Airline travel: answer this riddle!
Posted: Thu 09 Dec 2004, 01:05:53Seattle and Spokane are both in the state of Washington. By car, Portland, Oregon is about 2-3 hours from Seattle and about 6 hours from Spokane, and Seattle is about 5 hours from Spokane.
Suppose I want to travel from Seattle to Spokane by airplane. Now, due to intrastate travel issues that I don't understand, it would actually cost less to travel to Portland, and then take a flight to Spokane, than it would to travel directly to Spokane by airplane. I have lived in all three cities in recent years, so this issue has come up frequently for me.
Travelling from Seattle to Portland, and then Spokane, would be silly. For the amount of time it would take to deal with security and change planes, I might as well save a ton of money and take a Greyhound bus, which I usually do.
Can someone explain the economics that would lead to such a bizarre situation?
I put this topic in the Conservation forum because it is clearly a case of economics not leading to a sensible outcome, from an energy perspective or any other perspective.
Suppose I want to travel from Seattle to Spokane by airplane. Now, due to intrastate travel issues that I don't understand, it would actually cost less to travel to Portland, and then take a flight to Spokane, than it would to travel directly to Spokane by airplane. I have lived in all three cities in recent years, so this issue has come up frequently for me.
Travelling from Seattle to Portland, and then Spokane, would be silly. For the amount of time it would take to deal with security and change planes, I might as well save a ton of money and take a Greyhound bus, which I usually do.
Can someone explain the economics that would lead to such a bizarre situation?
I put this topic in the Conservation forum because it is clearly a case of economics not leading to a sensible outcome, from an energy perspective or any other perspective.
