There’s mostly bad information for travelers intending to fly on business or on holiday this summer, according to a June 2007 piece appearing in U.S. News & World Report. Not only has the number of delayed flights increased, but so, too, have the number of passengers impacted per plane. For some, the news was worse than for others. Ranking major airports using a combination of the percentage of flights delayed and the average load of departing aircraft, the U.S. News piece pigeonholed Detroit’s Wayne County Airport as the nations “most miserable 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 passenger flights leaving the Motor City are nearly 77 percent full – Detroit’s airport serves up the most misery to the largest number of passengers when flights are delayed.
Since I live not far from Detroit and occasionally travel to nearby Chicago or Cleveland on business, these figures got me thinking about the merits if any – of driving to these destinations. Thanks to some other advice in the article, it was quite easy for me to price and compare the cost of driving and flying to each of these cities.
The first step in the process was to check out fuelcostcalculator.com.
Maintained by the American Automobile Association (AAA), this site makes it easy to supply your starting point and final destination along with the make, model and year of manufacture of your vehicle. Using MPG estimates for your particular vehicle and the average gas price for your region of the country, AAA’s fuel cost calculator quickly calculates the distance in miles, the amount of fuel required and total price of the gas for a typical drive from let’s say – Detroit to Chicago. In my case, I learned that I could expect to use 10.58 gallons of gas for the 275-mile drive to the Windy City at an approximate fuel cost at slightly more than 33 dollars (33.23). The calculator likewise computed the round-trip cost of the drive, in this case, 66.46.
To find out how this would compare to flying, I next pointed my Web browser to sidestep.com.
Sidestep appeals to me because it scours hundreds of airline and discounted fare websites for the best quote and then lets me book directly with the airline company instead of using an intermediary 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 change my flight if necessary.
At sidestep.com, I located 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 at all a bad price, but still more or less twice the cost of driving. And the price didn’t include the cost of airport parking or any extra airport charges or taxes.
Because I enjoy driving, the choice to drive to Chicago on my next business trip was an easy one. My route takes me right by the Detroit airport anyway and I’d rather spend my time driving through the scenic countryside of Western Michigan than battling long lines and possible delays at the airport. Plus, it’s nice to have my own car in Chicago and also gratifying to save on the cost of a rental car.
Whether a similar decision makes sense in your particular case depends in large part on your starting point and final destination. Even though it’s still very slightly cheaper for me to drive from Detroit to Los Angeles than it is to fly, for example, I’d never dream of making this long drive part of a business trip.
It’s generally the shorter trips, on the order of 250 to 450 miles, where driving makes sense. See 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.
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