<story><title>Surf Air: Unlimited Flights for $1k/mo</title><url>http://www.surfair.com</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>abalashov</author><text>Whatever the commercial viability of this particular idea, I hope that pressure from such ventures, whether delusional or otherwise, can inspire greater democratisation and fare transparency in air travel.  For instance, I would be willing to pay an airline some amount of monthly recurring fees (though perhaps not $1k) to option certain seats on a large selection of flights at low prices.  The monthly recurring revenue could, in theory, offset the impact of my unpredictability as a passenger on booking calculations.&lt;p&gt;Edit: On the other hand, I&apos;d much rather the money go into some sort of vaguely 21st century high-speed rail infrastructure, particularly for short to medium inter-city trips. The absence of such makes us the laughingstock of Europe and Asia.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>robomartin</author><text>&amp;#62; I&apos;d much rather the money go into some sort of vaguely 21st century high-speed rail infrastructure, particularly for short to medium inter-city trips.&lt;p&gt;Yikes! No! This is a complete waste of money.  Our cities are just not built to make use of something like this.  The various stake holders (environmental groups, politicians, industry, unions, etc.) all but make sure that these projects will cost ten times more than they should and end-up in exactly the wrong places.  And, because of this, not enough people will use them.&lt;p&gt;Take the proposal that was floating around a while ago (maybe still is) to build a high-speed rail connection between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.  Maybe it is a good idea, I don&apos;t know.  Here&apos;s the problem.  The start point in LA is Central Station. That&apos;s Downtown Los Angeles.  In other words, an hour to two hours away from this great mass of people living in the area.  That is, if you even want to consider going Downtown (it ain&apos;t like Downtown San Francisco).  I know I have absolutely zero interest in driving 50 miles to get on a train.  Heck, I avoid LAX like the plague.&lt;p&gt;Don&apos;t get me wrong.  I&apos;d love to see mass transportation akin to what they have in Europe.  On my most recent trip I took the train from Amsterdam to Munich.  I was great.  I think that Europe evolved into this infrastructure while we evolved into something else.&lt;p&gt;Take a city like Amsterdam and look at the light rail going everywhere. And take a look at the tens of thousands of bikes running around.  That bike parking lot in Dam Square across from Central Station is simply amazing.  Their culture and way of life have evolved around these ideas.  Try to bring something like that into a megalopolis like Los Angeles and you&apos;ll fail.  The place simply was not built with this kind of thinking in the first place.  Heck, I drive 60 miles a day just picking up my kids from school!&lt;p&gt;I would like to see a transition to something more sensible than what we are doing today.  I really would.  I just don&apos;t think that high-speed rail is the way to do it and, therefore, think that investing in it would be a complete waste of money and resources.&lt;p&gt;If you want to feed money into something that has the potential to make great changes given our way of life and culture, send your monthly check to companies like Tesla.  We desperately need to move away from these horrible, polluting and inefficient gasoline engines into something that provides greater options in terms of where energy might come from and could just be better for the environment.&lt;p&gt;When in Europe do as the Europeans.  Here in the US.  Well.</text></comment>
<story><title>Surf Air: Unlimited Flights for $1k/mo</title><url>http://www.surfair.com</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>abalashov</author><text>Whatever the commercial viability of this particular idea, I hope that pressure from such ventures, whether delusional or otherwise, can inspire greater democratisation and fare transparency in air travel.  For instance, I would be willing to pay an airline some amount of monthly recurring fees (though perhaps not $1k) to option certain seats on a large selection of flights at low prices.  The monthly recurring revenue could, in theory, offset the impact of my unpredictability as a passenger on booking calculations.&lt;p&gt;Edit: On the other hand, I&apos;d much rather the money go into some sort of vaguely 21st century high-speed rail infrastructure, particularly for short to medium inter-city trips. The absence of such makes us the laughingstock of Europe and Asia.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tomsaffell</author><text>Funny that you should mention recurring fees in return for lower prices _and_ inter-city rail infrastructure - that&apos;s exactly what the Swiss have: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sbb.ch/en/travelcards-and-tickets/railpasses/half-fare-travelcard.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.sbb.ch/en/travelcards-and-tickets/railpasses/half...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>