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The Canada Goose has basically three ways of getting from point A to point B. She can fly, walk or swim. Humans have more options and in addition can take a car or bus or motorbike or bike or even a small or large vessel. A human can even hop on a rocket and take off to outer space and the moon and beyond. For most of us with constraints on time and funds we tend to use aircraft to travel to locations of over a couple of hundred miles away. So we tend to fall into a trap of thinking that the aircraft is the only mode of transportation when in fact is most certainly is not.
As far as cost goes there has been a tendency over the years to even up costs on aircraft, train and bus travel. The biggest advantage of air travel is speed and cost. Other methods take longer and often involve more meal and accommodation breaks.
There is an unspoken danger to flying which all flyers must accept before boarding the aircraft. We are often told -by the people selling us airline tickets -that aircraft are the safest way to travel and that he deaths per million miles traveled are the lowest of any method of transportation. Personally I think the math is much more complicated than they would have us believe and that real dangers to exist in air travel. I think about that every time I go hurtling down the runway and leap into the air on a big silver bird which then proceeds to take me up to 35,000 feet where I realize my life is dependent on a number of factors all of which I can no longer control. You can reduce your risks by traveling on airlines with good safety records and increase them by flying on some marginal airline flying old aircraft with tens of thousands of landing cycles on them. In Canada for example we have a pretty good safety record for our major airlines and we fly reasonably new planes.
Fuel is a major cost in transportation and its why fares have gone up. When deciding how to get from point A to B you need to consider several factors. How much time do you have? Why do you need to travel? How many in your party? How far is it? Its a long list. But its not that difficult to figure out.
Here is how airline prices work. The airlines have regularly scheduled flights and the plane will fly that time with one passenger on board or a full load. Obviously the objective is to get a full load. And also not as obvious is the fact that after a break even point (called the BLF or Break even load factor )is reached that any profit is better than no profit. So the airlines would rather make $10 off a passenger than not make anything from them. This is why certain airlines often have online deals for certain dates. The BLM varies with several factors but we will use an average of 60% for this discussion. They can't afford to sell all the tickets for half price but they sure can afford to sell the remainder (the 40% portion) of the tickets after the break even point has been reached for half price because its all profit. It's very wise to regularly check on air fare rates to discover bargains.
And one nasty fact about air travel. The sardine factor. The moronic idiots in charge of setting the number of seats on an aircraft have decided that the average person is small. If you are small with child size features you may be comfortable on an aircraft these days. But if you are adult size and cannot afford first class then get ready for hours of misery. And if you are oversize I pity you. The airlines have chosen to act in a completely unethical way and you will pay the price. Passengers eager for cheap fairs grin and bare it. If we all refused to board a plane with seats that were too small the problems would be solved in weeks. And unfortunately the problem is spreading to trains and bus lines too.
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