Airlines in the High Speed Rail business?

[Lakewood90712]

Does anyone know if it would be an anti-trust violation for an airline or group of airlines to build and operate a rail line ? Like Los Angeles to las Vegas ?
AMTRAK prob. could not get the funding to get something like this going. How nutty is the idea ?

 

[samclem]

Does anyone know if it would be an anti-trust violation for an airline or group of airlines to build and operate a rail line ? Like Los Angeles to las Vegas ?
AMTRAK prob. could not get the funding to get something like this going. How nutty is the idea ?

- With the state of most airlines, I'm continually surprised anyone loans them money for anything.

- Why do you believe the airlines would be interested in entering the train business?

 

[Lakewood90712]

If fuel prices continue to rise , to the point that ticket prices will not cover costs (long term). Ground transportation does use quite a bit less fuel per passenger mile.

 

[Nords]

- With the state of most airlines, I'm continually surprised anyone loans them money for anything.
- Why do you believe the airlines would be interested in entering the train business?   

Warren Buffett explicitly says that he depends on his staff to talk him out of investing in airlines. He lost a bundle in the 1980s (US Air?) and swore never to get sucked in again, but he still occasionally needs to be talked down from those alluring financial ratios...

Mesa Airlines (where the %$^& are they based?!?) just started a Hawaii interisland service called "go!". They broke into the market with $29 one-way fares (we spent $182/person round trip last year) that were promptly matched by Aloha & Hawaiian.

So now go! is offering $19 fares. And Aloha & Hawaiian are matching that too. So we're gonna spend less money getting to Maui in November than we'll spend on the rental car...

I think the airlines might lose a little money on each railway passenger, but they'd make it up on volume!

 

[Brat]

The airline business and the passenger rail business very different. I don't think airline executives can fix the problems with rail. Passenger rail is boxed in by mess old line rail left them.

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

I don't have the figures, but it would seem to me that building and operating a high speed rail route would be cheaper than an airline. You can fit more people on a train than a plane, as well as cargo. True, you won't go 500+ mph, but you're not flying into a distant airport with the associated costs.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but I've heard that it's pretty much impossible to lay new productive rail lines because of long-standing rail agreements/legislation/something that sections areas off between competing rail companies that are impossible to overcome. I'm sure somebody knows more about this than me. But high-speed passenger trains could be pretty cool, especially along the coasts.

Mesa Airlines (where the %$^& are they based?!?)

Albuquerque. Um, or maybe Denver...or somewhere in Arizona. I dunno. I think I've flown them before, but they made me use a blindfold.

 

[pfpelican]

Mesa Airlines (where the %$^& are they based?!?)

Started in Farmington, NM in 1982...
moved to Phoenix in 1998...

"Mesa currently operates 188 aircraft with over 1,100 daily system departures to 173 cities, 46 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, and Mexico. Mesa operates as US Airways Express, Delta Connection, and United Express under contractual agreement with US Airways, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines, respectively, and independently as Mesa Airlines and go!." from "http://www.mesa-air.com/history.asp"