Examples are the Dallas/Houston/San Antonio triangle (for which there was once a HSR plan), Seattle/Spokane, Vancouver BC/Seattle/Portland, and LA/San Diego.

People claim that because of America’s size compared to European countries, rail travel is impractical, but when you consider the amount of travel that goes on within a single coast of this country, and how much of the country doesn’t factor into most people’s travel plans, it makes a lot more sense.

1 - The airlines already have your money before they provide you with a service, therefore they have no reason to provide anything more than average service.

2 -In most cases there are no viable alternatives to air travel. Unless the government upgrades our railways substantially.

I don’t buy that airlines operate in a cartel environment and if you look at the history of all the airlines, it took them quite awhile to build their route networks. You can’t expect Virgin America to startup with a 100 flight/day network, that’s just not good business sense.

If we remove the regulation that prevents Singapore from flying LAX to IAD, then it forces the other airlines to innovate or die. And I know we all would like a few domestic carriers to die (United for example would be nice as a dead airline).

Customers may have a choice among airlines, but despite competition, they’re still operating within a cartel environment. The barriers to market entry are too high for real competition, and it takes a long time for good competitors to build a network. Look at Virgin America.

The airlines have gotten complacent and arrogant, but we can’t just throw the bums out and get a new one easily.

I agree that regulation isn’t necessarily the answer to everything. Regulation keeps Singapore Airlines from flying from LA to DC, for example. But sometimes it’s necessary to have a safety net for consumers. Being stuck on a plane for hours and hours may be a long shot, but I want some protection in case it happens.

If stupid wants to support a corporation that I don’t like, fine. Let them do what they want, I will continue to boycott them.

At any rate, there’s a damn good reason to exhort the government for help. Even if you and I both boycott bad products, that won’t be enough to run them out of business, with the idiots keeping them afloat. In other words, without regulations, we’re at the mercy of the stupid. What do you propose be done about that?

Jason, the trouble with trusting the market to regulate businesses is that too much money is in the hands of unintelligent people. People aren’t all smart enough to immediately boycott bad products and search hard for alternatives. Too many are far too chained to their own habits and ignorance, and therefore there’s a major hole in the laws of supply and demand.

Before we can ever pull government regulations back, we need to find a way to keep stupid people from wielding money. Now, which do you think is easier to do? Regulate companies or regulate who can wield money?

I only flew 55,000 miles last year (mainly on Delta), so maybe I just don’t fly enough to see these problems. The only time I was “stranded” was when we Denver was having heavy snowfall and we had to wait to be de-iced. We were on the ground for 2 hours waiting to de-ice and for a runway to be cleared. At no time did I want to return to the gate and have to wait through all that again.

Like the CEO of Spirit alluded to, people are too busy looking for the lowest priced airfare, but yet the continue to expect first class service. If the airline didn’t treat you right, stop flying it. That’s why I refuse to fly United despite living in the Denver area. Sure I pay more, sometimes a lot more, but for me it isn’t about price, but service and I get better service with Delta, Alaska, and Continental than I do with United so I pay the extra.