Is It Cheaper to Fly Or Drive?

Blog: Flying vs. Driving from Syracuse to NYC

Let’s say you live in Syracuse and have to go to NYC for an overnight trip. You have two options flying or driving. A round trip plane ticket from Syracuse to NYC was $106.60. This price is from using JetBlue, which was the cheapest airline and buying coach seats with no stops. In the City you will need to buy a cab to JFK airport and the city. The cab rate plus tolls and a tip would run about $70 one-way or $140 round trip. This brings the total to $246.6. To figure out how much it costs to drive I used the going price of gas in Syracuse, which is $2.55. The road trip is 254.2 miles one way, and I used the average 2015 car model’s miles per gallon at 24.8. Dividing the 254.2 miles by 24.8 mpg to find the amount of gallons used which are 10.25. Taking the 10.25 gallons used and multiplying the price of gas, $2.55, to get a total cost of $26.14 one way. Double the one-way cost of $26.14 to get a round trip total of $52.28 to drive to NYC and back. Remember that prices for you could be different depending on your cars mpg and the price of gas in your area and the shifting of airline prices. This is just for the trip however, in NYC you will need to park your car overnight. Let’s say you need 24 hours of parking that would cost an additional $45 approximately. This brings the total to $97.28

It is $149.32 cheaper to drive then fly, but this assumes that your time is worth nothing. It takes 2 hours and 36 minutes round trip to fly, plus the hour early you have to be to the airport both ways and the one-hour travel time from JFK airport to Manhattan both ways. The total time flying will be is 6 hours and 36 minutes or 396 minutes. Compared to flying, driving is 8 hours and 12 minutes or 492 minutes round trip with no other add-ons. This is a difference of 1 hour 36 minutes or 96 minutes total. Is spending $149.32 more worth saving 96 minutes?

Using this equation $149.32=96mins times x, the unknown. X is the unknown price per minute that you are paying for by flying. Divide $149.32 by 96 to get $1.55 per minute extra you are paying for the convenience of flying. This translates to $93 per hour for the time saved by flying. That is a lot of money per hour to spend to save only a little more than an hour and a half of travel time. Unless you are a hotshot lawyer making over $93 an hour, you should drive. Use the money saved from choosing to drive over flying and invest it into Dollar investment club. The road trip to NYC will make you richer in the future!