Well, I can see the situation many people face if they're not near a big airport with robust competition. It's hard for an airport in a place like Chattanooga or Augusta to get much traction when people will drive to ATL or BHM or BNA to fly out because of the fares.

It has also worked in reverse, though. After Eastern folded, Delta had some high fares until they got LCC competition. People in ATL would drive to BHM, especially, for Southwest-match fares. And I remember some 15 years ago when I did a whole series of GSP/AVL-NYC trips on 3 segments via DL to take advantage of $100 fares and a FF program that then was much more generous about segment runs.

I've gotten to be a real curmudgeon about long distance car travel, though. Seems the driving habits get less safe every year and the stats are saved only by engineering improvements on the roads. Some interstates, especially the main east-west trunks (like I-20) are very thick with trucks, and if they are still 2-lane in stretches it's no fun at all.

Alamo even had a pretty good Florida driveaway deal this year, one I certainly would have taken a decade ago but passed on this time.

An oft-quoted stat is that the country as a whole had about 1,000 more highway deaths in the last 3 months of 2001, after 9/11, than the year-ago period. More people drove temporarily and the stats sadly caught up with that.