Air Travel Not Always The Cheapest Travel Choice
Driving In Some Cases Cheaper Than Flying
A recent piece in U.S. News & World Report had mostly bad news for business people and vacationers planning to fly on business or on vacation this summer. The number of delayed flights has risen and aircraft are more crowded than ever before. The news was worse for some than for others. The news story, which evaluated major airports based on a combination of the percentage of flights delayed and the average load of departing flights, determined the nations worst airport to be Detroits Wayne County Airport.
Official Department of Transportation numbers support the bad rap for the Motor City. Thirty-nine percent of flights at Detroit are delayed. Combined with an average load factor of just under seventy-seven percent - meaning that aircraft leaving the Motor City are almost 77 percent full - Detroits airport offers the most misery to the largest number of people when flights are delayed.
Since I live near Detroit and make the occasional business trip to nearby Chicago or Cleveland, these numbers got me wondering about the merits if any - of driving to these destinations. With the help of some other advice in the article, it was quite simple for me to price and compare the cost of driving and flying to each of these cities.
Step One in the process was to pay a visit to fuelcostcalculator.com.
Managed by the American Automobile Association (AAA), this website asks you to enter your starting point and destination as well as the make, model and year of manufacture of your car. Using MPG estimates for your particular vehicle and the average gas price for your part of the country, the American Automobile Associations fuel cost calculator rapidly computes the overall distance, the quantity of fuel needed and cost of the gas for a typical drive from in my example - Detroit to Chicago. In my case, I learned that I could expect to use 10.58 gallons of gas for the 275-mile trip to the Windy City at an estimated fuel cost at slightly more than 33 dollars (33.23). The calculator likewise computed the round-trip cost of the trip, in this case, 66.46.
To find out how this would compare to flying, I next pointed my Web browser to sidestep.com.
I like to use Sidestep because it scours hundreds of airline and discounted fare websites for the best fare and then lets me book directly with the airline in question instead of using a go-between like Orbitz, Travelocity or Expedia. Dealing with the airline directly and not through a third-party ticket broker, makes it easier and possibly less expensive if fees are involved to rebook if necessary.
Using sidestep.com, I discovered an American Airlines non-stop flight that would take me from Detroit to Chicago on a Tuesday and return me the following Thursday at a total round-trip cost of 119.00 dollars. Not a bad price by any means, but still approximately twice as expensive as the cost of driving. And the price did not include the cost of airport parking or any extra airport fees or taxes.
Because I enjoy driving, the choice to drive to Chicago on my next business trip was an obvious one. My route takes me right by the Detroit airport anyway and Id rather spend my time driving through the scenic countryside of Western Michigan than battling long lines and possible delays at the airport. Plus, its nice to have a familiar car in Chicago and also gratifying to save on the cost of a rental.
Whether a decision like mine makes sense in your particular case depends to a large extent on your starting point and ultimate destination. Even though its still very slightly cheaper for me to drive from Detroit to Los Angeles than it is to fly, for example, Id never dream of making this long drive part of a business trip.
Its generally the shorter trips, on the order of 250 to 450 miles, where driving makes sense. Decide for yourself by comparing the cost of flying and the cost of driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Washington, D.C. to Boston, or Miami to Orlando using the tools available at fuelcostcalculator.com and sidestep.com.
About the Author
Matthew Paolini is Citybook.com's compliance officer for the Portland, ME online Yellow Pages division.
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