From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Subject: Re: Train vs. plane subsidies? (was Re: Private Discrimination)
Organization: LLNL
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 23:08:59 GMT

In article <ATAYLOR.92Aug21144933@gauss.nmsu.edu> ataylor@nmsu.edu (Nosy) writes:
@In article <1992Aug21.011205.3326@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
@   In article <ATAYLOR.92Aug20155241@gauss.nmsu.edu> ataylor@nmsu.edu (Nosy) writes:
> <  @In article <1992Aug20.065031.18600@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:

@	   The TGV is an actual moneymaker; 

>	How can you tell? It is part of a nationwide government
>	monopoly.

	One just checks how much money is collected in TGV tickets and
subtracts out all expenses associated with it. Joseph Vranich presents
some of the calculations in his book.

@European airlines are  probably not as subsidized as ours.

>	"Probably"? Could you be more specific? European
>	air travel is much, much more regulated than US;
>	routes and airport landing rights are owned by 
>	governments in most cases and locked in to
>	given airlines...often state-owned airlines.

	So?

@	   Joseph Vranich in _Supertrains_ describes the "Gravy Plane" of
@   American airline subsidies in gory detail. Any serious fiscal
@   conservative ought to have a heart attack after reading that.

>	What's the publishing date of this, please? There 
>	have been rather a lot of changes in US airspace
>	over the last 12 years.

	When was it published? Early this year, as a matter of fact.
Examples of subsidies:

	The construction of airports
	Air traffic control systems
	Development of military aircraft with civilian spinoffs
	Pilot training in the military

	Both Airbus Industrie and Boeing have accused each other of
receiving subsidies, and correctly.

	The total earnings of the airline industry last year was about
$1 billion. The price of air traffic control was about $3 billion.

@   :	And I defy any train to "compete" with a 737 from
@   :	Dallas to El Paso, Texas....without a government
@   :	stepping in, that is.

@	   Government _already_ steps in -- on the side of the plane. It
@   is railroad travel that is seriously disfavored here in the US.

@	   If the _true_ costs were included, the train would undersell
@   the plane, even though it wouldn't be as fast.

>	How do you know this, please? AMTRAK has or had
>	service from El Paso to Dallas, as does Greyhound.
>	Yet Southwest Airlines does quite well....oh, must
>	be all those government subsidies paid to Southwest,
>	right?

>	Numbers, please?

	The Texas Department of Aviation spends $1.3 billion a year on
airports -- in general funds. Texas is the only state without any kind
of aviation fuels tax. And if that isn't contrary to Libertarian
principles (everything must pay for itself, right?), then I don't know
what is.

	In 1978, the director of the California Department of
Transportation, Adriana Gianturco, told congress that "air travelers
pay only 1/3 of the cost of their transportation. If the United States
was to remove its subsidies to the airlines, very quickly the airplane
would be threatened as a means of travel."

	So Southwest Airlines rides a gravy plane of subsidies that
easily dwarfs the direct subsidies to Amtrak or the indirect subsidies
(in the form of road building and maintenance) to Greyhound.

	Vranich also documents efforts by Southwest Airlines to block
plans to build TGV-type rail lines between Houston, Dallas, Ft. Worth,
and Austin; a project that will be undertaken with (if everything goes
well) mostly private money. By Libertarian standards, the Texas TGV
project is much more virtuous that Southwest Airlines.

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