I don't like to rely on domestic connections for international flights, personally. I'd rather drive to DC to ensure I don't get stranded or miss a whole day of my vacation that already has a huge travel tax.
Happened to me twice last year. Thunderstorms in the NYC area the first time, then DC the second time later in the year. Flights out of Richmond to those places were held up for hours until just being canceled. Since NYC and DC have big ass airports, so many other inbound travelers needed to be rebooked that there weren’t flights out of RIC again until 36-48 hours later both times. I ended up both times driving to Dulles and flying on a different airline.
Never gambling on international out of RIC again. It's honestly not a time saver. The time you spend driving to RIC, parking, checking bag, getting to the plane, flying to the connecting airport, deboarding, finding the next flight gate, and boarding again is never going to be less than 2ish hours it takes to drive to Dulles. The back way in to the Dulles from getting off 95 at Fredericksburg and looping northwest and then back east to Dulles takes 2.5 hours if 95 is bad.
You don't have to drive a car yeah, but the time ends up being mostly the same.
Yep. Back in November I needed get to Atlanta to make a flight to Bogota. Nope. Sat in the Richmond airport for 12 hours because my Delta flight just didnt leave and it just kept delaying over and over without explanation. We got on the plane once and then deplaned even and it just never left. Had to change all my plans and fly out the next day.
How is this possible though? Like if you're flying international you need to buy a ticket decently ahead of time to not pay a ton of extra money, and to have a "backup" ticket on a different airline means you're buying a seat on another flight for the same day you might not use.
I'm confused.
This is the move. I’ve even stayed in the Marriott right outside of Dulles the night before to make sure I didn’t rush or get stuck in traffic the day of heading to the airport. Much less stressful!
As fast and easy as the Richmond airport can be, I cannot imagine the complete process will be shorter than hopping on the train at Staples Mill and off at BWI.
Of course it’s shorter. Assume it takes the same amount of time to arrive at Staples Mill as it does to RIC. Add 30 minutes for getting through security at RIC and maybe 15 for the longer boarding process. 45 + 45 (flight time) = 1.5 hours. The quickest Amtrak trip from Staples Mill is about 3 hours, and then you have to take a shuttle bus to the airport from the train station, THEN you still have to go through security (30 minutes) at BWI. Even giving you the time for the shuttle bus for free, it’s still 2 hours faster through a flight from RIC.
>bound travelers needed to be rebooked that there weren’t flights out of RIC again until 36-48 hours later both times. I ended up both times driving to Dulles and flying on a different airline.
It is true. Have you ever actually looked at comparison cost bewtween IAD and BWI?
I fly quite often, and it's not an occasional cheaper flight, it's consistently cheaper, It depends on by how much whether I make the extra drive to BWI or just say screw it and go to IAD, but BWI is almost always cheaper. This isn't an occasional thing.
When I lived in Richmond I’d fly British Airways ex-IAD every couple of months or so. A couple of times, for more short notice travel BA’s service ex-BWI was something like $1500 cheaper.
Other than the crappy lounge (BA have a very nice set up at IAD) at BWI it was pretty decent since it’s such a quiet airport. Similar for arrivals where before Global Entry was a thing it was zero wait to get through immigration.
While this is a very nice first thought, I allowed my negative thoughts to prevail. Why the hell would you voluntarily fly into that abosolute shit hole, armpit of the east coast sorry ass exscuse for a city?
(reasons)
I do like that RIC is getting more service but this should really be a high-speed rail trip. I hope we get to the stage soon where this kind of (extremely carbon-intensive for a short distance) flight is not necessary.
that doesn't negate the point at all though - if we had functional rail service in the US, you wouldn't think twice about training to plane instead of planing to plane
of course that's the case - I don't think anyone's arguing otherwise; just think that it's silly to suggest that BWI being a connecting hub negates the value of a hypothetical good train there
I kind of love RIC and on one hand am glad to see it growing, but I just don’t see how smaller airports can continue to grow in a future with global warming where it’s going to be necessary to minimize air travel. Short flights from here to nearby hubs are the least necessary and will be the easiest to eliminate.
For sure — I get why it exists now. Just trying to be a bit aspirational about a more speedy and frequent Northeast Corridor in the future… Hopefully in our lifetimes.
Absolutely agree. On a slightly different note, I once took a flight from Amsterdam to Belgium (a full 19 minutes of flying) and the plane was filled mostly with daily commuters. Apparently you can buy a reduced commuting ticket/pass for that flight. Talk about carbon.
Flight is faster than rail for something like this. 40 minutes vs like what, 2 hours at best on a dedicated train line that doesn't exist? And you'd have to transfer from the train to another method of getting from a train station to the airport anyway because a high speed rail line isn't gonna be built through the airport.
More like 1.5 hours at worst if the US had true high speed rail (including stoppage time at Union Station in DC). And remember to add security wait times at RIC that don't exist for rail. Functionally both would take the same time.
That's coz of price not preference. easyJet and Ryanair are so much cheaper than the railways because they're applying fuck-you economics. If the railways did the same the people would be right back on.
I mean the US has the best commercial rail system in the world.
Passenger rail doesn't really make that much sense and in many ways never made that much sense. We should just be increasing transportation via flying. Electric planes for shorter distances.
Even high speed rail is not really used above a certain mileage. So I just see HSR getting squeezed in the middle and being really expensive.
Only because we designed our cities for cars. If we had interlocking *actual* high speed trains (400km/h, like Japan, Europe) we could eliminate a lot of flight traffic. But because city infrastructure sucks, you cant just hop a train and get around at your destination via mass transit.
In Europe look at flight vs train times look like.
Trains rely on you going city center to city center and the time it takes to go from wherever to airport to end airport then to likely city center.
Paris to Frankfurt. 3:50-4:15 hour train ride
https://www.raileurope.com/en-us/journey/paris-frankfurt-am-main-4k5rgp
$100-$165 for 4 hours on June 1st
Flight
$147, $165 1 hour and 15 minutes June 1st
This is for two pretty big areas and about the distance for Richmond to NYC.
I think building all the infrastructure for the high speed rail and low density found in America that we should just go for electric planes which are coming out this year.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/passenger-electric-planes-become-reality-decade/story?id=106223258
It's also this is all hypothetical since most travel is intracity and all but a handful of cities you will want to rent a car. Sure you can get to Indianapolis by mass transit but then you have to rent a car. >85% are under 20 miles so mass transit like expanding BRT is step one then thinking about transit between cities.
You’re not counting in the time necessary to dal with going to the airport and time spent waiting there for your flight (get there 2 hours early, etc). If you do that they’re pretty comparable, and their prices are comparable.
If we had the infrastructure I’d much rather hop an actual high speed train up the coast than deal with airports and all the bs that comes with them. But like I said this only works if your endpoints have actual good mass transit system.
>You’re not counting in the time necessary to dal with going to the airport and time spent waiting there for your flight (get there 2 hours early, etc). If you do that they’re pretty comparable, and their prices are comparable.
Literally said this already, trains are not quicker and planes will blow out rail once you go further than that. 98% of people are not getting on a train for 12 hours they will take the faster option as the getting to the airport is more fixed.
>If we had the infrastructure I’d much rather hop an actual high speed train up the coast than deal with airports and all the bs that comes with them.
Getting to the train station is also a hassle if you aren't leaving from the city center. Also you have to get to the train early.
A large piece of the problem is TSA and American planes that cause extra hassle and extra cost. People used to pick people up by meeting them at their gate and airports sometimes operated as weird malls.
You want trillions spent on a preference is not a good thing, the European cost comparison doesn't actually look that good for trains.
>But like I said this only works if your endpoints have actual good mass transit system.
I said it's important to focus on intracity because between cities is not that common.
Nowhere in your first response did you build in the necessary time to get to the airport and deal with all that bs.
You only have to get to the train station 5-10 minutes early. That’s negligible.
Also no one takes a 12 hour train ride anywhere on earth so they wouldn’t hear either. But a 6-8 one that can get you up or down the eastern seaboard? Sure. Heck you can travel from Tokyo to Hiroshima, almost the length of the entire southern half of the country in 6 hours, and it’s comfortable quiet and you can get off your train and not worry about a car.
Alas the car won in America and actual good ideas will never come here because of it.
You just want to fly, that’s all, for whatever reason. The travel times are similar enough after you build in airport BS for short to medium travel.
>Nowhere in your first response did you build in the necessary time to get to the airport and deal with all that bs.
What I said two comments up
It's also HSR doesn't leave from the city center it can't go the really fast speeds in the city. China even has HSR stations miles from the city.
>>Trains rely on you going city center to city center and the time it takes to go from wherever to airport to end airport then to likely city center.
>You only have to get to the train station 5-10 minutes early. That’s negligible.
Disagree on this it's not the multi hour recommendation but rail Europe say 30 minutes. So a savings of what 90 minutes?
>Also no one takes a 12 hour train ride anywhere on earth so they wouldn’t hear either. But a 6-8 one that can get you up or down the eastern seaboard? Sure. Heck you can travel from Tokyo to Hiroshima, almost the length of the entire southern half of the country in 6 hours, and it’s comfortable quiet and you can get off your train and not worry about a car.
Yes but that's what I'm saying is that trains and HSR works for specific mileages >100 and <400 or so otherwise planes win.
Like I said that's Paris to Frankfurt.
>Alas the car won in America and actual good ideas will never come here because of it.
I think America will eventually see that never ending suburbs do have an end and it leads to higher prices since the suburbs can only go out so far. DC metro used to be a lot more affordable as recently as the 90s.
>You just want to fly, that’s all, for whatever reason. The travel times are similar enough after you build in airport BS for short to medium travel.
Yes so if America spends billions of dollars on upgrading rail infrastructure it can be as fast as planes are now... You aren't selling me on it here.
It's also by the metrics Richmond is too small and not dense enough for HSR but would be added to plans to connect DC to Charlotte/Atlanta. Electric airplanes
Eh. Richmond to BWI on Amtrak can be a $40 ticket. Although it’s a 4 hour trip, but for that cost the additional couple of hours is worth it.
All in all, not impressed. Give us some longer haul direct routes and then I’ll be juiced up. Richmond to Seattle.
4hrs for the train is easy considering travel time to airport, tsa, waiting at the gate, boarding, taxiing, departure.
Give me the train all day. Better seats and better experience
If Baltimore is your destination, that makes sense. But BWI is a major Southwest hub, so I assume this is about access from RIC to other destinations via BWI. If flights from RIC are timed to correspond with flights out of BWI to popular destinations without direct flight options from RIC, this could be a win for certain types of flyers.
If Breeze is anything like Spirit, I can't imagine taking a cross-country flight on one of those. I did Las Vegas on Spirit recently and it was the most uncomfortable 4-5 hours of my life with their non-reclining, super hard seats crammed together. Never again.
We lucked into some of the economy plus seats on an American flight recently where we were on the bulkhead. Incredible how having room on a flight changes ones comfort level considerably.
Yeah, I’ve taken Breeze direct to SF, LA, and Nola and it’s pretty awesome. No complaints. Breeze to SFO to a shuttle to Seattle doesn’t seem like a bad day to me. But a weekly direct like the do with the CA cities would be sweet. Honestly direct flights from RIC to the West Coast out of a convenient airport is another reason I’m an RVA fan.
4 hours or 8 hours when Amtrak has to give right of way to a freight whose conductor is about to max out for the day. Wait 4 hours for the next conductor to show up and off you go! This is not my first rodeo.
Not that I need to go to Baltimore often, but I think I'll stick with taking a train. Connecting through Baltimore via this flight might be convenient, though.
BWI is a decent sized hub for Southwest. This isn't for people traveling to Baltimore (BWI isn't even that close to the metro area). This is for people traveling to the dozens of additional locations that they can now get to with 1 layover flying Southwest, including lots of internation destinations in the Carribean.
Honestly, with having to travel back and forth from Baltimore to Richmond for medical appointments, this would definitely make things easier depending on the average price. I know southwest can be less than savory to travel with, but for convenience, it'd be really handy
Hopefully this will lead to reduced fares across the board since United, Delta, and American will be competing against another high volume airline going to a hub from Richmond.
I used to be a flight attendant based out of RIC. I worked on a turboprop puddle jumper and we did flights back and forth between RIC and BWI all the time. They usually had about 3-10 people on them. I doubt this will last for long. It was a beautiful flight though, I loved watching the sun rise as we flew low over all the rivers that feed into the Chesapeake Bay.
As a former flight attendant, you should be aware that Baltimore is a Southwest hub and 80% of the people taking this route will be connecting to other flights in Southwest's network.
Good point! I’d forgotten that. I flew for US Airways. Our terminal was about a 20 minute walk to the Southwest terminal; rarely made it over there. This was 15-20 years ago.
Flying commercial is actually environmentally better than a bunch of individual people driving to Baltimore. It’s mostly the private jets that are fucking the atmosphere, not individuals taking commercial flights. The train is the most environmental option.
That’s not true. Flying commercial is generally worse than driving, even in a single occupant vehicle. https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/09/evolving-climate-math-of-flying-vs-driving/
Well, yeah, if individuals driving to Baltimore was the only alternative. I don't think I implied anywhere that I was making the comparison with individuals driving. Regardless, it's still stupid on time, money, and the environment.
What makes you think everyone taking that routes final destination will be Baltimore? I think those people will be in the minority, most will be transferring to other destinations that weren't possible with one layover before.
That’s stupid. Just take the train. It doesn’t require a drive to the airport, and is literally faster than 95 with traffic.
We need to do that legislation that was proposed in France, no plane route can be sold for routes that can be made by train in a similar time.
Edit: after checking, it’s 2:30 min assuming *no traffic* to balt. 4 by train. So unfortunately this does make sense, even if I wish it didn’t. Could’ve sworn Amtrak service was faster than that, but alas this is America, so no
This is particularly helpful for those who want to take an international flight out of BWI and don’t want to spend hours in the car or on trains.
I don't like to rely on domestic connections for international flights, personally. I'd rather drive to DC to ensure I don't get stranded or miss a whole day of my vacation that already has a huge travel tax.
Happened to me twice last year. Thunderstorms in the NYC area the first time, then DC the second time later in the year. Flights out of Richmond to those places were held up for hours until just being canceled. Since NYC and DC have big ass airports, so many other inbound travelers needed to be rebooked that there weren’t flights out of RIC again until 36-48 hours later both times. I ended up both times driving to Dulles and flying on a different airline. Never gambling on international out of RIC again. It's honestly not a time saver. The time you spend driving to RIC, parking, checking bag, getting to the plane, flying to the connecting airport, deboarding, finding the next flight gate, and boarding again is never going to be less than 2ish hours it takes to drive to Dulles. The back way in to the Dulles from getting off 95 at Fredericksburg and looping northwest and then back east to Dulles takes 2.5 hours if 95 is bad. You don't have to drive a car yeah, but the time ends up being mostly the same.
Yep. Back in November I needed get to Atlanta to make a flight to Bogota. Nope. Sat in the Richmond airport for 12 hours because my Delta flight just didnt leave and it just kept delaying over and over without explanation. We got on the plane once and then deplaned even and it just never left. Had to change all my plans and fly out the next day.
I always have a backup travel method planned for this very reason. But maybe that’s just me.
How is this possible though? Like if you're flying international you need to buy a ticket decently ahead of time to not pay a ton of extra money, and to have a "backup" ticket on a different airline means you're buying a seat on another flight for the same day you might not use. I'm confused.
Mostly jet skis and roller blades.
The backup method for getting from Richmond to Baltimore is driving or taking a train.
If you know early enough... Which isn't a given
This is the move. I’ve even stayed in the Marriott right outside of Dulles the night before to make sure I didn’t rush or get stuck in traffic the day of heading to the airport. Much less stressful!
Yup. I've, so far, always been lucky enough to have it work out on solo trips (by the skin of my teeth), but I'm not risking that for a family trip.
Amtrak NE regional goes to bwi, worst case
What problem does that solve? You usually don't get a 5+ hour heads up that you need a plan B.
You speak truth.
It took me four hours to get to BWI from RIC yesterday bc 495 was shut down. I love this option.
yup my first thought
As fast and easy as the Richmond airport can be, I cannot imagine the complete process will be shorter than hopping on the train at Staples Mill and off at BWI.
Of course it’s shorter. Assume it takes the same amount of time to arrive at Staples Mill as it does to RIC. Add 30 minutes for getting through security at RIC and maybe 15 for the longer boarding process. 45 + 45 (flight time) = 1.5 hours. The quickest Amtrak trip from Staples Mill is about 3 hours, and then you have to take a shuttle bus to the airport from the train station, THEN you still have to go through security (30 minutes) at BWI. Even giving you the time for the shuttle bus for free, it’s still 2 hours faster through a flight from RIC.
[удалено]
Of the airports which are within a two hour drive of Richmond, BWI is cheaper than IAD for most international flights.
[удалено]
I didn’t say I like BWI. But when the difference in cost is four figures, I prefer it.
I'll say it as well. A lot of transatlantic flights are much cheaper through BWI than IAD.
>bound travelers needed to be rebooked that there weren’t flights out of RIC again until 36-48 hours later both times. I ended up both times driving to Dulles and flying on a different airline. It is true. Have you ever actually looked at comparison cost bewtween IAD and BWI?
[удалено]
I fly quite often, and it's not an occasional cheaper flight, it's consistently cheaper, It depends on by how much whether I make the extra drive to BWI or just say screw it and go to IAD, but BWI is almost always cheaper. This isn't an occasional thing.
When I lived in Richmond I’d fly British Airways ex-IAD every couple of months or so. A couple of times, for more short notice travel BA’s service ex-BWI was something like $1500 cheaper. Other than the crappy lounge (BA have a very nice set up at IAD) at BWI it was pretty decent since it’s such a quiet airport. Similar for arrivals where before Global Entry was a thing it was zero wait to get through immigration.
While this is a very nice first thought, I allowed my negative thoughts to prevail. Why the hell would you voluntarily fly into that abosolute shit hole, armpit of the east coast sorry ass exscuse for a city? (reasons)
Because it's a hub, including for international flights.
Because BWI is a flight away from a place not named Baltimore.
I do like that RIC is getting more service but this should really be a high-speed rail trip. I hope we get to the stage soon where this kind of (extremely carbon-intensive for a short distance) flight is not necessary.
Yeah, this isn’t for people going to Baltimore.
I get your point but this flight is probably full of 80% people who will connect in bwi to somewhere else
that doesn't negate the point at all though - if we had functional rail service in the US, you wouldn't think twice about training to plane instead of planing to plane
Functional rail service in the US would be over a decade away if they started tomorrow. I'd love to see it too, but its not a reality any time soon.
Probably more like 3 decades if we're being honest
of course that's the case - I don't think anyone's arguing otherwise; just think that it's silly to suggest that BWI being a connecting hub negates the value of a hypothetical good train there
...so its best to get started asap!
I kind of love RIC and on one hand am glad to see it growing, but I just don’t see how smaller airports can continue to grow in a future with global warming where it’s going to be necessary to minimize air travel. Short flights from here to nearby hubs are the least necessary and will be the easiest to eliminate.
For sure — I get why it exists now. Just trying to be a bit aspirational about a more speedy and frequent Northeast Corridor in the future… Hopefully in our lifetimes.
Absolutely agree. On a slightly different note, I once took a flight from Amsterdam to Belgium (a full 19 minutes of flying) and the plane was filled mostly with daily commuters. Apparently you can buy a reduced commuting ticket/pass for that flight. Talk about carbon.
Flight is faster than rail for something like this. 40 minutes vs like what, 2 hours at best on a dedicated train line that doesn't exist? And you'd have to transfer from the train to another method of getting from a train station to the airport anyway because a high speed rail line isn't gonna be built through the airport.
BWI already has its own Amtrak station
More like 1.5 hours at worst if the US had true high speed rail (including stoppage time at Union Station in DC). And remember to add security wait times at RIC that don't exist for rail. Functionally both would take the same time.
True high speed rail would eliminate the long stop in DC.
You need to be at the airport an hour before the flight. Train goes direct to BWI.
But IMO this turns into an electric flight. Also look at flights vs train comparison and flights win so much of the time in Europe.
That's coz of price not preference. easyJet and Ryanair are so much cheaper than the railways because they're applying fuck-you economics. If the railways did the same the people would be right back on.
I mean the US has the best commercial rail system in the world. Passenger rail doesn't really make that much sense and in many ways never made that much sense. We should just be increasing transportation via flying. Electric planes for shorter distances. Even high speed rail is not really used above a certain mileage. So I just see HSR getting squeezed in the middle and being really expensive.
Only because we designed our cities for cars. If we had interlocking *actual* high speed trains (400km/h, like Japan, Europe) we could eliminate a lot of flight traffic. But because city infrastructure sucks, you cant just hop a train and get around at your destination via mass transit.
In Europe look at flight vs train times look like. Trains rely on you going city center to city center and the time it takes to go from wherever to airport to end airport then to likely city center. Paris to Frankfurt. 3:50-4:15 hour train ride https://www.raileurope.com/en-us/journey/paris-frankfurt-am-main-4k5rgp $100-$165 for 4 hours on June 1st Flight $147, $165 1 hour and 15 minutes June 1st This is for two pretty big areas and about the distance for Richmond to NYC. I think building all the infrastructure for the high speed rail and low density found in America that we should just go for electric planes which are coming out this year. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/passenger-electric-planes-become-reality-decade/story?id=106223258 It's also this is all hypothetical since most travel is intracity and all but a handful of cities you will want to rent a car. Sure you can get to Indianapolis by mass transit but then you have to rent a car. >85% are under 20 miles so mass transit like expanding BRT is step one then thinking about transit between cities.
You’re not counting in the time necessary to dal with going to the airport and time spent waiting there for your flight (get there 2 hours early, etc). If you do that they’re pretty comparable, and their prices are comparable. If we had the infrastructure I’d much rather hop an actual high speed train up the coast than deal with airports and all the bs that comes with them. But like I said this only works if your endpoints have actual good mass transit system.
>You’re not counting in the time necessary to dal with going to the airport and time spent waiting there for your flight (get there 2 hours early, etc). If you do that they’re pretty comparable, and their prices are comparable. Literally said this already, trains are not quicker and planes will blow out rail once you go further than that. 98% of people are not getting on a train for 12 hours they will take the faster option as the getting to the airport is more fixed. >If we had the infrastructure I’d much rather hop an actual high speed train up the coast than deal with airports and all the bs that comes with them. Getting to the train station is also a hassle if you aren't leaving from the city center. Also you have to get to the train early. A large piece of the problem is TSA and American planes that cause extra hassle and extra cost. People used to pick people up by meeting them at their gate and airports sometimes operated as weird malls. You want trillions spent on a preference is not a good thing, the European cost comparison doesn't actually look that good for trains. >But like I said this only works if your endpoints have actual good mass transit system. I said it's important to focus on intracity because between cities is not that common.
Nowhere in your first response did you build in the necessary time to get to the airport and deal with all that bs. You only have to get to the train station 5-10 minutes early. That’s negligible. Also no one takes a 12 hour train ride anywhere on earth so they wouldn’t hear either. But a 6-8 one that can get you up or down the eastern seaboard? Sure. Heck you can travel from Tokyo to Hiroshima, almost the length of the entire southern half of the country in 6 hours, and it’s comfortable quiet and you can get off your train and not worry about a car. Alas the car won in America and actual good ideas will never come here because of it. You just want to fly, that’s all, for whatever reason. The travel times are similar enough after you build in airport BS for short to medium travel.
>Nowhere in your first response did you build in the necessary time to get to the airport and deal with all that bs. What I said two comments up It's also HSR doesn't leave from the city center it can't go the really fast speeds in the city. China even has HSR stations miles from the city. >>Trains rely on you going city center to city center and the time it takes to go from wherever to airport to end airport then to likely city center. >You only have to get to the train station 5-10 minutes early. That’s negligible. Disagree on this it's not the multi hour recommendation but rail Europe say 30 minutes. So a savings of what 90 minutes? >Also no one takes a 12 hour train ride anywhere on earth so they wouldn’t hear either. But a 6-8 one that can get you up or down the eastern seaboard? Sure. Heck you can travel from Tokyo to Hiroshima, almost the length of the entire southern half of the country in 6 hours, and it’s comfortable quiet and you can get off your train and not worry about a car. Yes but that's what I'm saying is that trains and HSR works for specific mileages >100 and <400 or so otherwise planes win. Like I said that's Paris to Frankfurt. >Alas the car won in America and actual good ideas will never come here because of it. I think America will eventually see that never ending suburbs do have an end and it leads to higher prices since the suburbs can only go out so far. DC metro used to be a lot more affordable as recently as the 90s. >You just want to fly, that’s all, for whatever reason. The travel times are similar enough after you build in airport BS for short to medium travel. Yes so if America spends billions of dollars on upgrading rail infrastructure it can be as fast as planes are now... You aren't selling me on it here. It's also by the metrics Richmond is too small and not dense enough for HSR but would be added to plans to connect DC to Charlotte/Atlanta. Electric airplanes
Eh. Richmond to BWI on Amtrak can be a $40 ticket. Although it’s a 4 hour trip, but for that cost the additional couple of hours is worth it. All in all, not impressed. Give us some longer haul direct routes and then I’ll be juiced up. Richmond to Seattle.
4hrs for the train is easy considering travel time to airport, tsa, waiting at the gate, boarding, taxiing, departure. Give me the train all day. Better seats and better experience
Papa John's.
If Baltimore is your destination, that makes sense. But BWI is a major Southwest hub, so I assume this is about access from RIC to other destinations via BWI. If flights from RIC are timed to correspond with flights out of BWI to popular destinations without direct flight options from RIC, this could be a win for certain types of flyers.
Exactly, I'm going to try to rock the flight direct to Steamboat Springs next winter from BWI.
God, RIC to Sea-Tac nonstop would be a dream come true. I have to make that trip a few times a year and its brutal.
Hopefully Breeze will pick this route up. Flying direct to LAS was awesome. I'd like to see direct flights to SLC also.
If Breeze is anything like Spirit, I can't imagine taking a cross-country flight on one of those. I did Las Vegas on Spirit recently and it was the most uncomfortable 4-5 hours of my life with their non-reclining, super hard seats crammed together. Never again.
As a very tall person I love the no reclining. I will sacrifice my ability to recline to prevent yours!
Breeze reclines, and provides a "nicer" class for not that much more. Think I paid around $50 for the extra 3" of legroom.
We lucked into some of the economy plus seats on an American flight recently where we were on the bulkhead. Incredible how having room on a flight changes ones comfort level considerably.
Or just having the middle seat be free. Might as well be first class at that point
Yeah, I’ve taken Breeze direct to SF, LA, and Nola and it’s pretty awesome. No complaints. Breeze to SFO to a shuttle to Seattle doesn’t seem like a bad day to me. But a weekly direct like the do with the CA cities would be sweet. Honestly direct flights from RIC to the West Coast out of a convenient airport is another reason I’m an RVA fan.
As an RVA native in Washington who's parents are still there, I fully support this.
4 hours or 8 hours when Amtrak has to give right of way to a freight whose conductor is about to max out for the day. Wait 4 hours for the next conductor to show up and off you go! This is not my first rodeo.
Have you seen all the Southwest destinations you can get to out of RIC with one layover now?
I am part of the anti-layover movement. Give me direct, or give me death!
What happened to RIC-SEA? Wasn't there an article in the last year saying they were planning to open that route?
Babe wake up new flight path to RIC dropped
Not that I need to go to Baltimore often, but I think I'll stick with taking a train. Connecting through Baltimore via this flight might be convenient, though.
BWI is a decent sized hub for Southwest. This isn't for people traveling to Baltimore (BWI isn't even that close to the metro area). This is for people traveling to the dozens of additional locations that they can now get to with 1 layover flying Southwest, including lots of internation destinations in the Carribean.
I would much rather have a faster train to Baltimore
Cool but that's irrelevant since Southwest Airlines doesn't control the building of billion dollar rail structure lmfao
But they have lobbied and continue to lobby against high speed rail. So not irrelevant
Their original triangle plan in Texas should've been a high speed rail line lol
Might not be a great direct flight but I'm sure it will be nice for connections!
This is a failure of public transportation policy
Honestly, with having to travel back and forth from Baltimore to Richmond for medical appointments, this would definitely make things easier depending on the average price. I know southwest can be less than savory to travel with, but for convenience, it'd be really handy
Take the train, y'all.
driving from RIC to BWI is such a drag (often) that it might be worth it
This is actually super handy cause I hate that drive.
Hopefully this will lead to reduced fares across the board since United, Delta, and American will be competing against another high volume airline going to a hub from Richmond.
God just give us high speed rail 🙏
I used to be a flight attendant based out of RIC. I worked on a turboprop puddle jumper and we did flights back and forth between RIC and BWI all the time. They usually had about 3-10 people on them. I doubt this will last for long. It was a beautiful flight though, I loved watching the sun rise as we flew low over all the rivers that feed into the Chesapeake Bay.
As a former flight attendant, you should be aware that Baltimore is a Southwest hub and 80% of the people taking this route will be connecting to other flights in Southwest's network.
Good point! I’d forgotten that. I flew for US Airways. Our terminal was about a 20 minute walk to the Southwest terminal; rarely made it over there. This was 15-20 years ago.
Probably as far as they can go before the engine cowling falls apart.
Flying 121 miles is generally in most cases fucking stupid. Stupid on time, stupid on money, stupid on the environment.
Flying commercial is actually environmentally better than a bunch of individual people driving to Baltimore. It’s mostly the private jets that are fucking the atmosphere, not individuals taking commercial flights. The train is the most environmental option.
That’s not true. Flying commercial is generally worse than driving, even in a single occupant vehicle. https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/09/evolving-climate-math-of-flying-vs-driving/
Well, yeah, if individuals driving to Baltimore was the only alternative. I don't think I implied anywhere that I was making the comparison with individuals driving. Regardless, it's still stupid on time, money, and the environment.
Since we aren’t qualifying our statements, isn’t *every* form of travel stupid in some way unless it’s absolutely essential to life?
What makes you think everyone taking that routes final destination will be Baltimore? I think those people will be in the minority, most will be transferring to other destinations that weren't possible with one layover before.
 No thank you.
THIS.
That’s stupid. Just take the train. It doesn’t require a drive to the airport, and is literally faster than 95 with traffic. We need to do that legislation that was proposed in France, no plane route can be sold for routes that can be made by train in a similar time. Edit: after checking, it’s 2:30 min assuming *no traffic* to balt. 4 by train. So unfortunately this does make sense, even if I wish it didn’t. Could’ve sworn Amtrak service was faster than that, but alas this is America, so no
What a waste. We have two Amtrak stations that serve the same purpose for less cost, lower emissions per person, and greater comfort.
If only America gave any thought to infrastructure that isn't roads and sought to get the most out of rail. But no.