The Point-to-Point use case for BFR is compelling but it has a key flaw: too many points for such a high capacity vehicle.......The way the airlines handle this is by using a hub spoke system. There is always a flight to the hub - and the hub has frequent flights to every destination.
In the case of the BFR you are now talking about two hops and a layover which would increase the time-to-destination. But it would still be dramatically faster than long haul airline flights.
You are apparently not aware of airlines like Southwest, Allegiant Air, Ryanair and easyJet? Their business model is based on point-to-point transit. And of course the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350 were specifically designed for point-to-point transportation.
You are correct about airlines like SouthWest. I live in Dallas, and SouthWest flies out of Love Field using about 20 gates. So to provide point-to-point service with BFR that didn't require multi-day waits for your flight - you would need a huge launch complex at each city.
The cost alone would preclude it...
...and the constant noise - if close enough to the city - would be a no-go.
Compare that to one launch a day from any one city and to be able to get around the globe in about 2 hours.
If anything, hub spoke makes more sense for the BFR use case than for the airline use case in my opinion.
it could be anywhere on earth.
Quote from: NotOnImpact on 10/05/2017 02:53 amit could be anywhere on earth. An obvious place for it is off earth in low earth orbit. Launch to a quick rendezvous, dock with station, trade passengers with other spacecraft, undock and land at your destination. Somewhat slower than direct point-to-point hops, but you'll still beat the airlines for long-haul travel, and the layover will be a space tourism experience.
How the journey of 1,000 miles or more grates on business travellers’ nervesThe journey may be part of the adventure for leisure travelers, but around 60% of business travelers find time spent in transit irritating, and nearly half find layovers draining, according to a new study by the Global Business Travel Association.
Aren't we getting ahead of ourselves? There's no reason to think that a big, complex vehicle like BFR will have significantly better reliability than the safest rockets we have today, certainly not the order of magnitude improvement demanded by regular passengers. Why are we expecting this to be routine? Haven't we already made this mistake with shuttle?
The Point-to-Point use case for BFR is compelling but it has a key flaw: too many points for such a high capacity vehicle. Even if you only include sea-side large cities in the map - there are dozens if not a hundred possible destinations. If you wanted to get to city X - you might have to wait a few days before that destination comes back up again. What good is it to you if the flight is only 37 minutes when you have to wait a week before it is available. And this is not even taking into account the issue of getting a large number of people all wanting to go to the same destination on the same day.
<snip>Then they start building more routes. Initially they take like 0.01% of all airline passerngers.Then they build more launch/landing sites and mabe later take like 5%.They will NEVER try to get 100% of all flight travel. Not even 30%.And they don't have to. If they some day get 5% of all air travel, that's already big money.