Managing Air Travel

Hi.

after listening to a discussion on Radio 2, my car sharer and I discussed the issue of the increase in air travel and how it can be managed. Most discussions about it seem to revolve about higher airtravel taxes which would be unfair on people of lower incomes.[:(]

How about an allocation of flights p.a. to everyone (or perhaps set air mileage)to ensure that everyone can have their annual hols - Anyone who didn't wish to travel abroad or by plane could then trade their allowance to people who want to travel more frequently.

I know its a very simplistic idea, but I haven't heard it brought up as a possible solution during the various dicussions I have listened to.[:?]

Any comments?

Regards
Martin.

[preiffer]

Not everyone WANTS to travel more frequently - a lot of us have to...

[fozzyo]

Originally posted by preiffer
Not everyone WANTS to travel more frequently - a lot of us have to...

You can always take a job that doesn't involve so much flying.

If its the environmental impact, then perhaps airlines should make it easier for people to offset their CO2 impact and allow them to make a donation so their flights are Carbon Neautral.

How to cut down air travel? Not sure its going to be very easy, increasing taxes on drink, cigarettes and fuel doesn't have a huge impact on the numbers. Its a very complicated issue and one that any solution will upset people - and most likely leisure travellers. While companies can get around flying in some cases, in others its just not feasible.

Mat

Originally posted by preiffer
Not everyone WANTS to travel more frequently - a lot of us have to...

Quite right:

should read 'wants/needs/has to';)

Martin.

It is probably a little easier to cap the amount of flight per day from specific airports and also to have stricter controls on engine performance.
Would 2 747's with the latest engine technology flying from L.H.R to Barcelona per day be far more environmentally friendly than 6 737's flying the same route each day?

ItÕs not the amount of people flying that will sort out the problem it rather the amount of aircraft flying and the pollution put out by its engines.

Cheers Wayne

[HighFlyer]

Other than airline carbon emissions (which i believe only count for 3% of all emissions, or something around that figure) why would we want to reduce the amount of air travel?

Reducing air taxes ... now i'm in favour of that!

Thanks,
Sarah

Originally posted by HighFlyer
Other than carbon emissions(which i believe only count for 3% of all emissions, or something around that figure) why would we want to reduce the amount of air travel?

Reducing air taxes ... now i'm in favour of that!

Thanks,
Sarah

Perhaps it'll be that 3% that will tip us into eco and rapidly following economic meltdown.

Martin.

Air travel could be managed more effectively without having to reduce the amount of air travel available.

Not all air travel is passenger based either. There is a large market for freight, which could also be better managed by people simply buying local produce that is in season. Gosh I never realised I could sound so green.[:$][:o)]

Originally posted by HighFlyer
Other than carbon emissions(which i believe only count for 3% of all emissions, or something around that figure) why would we want to reduce the amount of air travel?

Reducing air taxes ... now i'm in favour of that!

Thanks,
Sarah

Originally posted by msgreen44

Originally posted by HighFlyer
Other than carbon emissions(which i believe only count for 3% of all emissions, or something around that figure) why would we want to reduce the amount of air travel?

Reducing air taxes ... now i'm in favour of that!

Thanks,
Sarah

Perhaps it'll be that 3% that will tip us into eco and rapidly following economic meltdown.

Martin.

100% agree with Sarah - let's look at the figures, 20% of CO2 emissions come from our homes, and 20% from concrete manufacture (yes really) - so why this emotional focus on air travel? Methinks some think it a luxury or a perk ... so why not focus on these much bigger areas and tax people who don't have environmentally friendly boilers, insulation, dodgy devices.

If anything, the air travel business is doing more than we all might be. And yes, I know about CO2 emissions at altitude, and growth and all that ... I just get irate at this argument that if we all tax/stop flying suddenly the world will be safe!

Seems to me that wha's happened is that the environmental movement have decided to target air travel over the last five or so years, backed up with some juicy soundbites.

So, yes, it is true that aviation is the fastest growing source of CO2 in the developed world, but actually it's still only a relatively small proportion of overall CO2 emission - about 3%.

And in fact, because the developing world's use of fossil fuels for ordinary power generation is huge and outpacing the growth of worldwide aviation-related emissions, the share attributable to aviation will actually fall below that 3% level over the next couple of decades.

Of course, anything that increases total emissions is A Bad Thing. But aviation makes an attractive target for much of the enivoronmental lobby because it's seen as one important cog in the big-business wealth-driven global corporate machine that many of them dislike as much due to their pure political convictions as for the damage it actually does the environment.

Attacking global avaiation is pure tokenism; making a big gesture of a sacrifice for the show of it all, when it will make a pretty piffling impact on overall emissions.

What would make a huge difference is to develop carbon sequestration technologies and really invest in hydrogen power for cars (and indeed aircraft), and get the national chequebook out to fund a new generation of nuclear and renewable power stations. I would actually much rather pay 2% more on general income taxation to fund massive Government-sponsored investment in these things that will actually make a worthwhile difference, than "make an example" of air travel.

Aviation has just become the latest target of the media; there are a lot of things which could be done other than decreasing air travel.

I saw in the paper that people want to cull seals in the north sea because of depleting fish stocks - now since when is it the seals fault? No one has chosen to blame Capt. Bird's Eye, now have they?;)

It's the same principle[V]

VS.

[mcmbenjamin]

Well a different approach is to increase the cost of the ticket. This would reduce the cost for employers and the general public. My parents are booked on the same trip they did ~30 years ago on there honeymoon on the same carrier with the same routing and class of service (well Econ Plus but that was the standard back in the day) but the fare is $100 less.

Airfares are overall pretty flat.

Originally posted by mcmbenjamin
Well a different approach is to increase the cost of the ticket. This would reduce the cost for employers and the general public.

[:?] I know I haven't had any caffeine yet, an early start and what may be laughably described as a "drive" around the M25 (believe me I'd rather take the train but can't get to Reading for 8 am using it) but I'm missing a step in this logic. When you have a moment Benjamin can you clarify your argument ?

Thx

Paul

THe focus should be on the airlines and not the customers. It's easy to increase the tax for the average joe but very rarely would the government attack the airline.

My answer? Simple! I was recently watching a programme on CN where their reporter was travelling UK to Japan and figured out he had to plant something like 7 trees to match the carbon emmisions... would that be such an expensive plan for the airlines?? Increase the fair by maybe £5 and use it to plant some trees?

With a number of airlines you can elect to pay an additional carbon levy - BA for example. What you are suggesting is making the levy compulsory, which is certainly one idea. But it is of course a tax on the consumer, albeit called a different name and collected by the airlines rather than directly by the government.

Even if it was a tax on the airline, I'm sure prices would have to be raised anyway. In any case, why shouldn't the customer pay? We are using the service and it's only because of the demand that the airlines are providing it[:?]

THe focus should be on the airlines and not the customers. It's easy to increase the tax for the average joe but very rarely would the government attack the airline.

Yes and it's "average joe" that's using the airline!

VS.

There's an article in The Times today that trails the results of a CAA survey of the travelling public. It chimes with some of the Simon Calder's comments from an ITV programme last night on Ryanair, where he suggested that the budget airlines actually allow frequent travellers to travel more frequently rather than opening up opportunities to groups that did not have them before.

On the point of offsetting contributions, The Times travel section makes great play of paying an amount to climatecare.org. Just looking at that site, and trusting their caclulations, paying an extra £18 for a return LHR-LAX trip doesn't seem unreasonable. Perhaps as an offset we could drop the farce of "the weekend flight supplement" which seems to apply to every day except Wednesday.[:w]

Paul

Originally posted by VS045
Even if it was a tax on the airline, I'm sure prices would have to be raised anyway. In any case, why shouldn't the customer pay? We are using the service and it's only because of the demand that the airlines are providing it[:?]

THe focus should be on the airlines and not the customers. It's easy to increase the tax for the average joe but very rarely would the government attack the airline.

Yes and it's "average joe" that's using the airline!

VS.

Interesting article in the Times today that suggests that it's not the average joe who is taking frequent flights. The profile of travellers on RyanAir and other LCCs is surprisingly weighted to the high income earners ... hence people with money are taking more and more holidays and short breaks ...

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by VS045

Even if it was a tax on the airline, I'm sure prices would have to be raised anyway. In any case, why shouldn't the customer pay? We are using the service and it's only because of the demand that the airlines are providing it


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THe focus should be on the airlines and not the customers. It's easy to increase the tax for the average joe but very rarely would the government attack the airline.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Yes and it's "average joe" that's using the airline!

VS.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Interesting article in the Times today that suggests that it's not the average joe who is taking frequent flights. The profile of travellers on RyanAir and other LCCs is surprisingly weighted to the high income earners ... hence people with money are taking more and more holidays and short breaks ...

If a direct tax is put on flying, then whoever flies the most will have to pay the most ([:?]). "Average Joe" (whoever that is;)) will be paying the same amount per flight as the most frequent flyers.

VS.

[buns]

I do agree that aviation is being made to be an example on this carbon emissions thing.

I am firmly of the opinion that before too long, most airlines will opt to deduct "a voluntary fee" to be put into renewal projects. In the meantime my organisation are now contributing to schemes similar to the ClimateCare intitaive and levying internal charges which are being passed on

buns

My company, (Business Travel) we offer to offset people's carbon and put it on their invoice, so we offset their emmisions for them. Also I think SRB had a great idea, of all airlines being taxied to the runway instead of them start their engines and waiting especially in peak times 30-60mins inline to take off, it is a start and something that can be started straight away. At least it is a start eh?

Dominic