The Soviet Union’s Flawed Rival to Concorde

Re:The Soviet Union’s Flawed Rival to Concorde by mandevil on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @01:20PM (#15500975)

R.E.G. Davies worked out why this isn't as powerful as you think because the earth is round. The justification for that expensive ticket is that you can have your meeting without getting jet-lagged. So, basically, leave your house at a reasonable time, get to a meeting on the other side of the Atlantic at a reasonable time- that's worth an awful lot of money. If you have to fly out the night before anyway, what justifies the extra money versus subsonic transport?

So let's imagine you live in New York and have a meeting in Paris- and let's say, for the purpose of argument, that it's actually a transporter, instantaneous travel from airport to airport. You leave your house at 6AM, get to the airport at 7AM. Its an international flight, so you need to get to the airport early, so your flight leaves at 8AM. You instantaneously arrive in Paris, but that's six hours time zone different: 2PM in Paris. Two hours to navigate through customs and the airport and it's 4PM, an hour to do ground transport to your meeting and it's already 5PM.

So even with exactly zero travel time between JFK->CDG your meeting can't be conducted at normal business times. So if your meeting still requires traveling out the day before and dealing with jet lag and all the rest, there just isn't that much benefit to justify the costs.

It might make sense for a business jet, so long as the costs are really not much more than a GV, or if it's primarily about prestige anyway.

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Re:The Soviet Union’s Flawed Rival to Concorde by wahern on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @05:21PM (#15503244)

Two hours for customs? If you join the Global Entry Program it only takes a few minutes--you check-in at a kiosk and go to a special lane. Great if you have kids. You also end up enrolled in the Trusted Traveler Program, which puts you in the expedited lane for terminal security.

As for the wait time at the airport: if you're buying premium tickets the airline doesn't care how late you arrive as long as you don't delay the flight. IIRC, at least for domestic travel TSA requires that all checked luggage be presented at least 30 minutes prior to departure, so that's the only hard time limit. Maybe it's earlier for international travel, but for a single day itinerary you presumably wouldn't have any checked luggage.

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Re:The Soviet Union’s Flawed Rival to Concorde by mandevil on Friday October 20, 2017 @01:53PM (#15517772)

So far as I know, France has no equivalent of Global Entry. It's also not universal advice, even if you were flying into the US- it's only available to citizens of certain countries. (France is not one of them, though Germany's EasyPass is.)

It would be faster to get through the CDG customs lines if you had a Schengen citizenship, since they could get into the the Schengen lines, but that's not really particularly useful advice.

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Re:The Soviet Union’s Flawed Rival to Concorde by sgt101 on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @02:12PM (#15501469)

Yes, but if you are in those jobs then 5pm is a normal meeting time and the folks in the Paris office are going to be there - like it or not.

There are two real reasons this no longer works; first the international travelling class has turned out to be far greedier and care less about their lives than anyone imagined, secondly Skype.

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Re:The Soviet Union’s Flawed Rival to Concorde by mandevil on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @02:51PM (#15501849)

Two points: A) that 5PM was with transporter technology, more realistic numbers push you to starting the meeting at 7PM. B) The reason to do meetings in person versus telepresence is to build relationships in a way that phones just can't do. Starting meetings at 7PM does not improve relationships.

As far as travel versus communications goes, from what I can see improving communications technology places a higher premium on travel than before, not less. Easier for senior executives to stay in touch with HQ on the go, but that ability means that relationship building is now more important.

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Re:The Soviet Union’s Flawed Rival to Concorde by ghaff on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @03:23PM (#15502110)

That's an interesting point. If you're sitting in your office, the ability to hold meetings and communicate isn't really all that different from what it was in 1985. You could email documents, presentations, and have conference calls (at least in many organizations though not all). Today isn't really all that different.

But traveling? In 1985, you could somewhat stay in touch by telephone (but generally not cell phone) though it was easier if you had a dedicated assistant and international long distance was rather variable. And sending documents probably involved faxes. While meetings/flights/time zones mean I may not always be reachable when traveling on business today, it's a lot easier than it was 30 years ago.

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Re:The Soviet Union’s Flawed Rival to Concorde by Reason077 on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @01:42PM (#15501190)

The time zones might not be ideal for JFK->CDG/LHR, but it works nicely in the other direction.

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Re:The Soviet Union’s Flawed Rival to Concorde by KGIII on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @04:18PM (#15502567)

If you go fast enough and the other direction, you can land before you departed! Well, at least as far as the clock is concerned.

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