Tripping on Trips

I should pay more attention to the actual cost of things. A movie ticket is fifteen dollars… until you add in concessions, preferred seating, and online processing. A dinner out can be reasonable… until you add in the taxes and tip. And rental car companies add so many fees to the base rate it’s like you’ve just been bumped to a new tax bracket. With that in mind let’s visit the airport today, or more specifically, getting to the airport.

How do I get here?

Flying is expensive; always has been.  But it’s easy to overlook the cost of the airport itself.  Maybe you already know, a portion of the ticket you just bought goes to a landing fee (LF) – what the airline pays the airport for the privilege of pulling up to the gate.  Maybe you also know another portion goes to a passenger facility charge (PFC), which supposedly goes to improvement projects in the name of airport safety and security.

I don’t trust PFCs.  I think they really go to things like art exhibits, children’s play areas, pet relief areas, and smoking lounges.  I mean really, how much less would that plane ticket be if all you had for an airport was a ticket counter, some security and restrooms, and a gate to board your plane? 

You pay dearly for this space

The airport needs more than LF’s and PFC’s to pay its bills, of course.  It’s the reason you pay so much for parking.  I mean, think about it.  Once the parking garage is built it requires little to operate.  Mechanical systems and a few employee salaries yes, but certainly nothing in the neighborhood of say, $30/car/day.  Which brings me to my current conundrum.

By taxi? Cost-prohibitive

Most of you don’t have the following challenge.  When you fly, you’re close enough to the airport to where you can get a ride from a friend or take mass transit.  Me?  I have a choice of three major airports here in the South… but each of them is a two to three hour drive from my house.  Which begs the question, how does Dave get from his house to the airport and back for the least amount of money?

  1. Simple but Expensive.  Dave drives his car to the airport, parks, and drives his car back to his house after he gets back.  Works for short trips but what if I’m gone for three weeks (starting next Saturday)?  Parking at Atlanta-Hartsfield is $30/day (and that’s long-term). Throw in a tank of gas for the car and I’m north of $700 just for the airport to/from.
  2. Simpler but Even More Expensive.  This idea unexpectedly sent me in the wrong direction (financial, not travel).  I put in for a quote for car and driver from a service right here in our little town.  They got back to me almost immediately.  Little did I know my car is a limo and my driver wears a tuxedo.  My wife and I can “sit back and enjoy their ride” for $520 each way.  Gratuity not included.
  3. Slightly Less Expensive.  Here’s a fun option/comparison.  Drive to nearby (tiny) Augusta Regional Airport and fly to Atlanta.  The two round trip tickets plus parking?  Less than the cost of the drive and parking at Atlanta. If flights out of Augusta were ever on time I might actually consider it.
  4. Clever But… Drive to nearby (tiny) Augusta Regional Airport, rent a car, drive to Atlanta, and return the car.  Repeat the procedure in reverse when I return.  No.  The rental car companies want $300+ for Augusta to Atlanta.  Multiply that by two to get back home.
    By shuttle? “Cozy”
  5. Less Expensive but More Cozy.  We have shuttle services nearby; van companies where you share the ride to the airport with strangers.  $200 gets us the trip to Atlanta and back.  Okay, but now we’re driving our car just to get driven by a van just to get flown in a plane.  Seems like a lot.  And you leave when the shuttle service says you leave; not when you really want to.

Five solutions in and I still haven’t made it to Atlanta with any sense of fiscal satisfaction.  I’m starting to think I should just skip the airplane and drive all the way to our destination.  Or ride my bike with a pile of luggage on my back.  But wait!  There’s always 6. Entirely Less Expensive.  Convince local son-in-law to drive us to Atlanta (and back).  He can’t charge me more than the options I presented here, can he?  Er, not if he doesn’t read this blog post first.  I better call him… stat.

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Author: Dave

Five hundred posts would suggest I have something to say… This blog was born from a desire to elevate the English language, highlighting eloquent words from days gone by. The stories I share are snippets of life itself, and each comes with a bonus: a dusted-off word I hope you’ll go on to use more often. Read “Deutschland-ish Improvements” to learn about my backyard European wish list. Try “Slush Fun” for the throwback years of the 7-Eleven convenience store. Or drink in "Iced Coffee" to discover the plight of the rural French cafe. On the lighter side, read "Late Night Racquet Sports" for my adventures with our latest moth invasion. As Walt Whitman said, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Here then, my verse. Welcome to Life In A Word.

20 thoughts on “Tripping on Trips”

  1. I know there are ridiculous weasel-ly little charges when you fly. I overlook them, but the getting to the airport part does grip my grits. We have to drive ourselves there [about an hour if traffic is with you]. And we have to book a parking space ahead in one of the privately owned airport parking lots, then take a shuttle to the airport terminal [another hour]. This is before arriving early enough to get through security [an hour or more]. SO for a 6:00 a.m flight we leave the house at 3:00 a.m. at the latest. Is it any wonder I hate traveling anymore?

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    1. Now that we fly out of Atlanta and Charlotte, we’re dealing with reservations for airport parking garages (the airport itself, not the private lots). And our kids just told us the rental cars have come up with yet another fee – additional drivers. Seriously? Tell me one thing about adding a driver that adds cost to their business. Sigh…

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  3. It’s been years since I’ve traveled Dave, so this blew my mind! It seems like bribery, er having a family member transport you there and back is your best option, because the other multiple choice options didn’t seem to hold much appeal did they? Hope he does not subscribe to your blog! 🙂

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    1. From a cold-hearted business perspective, this is simply another way to make a buck. But you have to wonder who our neighbors are who have no issues with these prices. Apparently we have some “one-percenters” around here!

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      1. Ha ha – yes! I know Detroit Metro has a shuttle from Downtown Detroit to the airport as my boss took it a few times when our office was still downtown and it was inexpensive, but then it didn’t go as far as you are going. If the trip is worth it, I guess you just take your lumps, but still ….

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  4. I think you need to make friends with someone in Atlanta. For years, I have been the guy people call when they have to fly out of Indianapolis. They park for free in my driveway and I drive them to and pick them up from their flights. I usually get a decent visit and a meal or two out. There have even been times that a friend would drive to the airport and leave me with a key to pick up his car from short term parking and put it back there within 24 hours of his arrival.

    Other than that, I agree that your options are grim.

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  5. I’m lucky to live about a 15 minute drive from the airport that has reasonable connections to just about all the major international airports. But there are a lot of places that it’s easier to drive to than to fly. It’s a five hour drive from here to San Francisco, by air, but parking, going through security, getting a rental car, then driving into the city takes about five hours — if you can find a direct flight from Reno to SF. Most times I’d have to go through Phoenix or LA. weird.

    You did miss the most expensive but likely a faster option for getting to Atlanta: Get your pilot’s license, buy a plane and build a runway on your property. When you wanted to go somewhere, just hop in your plane and away you go. I bet you could do all that for around $500,000 and just a year or two of instruction.

    and they should only charge a landing fee when you actually land — after most landings I’d pay to get off the airplane.

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    1. Oh that’s good – the my-own-plane thing. I’ve been looking for a return on the pastures I spend so much time mowing. Would love to see my wife’s horses’ reactions to a scary winged thing buzzing around their domain.

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  6. We have the same problem here Dave. We used to have a van shuttle service going to the Toronto airport (4hrs) and London (2hr) from my city for a reasonable price. It left 4 times a day so it was convenient. Then they cut back to twice a day then it went out of business altogether, for lack of business? Are there many people who prefer the hassle and expense of driving to the airport, worrying about being late because of the traffic and parking their car and worrying about the threat of vandalism in the car parks? Recently a bus company started offering rides to Toronto airport, and my brother booked – it was mostly geared to students, stopped in every university town, and took over 6 hours to get to the airport! Limousines are too expensive unless you have a large group of people going. You can book a private car shuttle but I’ve tried that and they are pricey too.

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    1. If not for our son-in-law I think we’d just drive to the airport and pay the big bucks to park. There’s something to be said for having control over at least one aspect of the trip. The pilot may fly the plane but we will navigate the drive ourselves 🙂

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  7. Yikes. Not fun options. What a bummer to live so far away from the airport. What we’ve done is find long-term parking NEAR the airport. It’s cheaper than airport parking. I think we also found a groupon to make it cheaper still. They also then shuttle you to the airport from there. Is that an option for you? Of course, your SIL option is optimal. Hope you contacted him in time. 🙂 I look forward to reading about this trip.

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    1. I was planning to bank blog posts for the trip but decided to keep them spontaneous, so let’s see if/what I come up with in vacation mode. BTW you get one guess as to where I’m headed 😉

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      1. Gosh, I get one guess? Should I know this? Is it the same as a recent trivia answer? Is it Austria? (BTW, I mentioned you in my latest post.)

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      2. Austria again don’t I wish. Nope, drop the distance by two-thirds and head in the opposite direction. That’ll put you (er, me) in a quaint locale known as San Diego 🙂

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      4. Family reunion at the family house – correct. The coastal weather is welcome relief from the heat and humidity of the South!

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