Originally Posted by
iahphx
But imagine if the airlines only catered to business travellers.
Well to some extent they do cater only to business travellers. The infamous Saturday layover rule is a prime example. If one couldn't stay over a Saturday, then you were a business traveler and paid higher rates. And go look at airline prices to the most popular tourist destinations.
Whenever and where ever possible, that price is jacked as high as they can get it. It's only been recently with the advent of Jet Blue's, Southwest, and other discounters that the bigger airlines have been forced to cut their prices to popular tourist destinations.
Originally Posted by
iahphx
Amtrak has essentially priced themselves out of the leisure market for the vast majority of potential travellers -- even with gas going for almost $3 gallon and fairly hefty Northeast tolls.
And again I have to disagree. Yes there is no doubt that a good portion of Amtrak's business on the corridor is business travel. But there is still a decent portion of personal travel on the corridor. I'd guess that at least 30% is still personal. On weekends the trains remain packed, and sometimes are busier than on weekdays.
And Amtrak, unlike airlines, actually offers two different products on the corridor. There is the premium Acela service with limited stops and higher prices which is predominantly business passengers during the weekdays. And then there is the lower priced regional service which is probably 30% to perhaps 40% personal on weekdays and much higher on the weekend. Again these numbers are my estimates based upon my own observations, Amtrak to my knowledge does not track who's traveling for what reason.
I see many families traveling on the trains, even on weekdays, especially during the summer. So Amtrak is getting some personal traffic without a doubt. Just how much might be debatable, but as long as the seats are full, I'm not sure that it really matters who's filling those seats. If the seats were going empty, then yes they're doing something wrong and need to reevaluate things.
But the seats aren't going empty and as I mentioned earlier, with the 600+ Congressional & White House bosses breathing down Amtrak's neck about making money, there will never be any motivation on Amtrak part to consider trying to figure out how to cater more closely to the personal market and to do so in such a way as to not hurt the existing business market.