attitudetravel
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31#
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Rank:none
Score:1237
Posts:1237
Registered:07/15/2003
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:11/10/2006 1:13 PM)
Here's more food for thought.
One of the most compelling arguments against putting green taxes on budget airfares is that it renders flights unaffordable for those on very low incomes for whom flying has only recently become an affordable option.
But a report about to be released by the Civil Aviation Authority suggests that in fact the majority of budget air passengers are not from poorer households.
That said, the CAA also concludes that 13.6% of no-frills air passengers are on incomes of less than GBP 14,500 - and that's still a significant number of people for whom an extra GBP 10 on their airfare might well put that flight beyond their financial reach.
See Ben Webster's article in The Times, here:
For richer, not for the poorer: the great budget airline myth
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com
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attitudetravel
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32#
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Rank:none
Score:1237
Posts:1237
Registered:07/15/2003
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:11/16/2006 7:19 PM)
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com
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locoloco
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33#
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Rank:none
Score:1
Posts:1
Registered:11/17/2006
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:11/17/2006 1:35 PM)
I don t understand all the fuss about that Airline pollution. It is just a matter of Political will.
We all know that cars can be fitted for less than ?0 with a device on the engine to be able to use Bio Diesel,Bio Ethanol, e85, Flex...which produce much much less pollution !
We also know how to use hydrogen or GPL...but yes...it might be an explosive solution in the air.
Back to bio diesel: how much does it cost to build a plane ? what difference that makes to spend a few extra thousand pounds on an engine so it can use bio diesel or clean fuel ?
Of course, it is easier and much more profitable to say: OH OH OH, passengers, you are the bad guys, please PAY extra for pollution !
Can you see: just 3 millions passengers paying an extra ?0 on their ticket ? BINGO
Much better than asking the airline to change their engine, isn it ?
Well, I hope that I made myself clear...and I hope to find more people thinking like me as it seems that many people have been brain washed already by the government/media propaganda.
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locoloco
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34#
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Rank:none
Score:1
Posts:1
Registered:11/17/2006
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:11/17/2006 1:38 PM)
Also to reply to Anonymous about Planet Stupid.
You would be spending your time better protesting at the head quarter of Airbus, Boeing, Rolls royce...
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attitudetravel
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35#
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Rank:none
Score:1237
Posts:1237
Registered:07/15/2003
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:01/15/2007 4:07 PM)
I have a few problems with the concept of carbon-offsetting. Firstly I'm a bit sceptical that it works, but assuming it does, this the issue I have with it runs roughly like this:
I have just purchased a long-haul flight to Singapore through Lastminute.com so I can attend the Asia Pacific Low Cost Airline Congress 2007.
During the booking process Lastminute.com asked me if I would like to offset the carbon emissions the airline would produce on my behalf during the flight. I was told that since I would be travelling a distance of 13,496 miles, my CO2 emissions would be 3.23 tonnes and if I wanted to I could pay GBP 22.61 to offset that.
Great. (Assuming it all works as it's supposed to). But... what happens if I didn't fly?
If someone else took the seat and offset the carbon emissions then the extra carbon produced is still removed from the biosphere and everything is still cool.
But what if nobody flies in that seat? What if the seat is empty for the entire flight? (After all planes quite often fly at less than full load). Does the plane then produce fewer carbon emissions? Obviously not. Who takes responsibility for offsetting the carbon for that seat then? Evidently, no-one does.
So carbon offsetting will only work properly when:
a) all seats on all planes are full and all passengers are paying to offset emissions; or else if
b) the passengers who are on each flight collectively pay for the carbon emissions for all seats on the plane (so the amount paid by each passenger goes down, the more passengers there are on that flight).
Unfortunately, we're not doing b) - most carbon offset programs are currently encouraging passengers to offset the emissions just for their own seat. Which leaves us with option a) - the only way to get carbon offsetting to work properly is for everyone to fly so often that all seats on all flights are always full.
Given that it would be far better to encourage people away from flying from the start, does anyone else apart from me think this is a bit of a wrong-headed strategy?
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com
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Bennox
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36#
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Rank:none
Score:32
Posts:32
Registered:06/12/2005
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:01/23/2007 5:34 PM)
Today's Guardian has an article about high-profile sinners of excessive aviation. And tonight, apparently, on BBC 2 in the UK, is a programme entitled 'Should I Really Give Up Flying'.
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attitudetravel
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37#
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Rank:none
Score:1237
Posts:1237
Registered:07/15/2003
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:01/23/2007 8:13 PM)
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com
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Alsky
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38#
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Rank:none
Score:88
Posts:88
Registered:07/22/2003
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:01/25/2007 10:41 AM)
What about Maglev systems? Will they ever get off the ground in Britain?
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attitudetravel
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39#
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Rank:none
Score:1237
Posts:1237
Registered:07/15/2003
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:04/07/2007 4:46 AM)
Warning: Your Flight is Bad For the Planet's Health
British airlines reacted with derision Thursday to a left-leaning think tank's recommendation that the U.K. government introduce tobacco-style "health warnings" on air travel advertising[...] in a bid to tackle travelers' "addiction to flying."
A lot of arguments on both sides in this article.
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com
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attitudetravel
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40#
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Rank:none
Score:1237
Posts:1237
Registered:07/15/2003
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:04/23/2007 5:36 PM)
Here's a comment piece by Jeremy Leggett regarding O'Leary's recent announcement to introduce transatlantic low cost flights:
Cheap flights to extinction
There is nothing new in his argument - he seems to start from the point that flights are becoming too cheap and should become more expensive again.
I'm all for reducing the amount of greenhouse gases produced by the aviation industry but I don't understand why so many commentators appear to believe that hitting people in the wallet is the only viable way of achieving this.
The argument seems to run roughly like this: if flights are cheaper then more people will fly, more often and this will result in more aviation pollution which will cause more harm to the environment at a faster rate.
But, the amount of aviation pollution does not correlate to the number of people flying - it correlates to the number of planes in the air.
So in a scenario where there are (and I'm picking numbers out of the air here):
a) Ten Ryanair flights a week from Stansted to Long Island which are all 100% full, carrying 340 passengers each in new, fuel efficient planes; or
b) Twelve BA flights a week from LHR to JFK which only have 300 seats and are 80% full, carrying 240 passengers each in slightly less fuel-efficient planes...
In the first example there are 3400 passengers flying on ten flights. In the second example there are 520 fewer passengers on twelve flights. And in the first example the planes are more environmentally friendly than the planes in the second example.
How are fewer flights on newer planes supposed to lead to more environmental damage than what we have now?
What correlation is there between the number of people flying and the amount of pollution produced? Isn't the number of people being transported just a distraction?
What correlation - above all! - is there between what people pay for their flight and the amount of pollution produced? Isn't it true that a passenger who fills a seat and then flies can offset their carbon footprint for that flight whereas one who does not fly because the seat is too expensive then leaves an empty seat - on a plane which flies anyway! - and is most unlikely to offset the carbon footprint for that empty seat?
I think the only factors that matter at the end of the day is how many planes are scheduled to fly, whether every plane flies at full passenger capacity (to ensure that no flights are operated unnecessarily) and whether every plane which does fly is as environmentally efficient as possible.
What any of this has to do with how much people pay for their flight is utterly beyond me.
Somebody chime in if I've lost the plot.
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com
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MetalTraveller
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41#
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Rank:none
Score:78
Posts:78
Registered:11/24/2006
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:04/23/2007 8:32 PM)
I guess they try to point that if fares are cheaper, people that wouldn't have flown, will. BA won't stop operating any flight, but if Ryanair launches the route, there will be 1 more plane in the sky, even if it's more fuel effective.
But I don't think this is a problem for a LCC... I think the problem is for the whole open sky agreement!
Air France sais it would like to operate flights from London to Miami and NYC. And of course BA won't let its planes at the airport, so with AF (and certainly Lufthansa too) operating from London that will make at leat 2 more planes flying.
People is attacking Ryanair because big airlines know it's a huge competitor, but Ryanair is not the real problem...It's not even a problem given that they have new planes that pollute less. In my opinion the real problem it's all the full fare airlines that will start operating from LON to the US.
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attitudetravel
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42#
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Rank:none
Score:1237
Posts:1237
Registered:07/15/2003
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:04/23/2007 11:56 PM)
I guess they try to point that if fares are cheaper, people that wouldn't have flown, will. BA won't stop operating any flight, but if Ryanair launches the route, there will be 1 more plane in the sky, even if it's more fuel effective.
Yes, I take your point. And two planes in the sky is definitely worse than one.
So, ideally, what I would recommend the government then does is to say:
"Crunch-time for neo-liberal economics and choice and so on! The environment is far too important. So... whichever airline can transport the most passengers with the least environmental damage gets the licence. The other one is grounded."
I could be mistaken but, given the fact that low cost airlines:
a) actually make profits which they can then use to buy newer, more environmentally-friendly planes
b) do not fly non-economically viable routes
c) do not fly economically viable routes more often than is economically viable
d) fly less frequently but with higher load rates per flight
I would wager that, over the space of one year, one low cost airline operating x thousand flights and transporting xx thousand passengers damages the environment less than one legacy airline which either a) operates the same number of flights or b) transports the same number of passengers.
Since keeping planes out of the sky is the real issue here, all we need to do is ensure that every time a low cost carrier introduces a new flight, a legacy carrier is obliged to remove a flight from their schedule (ensuring that the total number of planes in the air does not increase).
Have I got this completely wrong?
Is it possible to fly cheaply and decrease the damage which is currently being caused to the environment by gradually replacing loss-making legacy carriers with profit-making budget carriers?
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com
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MetalTraveller
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43#
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Rank:none
Score:78
Posts:78
Registered:11/24/2006
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:04/24/2007 11:18 AM)
This would be great, only fuel-efficient planes flying and with a full load of passengers. But I think by now it's just an utopia...
BA's biggest routes won't be grounded by the government, we all know that. They might buy fuel efficient planes but they'll still fly, even if not full. And there's also the fact that frequent travellers, or people using bussines or first class might never take Ryanair or Jet Blue.
Worst, most of this airlines (BA, LH, AF...) are either partially owned by their goverments, either represent their country....that's why they're called "flag carriers". They'll never be grounded, no matter what arguments favouring Ryanair or Southwest will be pointed.
The proof is here : Despite huge competition (Easy Jet, Eurostar Trains -almost ecological transport- , and Ryanair serving secondary airports near Paris), BA still operates 11 flights a day between London and Paris (3 in code share with Qantas). Air France operates 18...
Between London and NYC there are up to 33 flights a day (Or even more. In any case, at least 29 a day) with at least 9 carriers : American Airlines, British Airways, Eos Airways, Delta, Virgin Atlantic, Maxjet, Continental, Kuwait Airways and Air India. That's just enormous...but in the near future you'll have to add an Air France flight, certainly a Lufthansa flight, a jet Blue and a Ryanair...
Are the low cost carriers the problem? Of course not. Planes will fly and frequencies will be added, with or without LCC.
When a 20th flight between LON and NYC was added, did anyone worried about environment? No!
Is anybody writting an article about the environmental damage if Air France opens the LON-NYC route? NO. Only (joyful in the french press) economic articles.
Is anybody writting an article about the environmental damage if Ryanair opens the LON-NYC route? YES.
Now that LCC would enter the market consolidators say they're worried about environment? Yes.
So here we got : it's just economics. The people writting articles about Ryanair being the devil 'cause they'll put one more plane in the sky, actually are worried about the survival of historic carriers.
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jerryfox004
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44#
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From: USA 
Registered:11/19/2009
Time spent: 0 hours
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Term Papers
(Date Posted:11/19/2009 5:34 AM)
In researching my book about how we might achieve a 90% cut in
carbon emissions by 2030, I have been discovering, greatly to my
surprise, that every other source of global warming can be reduced or
replaced to that degree without a serious reduction in our freedoms.
But there is no means of sustaining long-distance, high-speed travel.
Get your Term papers done - FlashPapers.com
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