jeff191

I think to be in the top 20%, household income is ~$100K or more. That's probably about right for people who can afford to fly for vacation, not that households making less than that don't fly. That $100K household income number is roughly what some consider upper middle class although I think it's a bit low depending on where you live.

While quite a few domestic airports look shabby and the passengers do too, it's nothing remotely close to an actual Greyhound terminal. Sure the terminals may be old and the bathrooms are dirty at some airports, but I've had to stop by the Greyhound terminal in downtown Atlanta before multiple times to ship items and it was totally incomparable. Fast food outlets may be unhealthy, but it's better than a lone food court inside plus a strip club across the street. Also, airports don't tend to have drug deals happening in the open nor transients hanging out right by the entrance.

So while you don't have to be rich to fly, people that can afford to fly at all probably aren't taking the bus.

ajGoes

I did!

A couple of years ago I had a conference in Nashville. I'd suffered a prolonged vertigo attack four months earlier, and although I'd been driving to & from work for a couple of months when the conference date rolled around, a longer test drive was enough to persuade me I wasn't fit to drive the five hours'-plus journey. Flying from Dayton to Nashville would have been uncomfortable as well, not to mention lengthy & expensive. I elected to take Greyhound from Cincinnati.

It was a nearly completely different experience from the last time I'd taken an interurban bus in the US around thirty years earlier. The non-stop bus was reasonably clean and equipped with wifi. The Cincinnati and Nashville Greyhound terminals were much nicer than I expected -- though the Nashville one was patrolled by armed guards. My fellow travelers were a varied lot; some of them were clearly down and out and there was a contingent of Amish, but most would not have looked out of place in any airport. I'd do it again.

pinniped

I did the Megabus from Philly to NYC last year on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. (Try booking a flight to an NYC airport on that date!) The bus was full of college students going home for the holiday. I'd do it again...

GUWonder

The quality and value of bus service between major college cities has definitely improved big time, but mostly from the more de novo end of the service providers. But longer haul bus service on Greyhound/PeterPan probably has more of the "just out of prison and here's my one way ticket to wherever" crowd than any commercial, scheduled flight.

ajGoes

I did, in fact, overhear a young man in the Louisville Greyhound terminal (IIRR) tell his friend "If there's one thing I learned in prison, it's how fast I can walk."

JetAirways77W

Cause of no competition lol.

Major US carriers include AA, UA, DL, WN, B6. Then down the list you get marginalized carriers like FR and VX (I know VX isn't THAT marginalized but bear with me for the sake of example). Then you get the $h!tty carriers like NK and G4; which are cheap but sort of small. And in the US there's no competition and no one cares about cutting costs. Someone ought to file an anti-trust lawsuit lol.

In Europe, you have LH, FR, AF/KL, BA/IB, U2. All offer you decent prices even though service there may be $h!t or at least OK.

Then there's the TSA, which is a whole 'nuther piece of $h!t reserved for a whole 'nuther debate. LOL

cbn42

I fly several times a year, and I also take the bus several times a year.

The quality of intercity bus services in the US depends very heavily on where you are. If you are in a rural area where the only option is Greyhound, it's likely to be slow and uncomfortable, and full of the homeless, ex-convicts, etc. If you are in the northeast corridor, then there are plenty of middle class people riding the bus in order to avoid driving.

Bus services have improved greatly in recent years. Several years ago, Greyhound was the only bus line serving LA-SF, and it took twice as long as driving. Now there are 4 or 5 carriers providing express trips that attract middle class folks with free wi-fi and comfortable seating.

To get back on topic, if more people take the bus for short distances, then that helps airlines eliminate short, unprofitable routes on regional jets. I'm not sure how that would affect pricing overall, though.

RustyC

Airfares in ATL are unmistakably up from 3 or 4 years ago even before the feeing-frenzy is factored in. Though LCCs do seem to be restraining fares to a few places like FLL or ORD even though DL is not matching them.

Nearby smaller airports with less choice seem to be in worse shape (BHM, GSP, CHA, etc.) as far as most fares go.

It's still possible to get the air part affordably, as long as you're not too picky where you go. You have to go where there's lots of competition, grab the deal and, if necessary, figure out the reason to go.

I tend to use awards to places where domestically there aren't deals or deals are scarce, like a recent 25K ATL-ANC-FAI-ATL trip.

DL and UA are doing their best to kill the flying-for-miles model starting in 2015, but I don't think that will work well for them. Especially at a time when ULCCs like Spirit and Frontier are expanding to take them head-on in many routes. While DL and UA are focused on business travelers in the front, they stand to lose quite a bit from the back.

Spirit isn't a great flying experience, but if you get the credit card and have $25K in spend, that's 50K miles and you can turn that into a good number of award tickets if you plan ahead and can travel a good bit in spring and fall. It feels almost like a feedback loop between credit card spend and short award trips.

The real problem, IMO, with affordable domestic trips is sprawler cities and car rents + gas. Those two line items combined are usually the largest expense if going somewhere like PHX, MCI, DFW, etc. Car rents are absolutely bombarded with taxes (many of them unfair and attached only because you can't vote against those did it), and the sprawl nature of the places cause gas costs to add up.

Las Vegas has often been a handy exception, as you can go car-less with the CAT buses and get more value on the hotels. OTOH, the food and drink can be hazardous to health at this stage.

enviroian

I don't understand your post. I'm not talking about legacy European carriers like AZ/AF/BA etc I'm talking about the Ryan Air's, Thomson, Easy Jet's of the world. You can buy a ticket just about anyone from say the UK to anywhere in Europe for probably $80 all in whereas one here in the US pays hundreds more for a US city to city.

BuildingMyBento

Nah, but I'm waiting for Amtrak to launch an LCC...

ou81two

Stuff costs money. If it's too much for you, there's always fun things to do locally. The long term profitability of airlines is pretty much nothing, so I'm not sure what insight you're expecting to get here.

GUWonder

The long-term profitability of an industry is rather meaningless. Firms go bust in industries. And even if an industry is short-lived and profitable to the point of having no bankruptcies, it doesn't mean the industry and/or market is healthy.

The air shuttle routes between DC NYC PHL AND BOS used to have a significant portion of under-25 years-old passengers who were traveling on student fares or even regular fares. As that crowd shifted to the train and better buses -- due in substantial part to rising air fares on these routes flown by the majors and the hassles of air travel -- the major's capacity on the route got cut and fares increased even more; and the cycle continued with further cuts and fare increases to the point that we are at now with reduced capacity and reduced demand for the flights. Now, most business travelers choose ground transport over air transport to get between NYC and BOS/DC/PHL.

84fiero

There is also pretty decent competition from rail in many parts of Europe, something missing from most of the US unfortunately.

BadgerBoi

Well why not? France has it with idTGV.

GUWonder

I am not sure how much competition there is between rail and air traffic. There is definitely some, but international rail traffic in Europe that exceeds a distance of 600 miles isn't all that common for people to take. Most such international travel exceeding 600 miles certainly seems to be done by air in Europe.