April 10, 2181 - 2:03pm (PST)

By Jerry Spafford

San Francisco, Ca - At a press conference today in San Francisco, CA Entanglement Research Lab director Passivant-Smythe announced that the first transcontinental teleportation link would be activated on the 21st of April, with Service between San Francisco International Airport and Washington Dulles in Northern Virginia.

Teleportation research had been stalled for decades, as the amount of the power required to teleport human beings any substantial distance was cost-prohibitive and tended to scale geometrically with the distance traveled and the size of the payload. Passivant-Smythe noted that two new developments late last year finally made teleportation feasible.

The first was a subtle refinement in the teleportation procedure, which reduced the overall amount of power needed by a factor of 100. The second was the development of a new power creation method that Passivant-Smythe noted was "uniquely suited to the teleportation system". When asked to expand, he demurred by saying that information was likely to remain classified.

Transportation and energy production shares dipped on the news. The only exception were those of the hyperplane operations conglomerate ABL who holds the exclusive domestic rights to the deployment of this technology. Pricing for the transcontinental link is currently running about four times that of a first caste seat, with no discounts or abl-club miles being accepted in lieu of the fee for the trip.

GEM corporation CEO Jerry Kellener noted that the high price of teleportation makes it unlikely that vehicle sales will slow down. He anticipated that there will be little effect on the upcoming 82 model year, "GEM cars will continue to roll off the lot the way they have been for the last 100 years. Anyhow, who really wants to be squeezed through a hole smaller than an atom?" GEM shares dropped 7 points in after hours trading.

When asked about the choice of Dulles for the first east coast station, an unnamed senior Department of Transportation official explained that the choice of Dulles avoided "security problems due to the proximity of Gosling International Hyperport to the White House." He also noted that they expect to open up additional links in New York, Chicago and St. Louis.

The teleportation technology first debuted in 2149 with the transport of an amoeba across a Stockton, CA physics laboratory.

For more information, interested travellers may contact teleportation@rekonstruction.com.