're rather unlikely to flag them in the future. The screening isn't perfect but screening these people more won't help.

[objclxt]

In the case of California and the SFO-LA route, isn't it pretty much universally acknowledged that SFO is one of the better airports for security, precisely because it's not run by the TSA but out-sourced instead?

[davidwihl]

The Pilatus PC12 single engine turboprop is far more efficient for this sort of mission than a twin engine turbofan jet. This lowers operation and maintenance costs which this airline is passing onto consumers.

[coin]

Yup, turbo props are far more efficient than turbo jet at low altitudes.

[ChuckMcM]

And the economics of air travel, such as they are, make a round trip flight to Santa Barbara $500 as the 'cheap' fare [1] in coach. If you fly four times a month you save money with this plan.

But the TSA thing is a real pain too. A friend of mine who has his pilots license requires all passengers have at least 16 oz of fluids and a knife with them when they fly :-) We joke but he did point out that if you were in flight 214 trapped under a stuck seatbelt or malfunctioning escape slide with no pocket knife you could have died.

[1] Plus fees of course

[vacri]

I was in California in 2009 and found it weird that there was no daily train between LA and SF - it only runs (ran?) every second day. The day I left, I had to get a bus to Bakersfield to connect to the train.

The other striking thing was train travel in the South being heavily subsidised - huge distances travelled for not much money, with power for your laptop and lots of space to move around. If the train schedule was appropriate for you, you'd be crazy to fly instead.

[britta]

The Coast Starlight (http://www.amtrak.com/coast-starlight-train) has been running once a day between LA and Oakland for years, with a connecting bus to SF - here's its schedule: http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/935/314/Coast-Starlight-Schedule... It takes about 12 hours if there are no delays. It's a lovely and relaxing trip, but that's a long time compared to flying or driving.

If you want to leave SF/Oakland later than 9 am or LA later than 10 am, you have to take some long bus connections (which aren't very fun) and the San Joaquin or Pacific Surfliner.

[kaybe]

Would that trip be interesting for a high-speed train connection? It's approximately 600 km (380 miles), that should be possible in about 3 hours. The terrain doesn't look too bad either at first glance.

[Sanddancer]

As was stated, it's being worked on. It also runs into one of those things that a lot of people from outside of California don't realize about the state. There are a /lot/ of mountain ranges. The Starlight itself meanders along and through various bits of the coastal ranges of California, which, while absolutely gorgeous, leads to a path that's not particularly amenable to high speed travel.

So, the state needs to build new trackage through a 3000 ft (~1km) pass getting out of LA, and more trackage through a 1500 ft pass getting out of the SF area in order to use the much more straight and speedy right-of-way going through the middle of the state. Once that's done, and the rights of way along the corridor are upgraded, high speed rail will run between the points. Just gonna take another 15-20 years to do so.

[Aloha]

They appear to be working on that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail

[guard-of-terra]

What you actually need there is sleeper cars.

Imagine getting on the train at 7 in the evening, lying on your own bed reading books and drinking tea, sleeping actually then getting off the train at 9 in the morning at the railway terminal in another city.

[driverdan]

They do have sleeper cars but the trip between LA and SF is far too short to make it overnight.

[TsiCClawOfLight]

I find the railway network in the US simply deplorable. In most of Europe, people complain if they miss an hourly connection, and we have night trains on most days to most large cities.

[Jazonk]

It's not just the TSA that will make this popular - I see the convenience as a big draw. As this expands to more regional airports, it will be even more practical. Being able to drive to a smaller, less crowded airport will be a selling point. You don't have to deal with the stresses of huge terminals and tons of people.