A trend is emerging in intercity travel in an era of pilot shortages and high fuel prices: intercity buses are replacing flights for shorter regional trips.
“U.S. airlines are beginning to contract with bus companies to run on-the-ground ‘flights’ between nearby cities,” according to an article by Kea Willson for Streetsblog USA. The trend is providing talking points for advocates to suggest that “the intercity bus should no longer be ignored in the conversation about curbing car and plane dependency.”
An article by Edward Russell for Airline Weekly broke the news that American Airlines had contracted with Landline to connect American’s Philadelphia hub to Lehigh Valley airport near Allentown, Pennsylvania and the airport in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The intercity bus service will commence on June 3.
“The partnership is similar to ones Landline has with Sun Country Airlines in Minneapolis-St. Paul and United Airlines in Denver,” according to Russell.
Wilson provides more on the advocacy angle of the news:
Some sustainable transportation advocates praised the move as a common-sense way to axe emissions from short-haul flights and connect isolated communities with long-distance air travel that at least gets cars off the interstate. But others saw the move as an indicator of America’s under-investment in rail — or a cheap marketing gimmick aimed at bait-and-switching passengers who would never be caught dead on any shared mode, unless it happens to operate at cruising altitude.
Wilson provides a lot more detail and context about intercity travel in the United States in the source article below.
FULL STORY: Can ‘Buses-As-Flights’ Get Americans Out of Cars — And Planes?
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