Hacker News Reader

Comment by boznz | Hacker News Reader

>Personally, I would far rather spend 17 hours in a comfy, wide body aircraft than even 10 in a narrow missile.

Personally, I would rather spend 3-4 days in an airship with a bedroom and a bar and a view.. Not everyone is in a rush.

View on HN

While this may be true for you, and for a limited number of others, I strongly suspect this is a case of "what the customer says they want is not the same as what they'll pay for".

While we might like the idea of luxurious travel at a gentle pace, in practice the though process that will happen is:

  * I would like to go to Australia
  * I have 2 weeks of holiday
  * In order to maximise my time in Australia I shall take the fastest travel I can afford

Yes, or an ocean liner. I dearly hope I live to see the resurrection of an affordable North Atlantic passenger line.

There are a few passenger services from $1000 or so. I'm not sure it was ever really cheap https://thecruisepeople.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/atlantic-co...

Well, it takes 11 days from Halifax to New York - so works about at about ~$100/night for a room with food included. Cheaper than a lot of hotels.

I doubt it was that expensive. I know families who migrated from Europe to the US in the 50s/60s, and I'm pretty sure they didn't have (inflation-adjusted) $1000/person.

It was probably easier to find work on a ship to pay for the trip, at least for able-bodied men.

A Rudolph Arhlich got a third-class ticket from Bremen to New York in 1928 for $208.75:

https://www.gjenvick.com/Immigration/ImmigrantTickets/1928-1...

It would have been higher by the '50s, i guess, but not five times higher.

That actually undermines my claim :) $208.75 in 1928 is over $3000 today.

It would have been nice to be a passenger on an old-style post mail boats, such as http://rms-st-helena.com/. Alas it made its last voyage to St. Helena earlier this year.

Agreed. Plus they seem potentially less dependent on fossil fuels (e.g. producing hydrogen gas is energy-expensive, but it can be done with electricity, whereas airplanes need high-density fuel).

And if it had conference rooms, high-speed internet, a fitness room, and the slower trip helped minimize jet lag... I'd be quite happy with that as well.

You might as well stay at home then.

Very steampunk, but unlikely it sees reality. It's not like companies haven't tried time and time again to commercialize airships.

Consider taking amtrak across the US with observation cars.

I think I'd prefer the Japanese version, they know how to do trains: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/09/what-its-like-to-ride-on-lux...

Well the main problem with amtrak is that they never get anywhere on time. When you make the train trip itself the vacation though it makes it much more enjoyable. The sights on the california zephyr are fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq-N3_plNq8

Reply on news.ycombinator.com