Air Travel Not Always The Preferred Travel Choice

A June 2007 article in U.S. News & World Report had predominantly bad news for business people and vacationers intending to fly on business or on holiday this summer. Delayed flights have increased and aircraft are more crowded than ever before. The news was worse for some than for others. The news story, which ranked major airports using a combination of the percentage of delayed flights and the average load of departing aircraft, found the country's "most miserable" airport to be Detroit's Wayne County Airport.

Official Department of Transportation statistics paint a frustrating picture for Motown's frequent fliers. Thirty-nine percent of flights at Detroit leave the tarmac late. Combined with an average load factor of just under seventy-seven percent - meaning that aircraft leaving Detroit are almost 77 percent full - Detroit's airport serves up the most misery to the largest number of people when flights miss their scheduled departure times.

Since I live not far from Detroit and occasionally travel to nearby Chicago or Cleveland on business, these numbers got me wondering about the merits if any - of driving to these destinations. With the help of some other tips in the article, it was relatively simple for me to price and then compare the cost of driving and flying to each of these cities.

The first step in the process was to visit fuelcostcalculator.com.

Managed by the American Automobile Association (AAA), this website asks you to enter your starting point and final destination along with the make, model and year of manufacture of your car. Using MPG estimates for your particular make of car and the average gas price for your neck of the woods, AAA's fuel cost calculator rapidly calculates the distance, the quantity of fuel required and cost 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 estimated fuel cost at just over 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 visited sidestep.com.

I like to use Sidestep because it scours hundreds of airline and discounted fare websites for the best price and then lets me book directly with the airline in question instead of using a go-between like Orbitz, Travelocity or Expedia. Dealing directly with the airline and not through a third-party ticket broker, makes it easier and possibly less expensive if there are additional fees to rebook if necessary.

Using sidestep.com, I was able to find an American Airlines non-stop flight that would whisk 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 approximately twice as expensive as the cost of driving. And the price did not include the cost of airport parking or any extra airport charges or taxes.

Since driving is a pleasure for me, 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. In addition, it's nice to have my own car in Chicago and also nice to save on the cost of a rental.

Whether a decision like this adds up in your case depends in large part on your starting point and ultimate goal. Although it's still marginally less expensive for me to drive from Detroit to Los Angeles than it is to fly, for example, I'd never consider making this long drive part of a business trip.

As a rule it's the shorter trips, on the order of 250 to 450 miles, where driving is the cheaper and better alternative. 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.

Article Source: http://www.christiannotepad.com

Matthew Paolini is Citybook.com's technical director for the Greensboro, NC business Yellow Pages division.