Is it time to raise the price of Air Travel?

Originally posted by Muckster

Why not bring this business back home to British shores and let the British learn to love their own country again?

Just a thought

Mainly because the weather, no fun licking your ice cream in a wind swept Bognor Regis. The chances of getting a decent summer in England is rare, a cheap flight where you can be gaurenteed 2 weeks of sunshine, shouldn't be the preserve of the rich.

Originally posted by woodwardjnr

Originally posted by Muckster

Why not bring this business back home to British shores and let the British learn to love their own country again?

Just a thought

Mainly because the weather, no fun licking your ice cream in a wind swept Bognor Regis. The chances of getting a decent summer in England is rare, a cheap flight where you can be gaurenteed 2 weeks of sunshine, shouldn't be the preserve of the rich.

Even at the expense of our health??

I have holidays in Britain regularly and their great!!!

I've been lake district, Devon, Cornwall, Northfolk Broads... all great holidays!!!

I'm afraid that you have to except that SOME things are the preserve of the rich... unfortunate but a reality... and a reality that is also a necessity...

What state do you think the planet would be in if everyone lived in mansions with a plasma TV in every room while eating buckets of caviar??

reply to post by woodwardjnr


england has a very lucky case though - you can take a train to france and from there to italy or spain very easily . places like iceland, not so much!

but i definitely agree that limits on leisure flight would be viable. heck, even doing something as simple as heavy taxes on leisure flights past the first two in a year (return trip) would have a significant impact. they wouldn't be popular, but they would help in the long term.

my money's still on automobile and industry regulation for the short term, and heavy government funding for energy research in the long term, however.

Originally posted by Muckster
What state do you think the planet would be in if everyone lived in mansions with a plasma TV in every room while eating buckets of caviar??

my guess would be a dream, because I remember reading a report on how it is physically impossible for the planet to sustain every single one of its inhabitants living the same way as a middle class american. of course thats a little bit of an extreme case - the US is much more wasteful (and lower on the quality of life index) than most european countries.

but the point stands - either we need a major energy revolution, or we have to accept the current status quo of heavy pollution and 9/10 people on the planet living like feudal serfs while the rest live like relative kings.

Originally posted by Muckster
We are spoilt like we have never been spoilt before... During the 1950s air travel was something people would need to save for... it was almost exclusively the domain of the rich... Today everyone seems to be jetting off whenever they want, wherever they want...

Boy, you hit it right there. We are spoiled. Terribly! We have very short attention spans, can't wait till we get home to call someone or look something up on the Internet and we have to have our own special music list blasting in our ears everywhere we go... I purposefully stay away from that kind of life. My desktop is my only "vice". No cell phone, iPod, etc for me. I don't want to live that life of instant gratification. And I don't fly, either. If I have to go somewhere, I'll drive.

Before anyone asks me... Myself, and my wife, have not flown for 5 years.... We have set limitations on our travel buy choice!

For me, it's been nearly 10 years.

Is it time to raise the price of air travel and force it back into the domain of luxuries?

I don't know if that's the answer. I'd rather see the airlines clean up their act, but I know that's probably not going to happen. I don't really care if they raise the price of air travel, but I don't think it would make a difference. People would find a way to do it anyway. They'd go into more debt or give up something else. People are spoiled. Sometimes I think "the American way of life" is a lost cause.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


10 years? Cool

I understand what you are saying about airlines cleaning up their act rather than charging more... but i just do not have enough faith in them to do it.

However, i am starting to like my other idea regarding leisure flight rations... restricting family’s to maybe one return flight every two years or something! This, I hope, would then force the hand of the airlines to clean up their act and the restrictions could then be lifted!

My wife and I have a long-term plan for getting out of this mess anyway... We are desperately saving up to buy some land so that we can become as close to self sufficient as possible... well thats the dream anyway.

But for now we do what we can... Recycle, save energy, limit ourselves with gadgets and gizmos, grow vegetables (which is a BIG passion of mine) all the usual stuff.

I better be careful not to start an “i’m greener than you” argument

Hopefully one day we will achieve our dream... just a shame that while kicking back and enjoying my land I will have my peace interrupted by airplane engines

Yes, the cost of air travel should rise to reflect it's environmental cost, as much as I hate to admit it. I think affordable air travel is a good thing in getting people to see new places and experience new places, but if it comes with a high cost to the environment then it can't really be considered truly affordable.

Using the same logic, the cost of medicine and health care should reflect its enviromental impact.

Medical waste is one of the nastiest things out there and does far more immediate danger to our landfills, oceans, rivers and municipal water supplies (which are so full of drugs unfiltered in the purification process).

Let's raise the costs of these services so that they are not so over used. This should help the quality of our environment and have the added benefit of helping to thin the sick population so that even less medical waste would be produced!

reply to post by YourPopRock


Yeah because flying to Spain twice a year, to enjoy Sangria's in the sun, is far more important than someone receiving antibiotics for TB

I don’t know why i even bothered justifying that comment with a response




[edit on 22-4-2010 by Muckster]

reply to post by YourPopRock


you would have an argument if you were specifically referring to comsetic surgery... except you're not. you're targeting what is perhaps the most important industry on the planet after agriculture.

like was said before... you cannot compare life-saving medical procedures to a pleasure trip. it just ridiculous.

reply to post by YourPopRock


Yeah, perhaps that sort of logic should be applied to medicine especially, as one poster pointed out, when it comes to cosmetic surgery. But you have to remember why you're promoting environmentalism; do you want a cleaner healthier place for everyone to live or do you just want to save some pretty trees?

Interesting how the discussion is civil until an opposing viewpoint comes up.

Then the smug "justifying it with an answer" holier-than-thou that is the posters real personality comes flaming to the surface.

If you don't like planes, don't use them.

reply to post by YourPopRock


You are deliberately being provocative by using a ridiculous comparison!

Holidays and Health care??? Really???

Come on... you really expect people to take that as a serious comparison? Or are you just trying to provoke a response so that you can then turn around and say "Look, these environmentalists are really rude Nazis who don’t want opposing views"

Very transparent and not a good effort... It is obvious that you are far more intelligent then to seriously believe your comment about medicine!!

You want to debate the issue? Bring something worthwhile to the table...

Or, if you really want, keep goning with the same attitude... Your keeping this thread alive either way, and while its alive, the message is still out there!!

Thanks

I do not want to see the price of flying go up. My wife's side of the family lives in one country and my side lives in another with a 10 hour fight between. My kids need both sides, I couldn't afford to keep the family and cultural connections that are so essential if the prices went up. As it is, this year I'm sending my wife over to see her dying uncle with my daughter, while I stay home with my son. The cost is already a challenge for me, it would be somewhat of a disaster if the price went up.
I'm sure there are a lot of people who's lives would be seriously affected in the negative with an increase in cost to fly.
However if prices went up slightly and temporarily to compensate for making planes less polluting, that is something I could live with. But you know, when there are share holders, extra money from any price rise goes straight to them or into something that helps make more money that can go to them.
A commercial airline is a corporation, therefore its purpose is not to provide air transport, its purpose is to generate wealth for its share holders. Air transport is just a means to generate wealth, it is not a purpose. And because the main share holders are only interested in their own wealth and certainly not the well being of anyone else but themselves, increasing their wealth will ultimately be more detrimental to everything good than affordable air travel.
So, with emotional bias, I would very much like to see air travel remain at least as affordable as it currently is and in fact, get cheaper.