If airlines didn’t exist, people and goods would continue to move around the globe as they have done for thousands of years. There’s nothing magical about air travel (or any other transport mode) that makes it worthy of subsidy .

When something is that drastically different, it becomes different in kind. For example, if you have high network latency, you cannot jam (play live music) with friends remotely. If you have low latency, you can. Just because the difference is in a single value (I.e. net speed) doesn’t mean it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of what’s possible. Air travel makes the kind of business, shipping, and attendance possible that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, because our collective lifetimes and risk tolerances are limited.

Listen, I'm the type of fella who'd gladly take the Amtrak from the East Bay to Portland, 18 hours each way, and I'm telling you even I'd do so only as a novelty. If I actually had somewhere to be, spending basically an entire day on a train would be a non-starter. And that's just on the same coast! If I had to take the Amtrak back east to see my family for the holidays I would probably just not go. My travel to the other coast (not to mention back to the country where I was born, an additional ocean's worth of distance) would only be worth the trip for like a life change or a death in the family.

I'm clearly not the only one who thinks so, judging by both Amtrak ridership statistics and the cost ineffective nature of my attempts to travel on it.

Do you oppose the federal highway system (or rail systems) as well?

You can't think of a single situation where an airline route is infinitely better and probably the only viable option ?

Btw you don't need to completely disregard other modes of transport to appreciate bus :)