Rather than trying to take time out of the "middle" of the journey (ie when you're on a plane), we would be better served as a society to take time out of the "ends" (before takeoff and after landing).

But nevertheless I still think it's worthwhile for us as a species to look at ways we can cross the planet faster. I think eventually (maybe in our lifetimes), the idea of taking a flight that takes you into outer space won't be too far fetched. While I don't think the time savings going supersonic will be worth it, I think the savings when going into outer space will, assuming we figure out a economical way to get people up and down from outer space.

It's possible that it may make sense to establish a few business class only very fast point-to-point routes. But that also really depends on the vehicle taking people through space. There are a number of problems:

1. Currently, spacecraft are only licensed for experimental travel. Everyone signs an informed consent waiver and basically disclaims all liability. And the FAA is forbidden to regulate for passenger safety by congress (and has been for quite a long time) - they can only regulate for the safety of the general public.

This would have to be changed before any serious commercial spacecraft went into service

2. It's not clear that any spacecraft has the economics to pull this off. Maybe Starship can do it. But it's pretty far from clear that they can.

3. Spacecraft are orders of magnitude less safe than commercial aviation. Do you know the saying "regulations are written in blood"? If this starts happening, there'll be a lot of new regulations that happen over time.

And maybe that'll happen anyhow - I think that space tourism will certainly be a thing that becomes much more popular in the future, and that has the exact same problems (although it's much less readily comparable to commercial aviation).

Seriously. Just have the whole passenger section setup like cargo pallets and wheel them in and out of the plane. Why bother walking up and down a narrow aisle? Just have a "passenger marshalling facility" away from the airport, have the interior section in parts there, have everyone comfortably load up, put that on a bus, wheel that straight to the plane, then load them in like large scale cargo through a huge side door.

Lock them down and send them wherever. Do the same in reverse at the destination.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/dulles-airport-mobile-lo...

And yes, evacuation issues kill the idea.

Reading this unlocked memories of the (after googling it) September 2005 National Geographic Kids magazine, which was centered around future life in 2035. One of the things in it was exactly this: travel time cut by launching into orbit and flying around the planet to cut travel time down to ~1h.

It's absurd that getting onto a 3-dimensional bus takes ~1.5hr more per end than a normal bus. The fundamentals of embarking and disembarking passengers and their luggage is unchanged beyond needing to have all the luggage in a pile before you toss it on for weight distribution reasons.

Security also seems to be variable enough that you need to add buffer, and then there's the built in incentive to have people sitting around in a shopping mall.

Mind you, I'm annoyed at the liquids thing given I used to routinely bring bottles of wine or a local liqueur home in carry-on. And I can't any longer.

He then went on to what he considered dangerous and mentioned a couple of powders which you can easily bring on board which are much more devastating.

So this is why we also can't bring own cocaine on board in addition to not having own booze. What a shame

What they should really have is a line for clueless people. You know, the people ahead of you who walk thru metal detectors with belts. Then aw-shucks and waste another 5minutes. Then they forgot to take their laptops out of their bag. Aw-shucks again. Then they want to unlace their shoes.

I'd love to have a line for clued-in travelers and one for people who arent.

Fun times in Texas.

Some airports have good connections. In the last month I've been to Berlin and Brussels, and in each case my train journey into the city was about 15-20 minutes (caveat: I happened to be going to the right side of Berlin for the airport, and the Brussels train, while central, was _bizarrely_ expensive).

Of course, some airports, not so much. Grumble mutter Dublin (there is some hope of a rail line, or possibly _two_ rail lines, in about 2040, but until then it's a choice of painfully slow standard buses (1 hour into city), or expensive unreliable express buses (25 mins into city, if they show up)).

But for many routes, really security, and the sheer poor layout of the airport, is the big slowdown. My favourite for this is London City; the (small, weird) plane lands, you walk out a door, and you are at a DLR stop.

Boarding also always takes far longer than you'd imagine it should, mostly due to people being people. In principle you could board an airliner in a couple of minutes, but only with perfect behaviour from all passengers, so good luck with that.

There was a company about 15 years ago that developed a double ended jetway so you could load and unload from the front and back simultaneously. They said it shaved about 18 minutes from loading and unloading (combined). On the average flight this would be the equivalent of going about 100mph faster for seemingly a simple change.

They installed a few in Denver and I believe in Calgary. Unfortunately one in Denver had a problem and collapsed and hit the wing of a plane, and so they ripped them all out and no one ever tried again.

Ryanair actually orders specialised 737s with built-in airstairs and a few other modifications to facilitate this.

This only really works for 737-sized planes and down, though, where air-stairs are an easy option (AFAIK even A320s can be a bit of a stretch, as they're significantly taller than 737s).

Ah, that depends on the airport. Haven’t been on one of those in a few years; I think Ryanair and friends managed to grab a lot more proper gate space during Covid when the higher-end airlines were practically giving it away.

(Years ago, I was on a Ryanair flight to Brussels airport which used a jet bridge, because it’s mandatory there… But the jet bridge was in the middle of nowhere, served by a bus. Half-convinced Ryanair does this sort of thing deliberately, to live up to their brand image of being quite annoying.)

> but perhaps loading/unloading is not the critical path anymore in turning around the airplane.

It _definitely_ is, at least for short-haul stuff.

I don't know why there isn't just a bunch of seats in the terminal laid out the same way as the plane. Sit there and wait, and then when it's time to board, the people at the end get on first, tada, everyone is boarded and we're not stopping each other from getting in.

Anyway, people would just ignore it.

Washington Dulles aka IAD is a fine example. It has a vast security area below deck for regular folks and a smaller one up top where all the Clear and Pre flyers go. That should be inverted.

Then, after security, passengers must walk 300m and change levels to catch a small shuttle train. Or, to take the special mobile lounge bus things. If you take the train, it drops you off 500m from the gate area, so you have tonget off the train, climb the stairs, walk through a tunnel, climb the escalator, and then walk the remainder of the terminal to your gate. It is absolutely laughable how poor Dulles is, esp considering its importance to United.

Planes land outside the city, taxi to the downtown terminal.

If you're suggesting this hypothetical giant tunnel would actually have the planes taxiing all the way to a whole airport underneath a city... I don't see that solving more problems than it would create.

It would create problems, but the problems would be for the designers and maintainers of the infrastructure, not for the passengers.

Airplanes are not fundamentally that much bigger than trains, which routinely go under the city.

This has always confused me because it seems like it seems like the easiest possible prediction problem. Nearly everyone buys their tickets in advance, often weeks ahead of time.

Why can’t they text you the day before and say “The airport will be quiet/normal/chaotic for your flight tomorrow, so please arrive 1/2/3 hours before takeoff?”

I wouldnt, doesn't matter if airport is in bloody state of war.

On a quiet day I measured 7 minutes from stepping out of the bus and being through security.

It's not. There are "air routes." Your plane will be delayed if they are too busy or cannot be sequenced into arrivals from the route at an appropriate rate. This happens flying into JFK and a fair amount flying out of it.

Landing and takeoffs put the plane within seconds of domestic infrastructure below. It's even more controlled.

Your pilot is considering all of this, plus weather deviations, along the entire journey and at the destination, before you even leave. Your '3d bus' doesn't actually exist unless you're flying private VFR. Then, and pretty much only then, can you get out there and just "fly around."

Finally your "2d bus" can just stop. It can literally just stop and do nothing. Your plane cannot without significantly implicating your life.

To be fair to airports, the arrival side hasn't really changed post 9/11. If you check bags, that's on you - it's going to be slow to get your stuff.

But yeah - having to budget time to get through security is a pretty poor user experience. Especially during busy times of the year, when it's more uncertain just how much time is required.

I’m sure there’s horror stories out there of course, there always is, but 99.99% of the time checking a bag is only marginally less convenient than trying to fit everything in my carryon.

Thankfully it's not as big of a deal now that airtags/trackers are readily available.

There are times when I know I have to check a, usually, pretty small bag. But especially because of the delayed baggage issue or because of last minute changes to flights because of weather or whatever, I probably carry-on (with a light load) 9 times out of 10. Especially with dress being more casual these days I usually don't really need more than carry-on unless I'm activities requiring some amount of gear.

Baggage claim is usually pretty quick but even 5-10 minutes sucks after flying.

I’ve also had 2 bags fail to make it with my plane meaning I had to wait 24 hours for a courier to deliver them. It also makes connecting or flight changes much more dicey.

I definitely think I’ve been unlucky recently but the fact that I could be unlucky is why I avoid it as much as possible

Except it has changed in the last couple of decades (probably not due to 9/11, but still), because size and weight limits for hand luggage keep getting smaller and smaller. I have always travelled light and avoided checking in luggage except for very long stays abroad, but it's becoming increasingly difficult.

For example, both Qatar and Etihad (very common airlines to travel between Europe and Asia) now limit hand luggage to 7 kg (and in the case of Etihad, they don't even allow the typical "personal item"). 7 kg is laughably little, a standard cabin bag already weighs 2. Pack a laptop and you'll struggle to pack even summer clothes for a few days. Let alone winter clothes or -oh, the luxury!- buying some souvenirs at your destination.

Fortunately, in my experience, they mostly just don't look. But they could, if you're unlucky. And even if they don't, the dwindling limits also reduce practical slack, i.e. with a formal limit of 9 kg I would feel comfortable packing 10 or 11 because most airport staff probably wouldn't be strict about that, but with 7, packing 10 or 11 starts looking like a real gamble.

> 7 kg is laughably little, a standard cabin bag already weighs 2

One thing that I have done is move from roller luggage to a travel backpack. I personally use the Osprey Farpoint, but there are many in the category to choose from. Not only is it much lighter than hard sided luggage, but it's typically much more forgiving of dimensional requirements, and can often fit in overhead bins, where hard sided luggage may not be able to (if you're the last person trying to put something in the bin).

And on top of all of that, it's been much more reliable for me - I've had and seen roller luggage fail pretty often - at both the wheels and the handle. Neither of those exists on the bag, which just keeps trucking.

I get that for many people a travel backpack isn't an option. But if it is something that might work for you, I highly recommend it.

But do you think one can pack as much as in roller luggage, while conforming to the size limits? I've always been under the impression that roller luggage would be more efficient in this respect, but have no real experience traveling with a backpack.

They're typically advertised by volume, so 30L, 40L, etc., so you can get one the size you want. I think carry on size is typically advertised as 35-40L. They've got all the same stuff as roller luggage - straps, dividers, etc., depending on what you want. Although, IMO, the best setup is to just get a bag with the volume you want and use packing cubes.

The great advantage of backpacks is that they're soft. Every carrier has their own "box" that your item is supposed to fit into. As long as you don't have too much stuff, you can just squeeze your bag into the box. But with a hard sided roller, it either fits or it doesn't.

I do have a larger travel pack and sometimes favor a slightly larger wheeled pack. But even though it's a bit heavy for any really long schlepping, it's lighter than the wheeled frame and is a lot easier to deal with on trains etc.

Has a plane ever been hijacked by a couple of European descent traveling with their own children? The lengths we go to to pretend everyone is the same is mind boggling.

Certain groups perform attacks of this kind.

It's not necessarily because they are backwards or evil or something. They just can't resist militarily, so they go for soft targets.

If the situation was reversed, and there was some kind of hegemonic global Islamic caliphate with an ostensibly unbeatable military, perhaps you would get some random Poles or Spaniards blowing up planes.

People who aren't in groups in those kinds of situations, don't do things like that. Why would they? Why do we pretend that they would?

If, on the other hand, you randomly select people for additional checking, they can't predict that and can't learn how to circumvent it, they just have to take a stab at an attack and hope they don't get unlucky.

Basically, any deterministic aspect of security is predictable, which makes it vulnerable.

I used to live in the peninsula in SFBA. I was about 20-30 minutes away from SFO. Unless it was an international flight or I had checked luggage, I would never get to the airport before the flight started boarding. I would walk through security at a lightning pace (SFO is one of those airports where sometimes TSA precheck is longer than regular!) and get to my flight just as my boarding group was getting called.

It was so insanely efficient. I never spent a moment not moving in the airport. I'd often spend more time waiting on the plane to deboard than I would in the airport when leaving too.

I miss SFO. I live in NYC for now and all the NYC airports suck for the fact they all take about an hour to get to (from Manhattan) and they all regularly have large and inefficient security lines with theater that is only rivaled by Belgian airports.

Worst of both worlds.

Alternatively, I can take the train. It takes 9 hours home to city centre, and costs $35. It's a much better experience all around.

Google says the train is only 4hrs!

IF (yes, still a reasonably big IF) they could just automate highway driving, a large segment of air trips become really a wash, especially if you consider that taking your car someplace gets you a car for your destination, while if you flew it is an additional hassle/expense/delay.

So the exercise to me is: how far does it have to be before you would rather fly? If I had reliable highway automated driving, you're already dealing with a 3-4 hour drive being reasonably equivalent to the time and hassle of a 1 hour flight.

Plus with a car you can leave on a whim with no prescheduling, pack more with less restrictions, will be cheaper generally (especially if carpooling/family driving), can stop and eat more conveniently, have better internet access typically, can stop and see friends or other places along the way, and again, you have your car for transport when you get there.

A self-driving sprinter van converted to an RV would be even better: sleep overnight, have a place to stay at a minimum when you get there.

Anyway, I suspect this might hollow out quite a lot of flight demand when it becomes a reality (any decade now). Airlines will be forced to reexamine their policies if an overnight self-driving trip gets you the vast majority of the way to a destination.

Lately a couple of companies have started up attempting to bring plush lie flat seats to the intercity bus, but a lot of those have since folded.

You live in Pittsburgh. You want to go to NYC for a show. You hop in the car, it takes you to the theater, you get out, it drives itself to a parking lot in NJ to wait. You call for it half an hour before you need it, it picks you up, and it drives you home. That's currently the province of the very rich or the very extravagant. A car that drives itself can do that every night.

I would wager a supersonic jet liner could make a lot of money crossing the Atlantic or the Pacific even today. Sure for short hauls it makes no sense.

Btw, Boom is working on supersonic private jets,they recently flew a scaled down experimental jet at supersonic speeds.

Throw in the third flight crew member and the economics fell apart.

If they made airline seats reasonably sized and ergonomic, sure, the flight time matters less, but right now the longer the flight portion is, the longer my back will complain afterwards. I'm not even unusually tall or heavy-set.

Airlines won't make the seats bigger since that would cut into margins, but if the planes are faster, they can run more flights and pay the pilots/flight-attendants for fewer hours, so that feels like it's a solution that's more likely to happen than the real solution, of making it so the seats aren't designed to destroy your back until you pony up for business/first class.

They usually stay overnight for long trips, so making the trip a little shorter makes no difference on that front.

Same for the staff

They would, but would non-business and non-wealthy consumers pay what it costs?