I know that self driving cars are eyerolling to hear about, but highway self-driving with convergent infrastructure (not the drive-me-thru-Taco-Bell kind) is going to come to trucking, for the basic reason that you can drive the trucks overnight at a minimum.

Smaller planes seem mostly designed for shorter flights, but if I can get a better-than-sober-me stats on highways, and I can sleep in a car while it drives me to another city, why would I fly?

- take a lot more stuff with you

- for families it will be insanely cheaper

- if an EV, it will be lower carbon

- I will have a car for last mile/city driving when I get there

- much better seats

I honestly think the 20 year prognosis for <800 mile flights is going to be really bad. 800 miles flying is 2 hours + taxiing + waiting in line + transport to airport + giving yourself enough buffer + land/get luggage + ground transport. That is probably 5-6 hours in many situations.

So a 10-11 hour drive where you don't have to pay attention and can sleep overnight would be my primary choice if I could do it now. Even if there was, say, a 1500 mile trip to florida, if there is someone to visit along the way, I'll drive.

Anyway, the gist of it is that I think large planes or trips with water barriers are what the industry will end up with, I don't anticipate some massive groundswell of air travel demand for shorter flights in the long run.