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That's $7 of fuel per pound of payload, that is not bad at all.

Indeed. You sometime see an argument that launch to space is expensive because of the propellant and therefore energy required. And as you note this argument is utterly wrong.

not sure how anyone can miss the "throwing away the airplane" part as being the cost driver.

It's the same cognitive error as thinking nuclear energy must be cheap because the fuel is cheap.

>And as you note this argument is utterly wrong.

Am I mistaken, or are there distance/payload combinations for which Starship is cheaper per pound on a point-to-point basis than air transport, even setting aside 30 minutes versus 12 hours? Isn't that the non-intuitive outcome of ballistic trajectories?

No. But it gets within an order of magnitude, which is remarkable. Economy class on starship could be priced similar to first class tickets on transoceanic flights.

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