LaHood: airlines should support high-speed rail

“This is America’s vision”

Steve Hawley, Mar 12, 10.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told US airline officials that they should support high-speed rail instead of viewing it as competition, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Many airline companies fear that high-speed rail will take away customers, and several of them helped defeat a Texas high-speed rail proposal in the early 1990s for that very reason. However, the latest high-speed rail incarnation - the Texas High-Speed Rail and Transportation Corporation - has promised that the so-called “Texas T-Bone” route will include stops at the region’s major airports. Its website used to list two national airlines as members, but those companies no longer appear on the website.

Airline officials were upset last year when the stimulus package included $8 billion for high-speed rail and no money for air traffic control modernization. At the Federal Aviation Administration’s annual aviation forecasting conference in Washington, DC, the first question LaHood was asked was why the Obama administration spent so much money on high-speed rail and not airlines.

After describing the importance of air traffic control modernization, LaHood told participants, “Don’t be against high-speed rail. It’s coming to America. This is the president’s vision, this is the vice president’s vision, this is America’s vision. ... People are still going to fly, but we need alternatives. So get with the program.”

In 2008, a major expansion of the Spanish high-speed rail network reduced that nation’s air travel by 20 percent while increasing high-speed rail traffic by 28 percent.

According to Transportation for America, one-third of all US flights are less than 350 miles. Many people consider high-speed rail to be competitive with airlines at distances up to 500 miles. LaHood told the airline representatives that US cities will be connected by high-speed rail within the next two to three decades, whether airlines like it or not.

Comments

Ray C. Lawrence said:

The major airlines appear to be totally blind to the opportunities offered to them. They should recognize that they should be in the transportation business, not just the airline business. The expertise for operating high-speed passenger trains can be hired. And the airlines would be able to utilize their buying power and efficiencies of scale to purchase everything from food and beverages to cleaning services at minimum cost to optimize profits on two transportation modes rather than just one. The marketing and profit opportunities, and the benefits to their customers, offered by an interconnected rail and air transportation network are enormous if they will only open their eyes. Bulletin for the airlines: It’s a new century!

Posted on Mar 16, 10 at 10:52 am

Page 1 of 1 pages