I'm going to start using this phrase when I hear people suggesting doing stupid shit to save time / money / whatever and the likelihood of being successful at the prime task - and / or saving the time / money whatever - has a low probability of success. Thank you.

That's because they *are* breaking even on actually flying airplanes carrying cargo, whether it be breathing meat-sacks or crates of plastic shit from China.

The profitable airlines either are charging more for their tickets and delivering higher value through entertainment options and comfort, or co-branding credit cards and operating the aircraft as a loss-leader to getting you to spend as much as possible on the co-branded credit card, so that BofA / Chase / Amex pays them, and it's pure profit.

That's why Delta is leading the way in profitability - they cranked up the SkyMiles benefits a few years ago in a way that encourages you to use that Amex as much as possible, and Delta gets a taste of every single dollar spent on that card, whether it's on air fare or not. This allows them to "invest" in lower prices that aren't that much above the budget guys, but with more comfort / value and a much larger network to utilize to get where you are going without shitty red-eye flights or 4-layover bullshit routes.

Now Alaska, American, Southwest, and United are following suit; it's the only way they can compete on price and not go bankrupt. And the low-fare guys that started the prices trending downward? They don't have those cards, so they're fucked. Expect Spirit and Frontier to be distant memories in the next 5 years unless they change their tune, and fast.

What's remarkable about that, is that Airbus is targeting manufacturing ~1,000 aircraft a year by the end of 2026. I would imagine that Boeing is similar. That's ~2,000 new airliners, about 75% of them narrow-body. And they cannot keep up with demand.

Sounds like there's market opportunity for a competent third player.

Cheaper to wait for the inevitable bankruptcy fire-sale and get the assets you want without the baggage. Kind of like Nvidia did with 3dfx back in the day - get the patents, leave behind the legacy product support costs.

Here's what the article author is missing:

Airlines don't make money flying passengers. At least, not if they are competing. They make money through branded credit card / miles programs.

The airplanes are a loss leader that gets you to be loyal to them and use their credit card as much as possible, and they get paid by BofA / American Express / Chase for each dollar of spend on your branded card.

Airlines that don't have branded credit cards and such are now losing money, because they drove down the costs and the big boys met them with alternate revenue streams to keep them profitable. And now the Spirit / Frontiers of it all are fucked.

It's possible to do at-grade in a reasonable manner, as long as the at-grade rail is in a dedicated right-of-way, and that right-of-way gets traffic signal pre-emption.

At that point there is very little in the difference other than the price tag.

Which, at that point, balloons the price tag to obtain and improve the right-of-way; so you may as well ditch the streetcar rolling stock and go with a light rail system instead.

Because those tracks are in a street, thus the name "streetcar" - usually without signal pre-emption. This is what makes the Portland Streetcar an expensive slow joke, at least.

Years ago someone already proved you could walk faster than that thing, because it stops at every red light, and then also stops in the middle of the block at it's assigned stops.

It's not too bad in the rain though.

Even more hilariously, now Russia is back to soldiers on horseback. And Ukraine is taking them out with drones, but leaving the horse alive.

Russia: fighting like it's 1914 again.

So when he's bombing hospitals and schools, that's being "surgical"

lol get fucked

Except for them being shown to not be precise at all, having the same destructive power as any other missile carrying the same amount of conventional explosives, and have already been intercepted.

But sure.

Have anything to say that intersects with observable reality?

Fractions of a second.

ICBM apogee is somewhere above 500mi up, which is about 150mi over Starlink.

The rocket would only be passing through the Starlink orbit for a few tenths of a second, and the reentry vehicles even less than that on their way back down, because they would be going even faster.

Not even close.

Starlink satellites are in low earth orbits around 300 miles up. A Minuteman-III missile's flight apogee is somewhere around 800 miles up.

I suppose there's a very small chance that the rocket could smack into one on the way up, but hardly worth calculating. And even less worth calculating would be the chances that a reentry vehicle would hit one on the way back down, going even faster than on the way up.

ICBMs do not use GPS.

Why?

Because one nuke into the ionosphere will cause an EMP that would wipe out GPS operation. Now your missiles are useless.

Oh, and the guidance systems predate GPS. They're already good enough to put a Minuteman-III warhead through your bedroom window on inertial guidance - why make it susceptible to remote failure?

And you will forget 60 Minutes exists again in just a few days.

It's not like you're going to start watching it again because they didn't show a story, now is it?