Now we are sans l'auto, when we pack my Mother off to the airport on Saturday, she must go by train, specifically, the AirTrain.
A short walk to the station and 25 minutes on the train drops you off right at the terminal door: no mucking about in the traffic on the Airport Drive/Gateway intersection and no tearing your hair out trying to find a parking space.
The AirTrain is both convenient and… er… well it's just convenient. It ain't cheap.
Her 25 minute journey will cost a whopping $14.20 (concession fare). And she'll have to carry her own bags, because if I tagged along as porter, it would set me back a cool $29.50 return. (Added together, it would be cheaper to hire a large car for 24 hours.)
So I'm sorry, but she'll have to go by taxi. The cabbie will pick her up from the door, load up her suitcases and take her to the airport directly. All for around $3 more than a single AirTrain concession fare ($5 more if you include the taxi levy charged by the airport).
The AirTrain is not part of the CityTrain network and was built and is owned and operated privately.
Its Defenders claim the fares represent the true cost of running the lines and trains.
Benchmarking? Ever heard of it? I can understand setting the fares at a point where it's cheaper for - say 4 people - to travel from the city to the airport in a shared taxi. But current AirTrain fares are set where that threshold is around 1.5 people.
But AirTrain are happy with their numbers. The congestion chaos that is now the Gateway/Airport Drive intersection is pushing customers on the trains and the high fares.
Brisbane Airport Corporation (the owners of AirTrain) is fast becoming the robber baron of Brisbane.
You've got to pay for the trolleys; you've got to pay premiums for taxis and car parking; soon you'll have to pay to breathe.
AirTrain represents the worst excesses of the greed of Brisbane Airport Corporation. It is quite happy to tear up town planning principles and stamp all over the local Council and community. It is also quite happy to abuse its monopoly position of sole air services provider to the city by charging premiums for its customers to get there and access services.
We want choice in our airports.
1 comment:
Another thing: The airtrain operates only during the busy part of the day. If you arrive in Brisbane on an evening flight, you're out of luck!
It is not designed to provide a service for users, it is designed to provide a profit for the operators.
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