smigaldi said:
Big airlines will always be cheaper and faster than our small GA planes.
Uh uh, no way.
I actually had a flight from MSP to ABQ on Northworst a couple of years ago that I could have done just as fast in a freakin' ARCHER. And no layover either!
Not only the mess with security, check-in, etc. like you'd expect, but also the 45-minute wait for bags at the other end followed by another 45 minutes in line for a rental car and an hour and fifteen driving to Socorro, which just happens to have... Guess what... A GA airport! Time: Roughly equal. Money: Yeah, OK, airline wins.
However, one of my favorite flights that I have taken was MSN to LEX for a banquet. I had two pax (one pilot, one non-pilot) in a club plane. The non-pilot pax had to be in LEX at 2 PM on Saturday for a meeting, then attend the banquet (which I also attended), and wanted to be back at MSN by 12:30 PM on Sunday so he could get to his son's hockey game.
On the airlines, he would have had to leave home at 3:30 AM
to be able to get to LEX before the meeting, and there was NO airline flight that would get him home for his son's hockey game - Either after the banquet or the next morning. As it was, we left MSN at 8:30 AM on Saturday and left LEX at 7:30 AM Sunday. Meeting, banquet, AND hockey game made, and we each paid a whopping $169, which was $110 cheaper than the cheapest airline ticket that wouldn't have accomplished the mission anyway.
I still haven't decided if the best part was completing my first long cross country in the most beautiful November weather I've ever seen (CAVU, 75+ miles visibility, altimeter settings ranged from 30.69 up to 30.84!), or hearing the non-pilot pax sitting one table over at the banquet rave about how awesome the flight was for nearly the entire duration of the dinner.