AH Challenge: The demise of air travel

Here's the challenge: With a POD after VJ day, have commercial air travel as rare as possible. Perhaps it's for the very rich, or perhaps almost unheard of...but definately not at all common.
Other than that, society must be as similar as possible, no "No air travel because of the Third Global War," or similar catastrophes.

I don't care if it's a slow decline, or total collapse of the industry, but I'd like it dead, or nearly so, by the 1970's.

Now, in 2008, old guys might talk about having flown cross country...but someone talking about flying recently is a rarity indeed.
 
Bell Labs NY Decembre 7th 1948

Doctor Mickleson looked at amazement at the 1/2 inch silver circles above the two units he had been using to explore the electric tunneling effect.
Gently He touched the first Circle wit the end of a #2 pencil. To His amazement the tip appeared out of the second circle 5 feet away.

Bell Labs NY Decembre 7th 1949

Several Hundred VIPs from the Government, Military, & Industry watched as Doctor Mickleson walked up to the large Hoop, with a silver circle that had appeared when he turn the Units on.
The Doctor stepped into the Silver Disk, and Exited from the Second circle 100 feet Away.


An Hour later after everyone had stepped thro the Circles several times the units where turn off and a third one turned on.
Once again the VIPs stepped thro to find themselves overlooking the Golden Gate.
Robert Johnson the VP from Penn Central was the first to grasp what this meant,
If whe put one of these So called Electric Gates on the track outside NY, and another one here,
?Could whe send a train full of Passengers or Freight coast to coast NY to San Francisco in ten ~twenty minutes.?
Dr Mickleson thoughtfor a moment.
Freight, Yes the Gates could do that , but for Passengers, I would use Gates like here and simply let the people walk.

NY Switching Yard Decembre 7th 1999

Jon Smith had punched out after another day controlling the thousands of trains that carried freight thru the hundred of Gates that linked NY with switching Yards around the world.
Walking the Sidewalk beside the Rails , He stepped thru the Miami Gate. He would be home in Fifteen Minutes, Plenty of time for a swim before dinner.
 
Possible ways to make air travel rarer:

1. No deregulation of the airline industry in the 1970s/80s. This wouldn't make air travel rare, exactly, but it would make it less commonplace than OTL, as prices fell substantially during deregulation.

2. Flaws in the 707 and DC-8 akin to the Comet, causing jet airliners to be delayed substantially. Fewer jets and a more questionable safety record lead to greater investment in railroad infrastructure and less into commercial aviation. More aviation remains with slower and less comfortable propeller aircraft for longer.

3. Earlier and more concerted development in high-speed trains, including those that did not do so OTL (the United States, for example). This can cut back on shorter-range air trips. Consider the effects on air travel if one could catch a train in downtown Washington, DC. and make it to Boston in 2 1/2 hours (assuming a 180+ mph train that makes a few stops in between). Or, even worse, if they were nationwide - its about ~800 miles from New York to Chicago, it would take less than six hours by high-speed train; a similar air flight would take 2-2 1/2 hours, but adding in airport hassles and other things it may not be worthwhile.

However, apart from World War III, Dies the Fire, or totalitarian regimes taking over the US and other western Nations, killing off air travel outright, or making it extremely rare, is nearly impossible.
 
Cheap room temperature superconductors and we get so many supersonic trains that the transatlantic flights involve Wing In Ground Effect vehicles only, no jet aircraft? Not a big enough market to compete with the maglevs and WInGEs.
 
Possible ways to make air travel rarer:

1. No deregulation of the airline industry in the 1970s/80s. This wouldn't make air travel rare, exactly, but it would make it less commonplace than OTL, as prices fell substantially during deregulation.

2. Flaws in the 707 and DC-8 akin to the Comet, causing jet airliners to be delayed substantially. Fewer jets and a more questionable safety record lead to greater investment in railroad infrastructure and less into commercial aviation. More aviation remains with slower and less comfortable propeller aircraft for longer.

1. I think deregulation was the start of the decline in air travel. The prices fall, but that was shortly followed by the demise of quality and then of various and numerous airlines themselves.

2. On the whole I think that this is entirely mistaken. While propeller driven aircraft were slower there is no indication that they were less comfortable. Air travel didn't become uncomfortable until after deregulation and planes became flying sardine cans.
 
This has possibilities

Possible ways to make air travel rarer:

2. Flaws in the 707 and DC-8 akin to the Comet, causing jet airliners to be delayed substantially. Fewer jets and a more questionable safety record lead to greater investment in railroad infrastructure and less into commercial aviation. More aviation remains with slower and less comfortable propeller aircraft for longer.

This has definate potential...if the first few jet airliners all had a bad habit of breaking up in midair, or crashing on landing, then there might not be a market for more, no profit to be had from designing them. Make one or two crashes spectacular enough...airplane breaks up, plunging into New York City, and public opinion takes over.

Now, there's a reason to build more high speed rail, with trains racing at 200 MPH along the Northeast Corridor, and later at even higher speeds coast to coast. By the time that the collective fear of commercial jets fades, high speed trains are pretty darned good. There would still be general aviation, and some prop driven commercial palnes...but the new regulations on all commercial planes make them expensive. (Government, pressed to DO SOMETHING about the dangers of air travel, responds with more regulations, as well as not fnding things like airports.)
 
This has possibilities

Possible ways to make air travel rarer:

2. Flaws in the 707 and DC-8 akin to the Comet, causing jet airliners to be delayed substantially. Fewer jets and a more questionable safety record lead to greater investment in railroad infrastructure and less into commercial aviation. More aviation remains with slower and less comfortable propeller aircraft for longer.

This has definate potential...if the first few jet airliners all had a bad habit of breaking up in midair, or crashing on landing, then there might not be a market for more, no profit to be had from designing them. Make one or two crashes spectacular enough...airplane breaks up, plunging into New York City, and public opinion takes over.

Now, there's a reason to build more high speed rail, with trains racing at 200 MPH along the Northeast Corridor, and later at even higher speeds coast to coast. By the time that the collective fear of commercial jets fades, high speed trains are pretty darned good. There would still be general aviation, and some prop driven commercial palnes...but the new regulations on all commercial planes make them expensive. (Government, pressed to DO SOMETHING about the dangers of air travel, responds with more regulations, as well as not fnding things like airports.)

At the same time, the great liners also get faster and faster, but Europe and North America stay several days apart for the ordinary people. The rich use propeller planes, that are safe...
 
I think its fairly useless to mention problems only with the Boeing 707 and the Comet, since other nations were building jetliners. The most likely successor I would think would be the Canadian Avro Jetliner which may receive a second life with the failure of the 707 and Comet.

I would also consider that for those of us that live out West that anything that impacts rail travel between Chicago and New York would be considered as important as camel riding Chinese. Regionally I can consider trains working, but not on a nationwide scale.

Also I don't see anything that does not realistically hamper air travel. One could just see the continued advance of the turbo-prop engine which was shortchanged by the rise of the jet. The WI also mentions 'commercial' air travel does that imply that military air travel will continue?

There were countless air crashes thru out the 1920s and 1930s but that didn't keep people from flying.
 
NY Switching Yard Decembre 7th 1999

Jon Smith had punched out after another day controlling the thousands of trains that carried freight thru the hundred of Gates that linked NY with switching Yards around the world.
Walking the Sidewalk beside the Rails , He stepped thru the Miami Gate. He would be home in Fifteen Minutes, Plenty of time for a swim before dinner.
Great! :D
but ASB :(
 

Hendryk

Banned
An earlier oil crisis could also adversely affect air transport; early jetliners were gas guzzlers, and if the price of fuel was to rise suddenly, say, in the early-to-mid 1960s, that may preempt the democratization of air travel.
 
An earlier oil crisis could also adversely affect air transport; early jetliners were gas guzzlers, and if the price of fuel was to rise suddenly, say, in the early-to-mid 1960s, that may preempt the democratization of air travel.

So why won't aircraft builders develop more fuel efficient engines?

Earlier this year Virgin Atlantic test flew a plane partially fueled by coconut and babassu oil.
 

Hendryk

Banned
So why won't aircraft builders develop more fuel efficient engines?
In the early 1960s it may be too much of a technological challenge. The logic at the time was to enhance performance, not reduce consumption. The ultimate result of that logic was the Concorde.
 
An earlier oil crisis could also adversely affect air transport; early jetliners were gas guzzlers, and if the price of fuel was to rise suddenly, say, in the early-to-mid 1960s, that may preempt the democratization of air travel.

One problem with this is American oil production peaked in 1970. Up until that time, the US was a major oil producer (it still is, but not to the same extent), which could supply itself and its allies at the same time (one reason it took so long for the arab states to use the oil weapon, for instance; in 56, for instance, the US picked up the slack after the intervention in the Suez). Americans reminiscing about the bygone days when oil was cheap and the departure of that day are more complicated then the middle east spiking oil price. The US was a major oil producer comparable to some middle eastern states (Kuwait, say, although I need some more concrete numbers) until fairly recently. Now, move that date up to the early 60s, and make oil finds elsewhere less common, and you may have something.
 
Here's the challenge: With a POD after VJ day, have commercial air travel as rare as possible. Perhaps it's for the very rich, or perhaps almost unheard of...but definately not at all common.
Other than that, society must be as similar as possible, no "No air travel because of the Third Global War," or similar catastrophes.

I don't care if it's a slow decline, or total collapse of the industry, but I'd like it dead, or nearly so, by the 1970's.

Now, in 2008, old guys might talk about having flown cross country...but someone talking about flying recently is a rarity indeed.

Without using any specific sources as basis, I suspect that after end of the Second World War the commercial air travel simply has to grow. There were trained, cheap personnel available, an abundance of suitable transports and above all, countries all around the world had investment vast amount of money to the infrastructure. Perhaps even more importantly, all major aviation players (UK, USA and USSR) had perceived strong military need to improve their aviation sector as air proved to be the way not only to deliver but also to defend against atomic bombs.

While systematic effort to develop very rapid European rail transport and perhaps also very rapid rail transport on US West and East coasts, it's the cross-US travel and cross-oceanic travel which virtually cannot be eliminated. In the US case, there's of course the "Supertrain" which can address the cross-US dilemna... :)

For trans-atlantic route, there might be some possibility of earlier better understanding of hydrodynamics, maybe as a RN or USN funded effort. This might enable Atlantic crossing in two days with gas-turbine powered fast catamarans or surface-effect-ships by late 1950's. These could fight air travel with lower cost, better security and higher comfort than what is available via air transport.
 
In the early 1960s it may be too much of a technological challenge. The logic at the time was to enhance performance, not reduce consumption. The ultimate result of that logic was the Concorde.

True. However, at this point during the Cold War I think too much national prestige will be tied up with the continuation of commercial air travel for it to keep going. What will keep the Soviets from flying passenger aircraft?
 
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