this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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They care because the real cost of air travel is not equaled everywhere on each mile flown. If the actual costs of flying to many small regional locations was reflected in the cost of the ticket, the ticket would be so absurdly high no one would every flight to that location, and the location would lose critical flight services for the community.
The solution many of those airlines used was to consolidate the majority of the flight into a hub using larger planes which are cheaper to operate per-passenger, and then use much smaller planes from the hub to the remote location charging the passenger the equivalent of a reasonable cost of a ticket for all hops along the way.
What Skiplagging as doing was essentially using the subsidized discount rate provided for the small regional destinations, but consumed by those not going to those places that needed subsidies on their flights going to major hubs. So not only was the airline losing money for each passenger not paying the normal fare to the hub airport, but also showing lower passenger volume to the small regional destinations increasing the cost of flying passengers that wanted to go their even more.
TLDR; Skiplagging screws small cities with low passenger volume risking their ability to maintain flight service at all to their towns.
Few of these places need to be flown to. They should have trains if they're worried about efficiency.
I'm not sure I've ever read a more subtle or concise way to say "fuck you" to all of smaller city America simultaneously.
my air and weather shouldn't have to suffer so you can keep your "small town lifestyle", fuck your luxury bullshit founded on the externality of my life. I'm sorry but I'm sick of subsidizing these obscenely decadent parasites who would probably kill me and mount my blue stained scalp on their wall.
I don't mind green energy powered trains. That's cheap, it doesn't intrude on my life any, and gets you where you're going fast clean safe. I'm just against flying them out on a jet.
If they can't manage the 200 year old technology 9f a rail link, perhaps they shouldn't, barring extreme geography, be considered part of my society worthy of my care?
I have no idea what image you have of these smaller airports supporting smaller cities and their surrounding rural populous, but I assure you most are far away from "luxury". Lets take one small city in the middle of Kansas called Salina. Its a city of 47,000 people. The median income is $61,783 and the per capita income of Salina is $34,886 and has a 13% poverty rate. The next closest airport to Salina is 80 miles away. They're not living there just to keep their "small town lifestyle". Its where they grow the food we both eat.
It has a total of 4 small plane flights a day into its airport:
source
Salina is also a major agricultural hub supporting 650 farms for total of over 360,000 acres growing grains and livestock.
Fast rail service versus flying? Have you ever been on a long haul Amtrak passenger rail train? Amtrak is not fast. Salina doesn't have an Amtrak station. The closest one is 90 miles away in Newton Kansas. An Amtrak train trip form Newton Kansas to Chicago takes 12 to 14 hours and the service can experience delays making it even longer. A flight (1 of only 4 flights they have) from Selina to Chicago takes 2 hours and 5 minutes.
I bet the people of Salina would laugh their asses off at you considering them decadent parasites. You're happy to eat the food they produce, but you'd put their their 4 flights a day into their city at risk so you personally could save $50 on a ticket to Chicago by skiplagging?