My expectations are low and yet airlines somehow manage to fail. I made the mistake of booking a flight with frontier and they "delayed" the flight several times before eventually canceling the whole flight.
The best you can do is look at specific carriers, and more importantly specifically what aircraft you'll be flying on.
A cross country flight in economy is going to be more comfortable in a Delta A220 than a United 737 Max. However, because of hubs and lack of competition many non-mega metros don't really have a large amount of choice.
ULCCs thrive when they can maximize their time in the sky across as many different flights as possible. Filling up the day with many different flights allows them to rake in checked-baggage fees, reserved seat fees etc more often than longer mainline carrier flights. All of this went out the window when a large portion of their A320 fleet was grounded because of the P&W engine issues. This absolutely killed their utilization percentage.
Spirit died way more because of business management than it did because customers didn't choose on price.
This level of profligacy is simply not sustainable.
It didn't seem busy at all. Everything was on time, quick, and smooth on both sides. My partner and I commented on how smooth everything went.
Once you include getting out of Stockholm to the airport, security, boarding, the flight itself, possible baggage collection, and the trip into Umeå, I would be surprised if the total were much below 4 hours. Comparable German domestic flights such as Hamburg–Munich usually took me around 4–4.5 hours in practice in the past when traveling for work before the pandemic.
That makes the train a 6–8 hour alternative to a roughly 4-hour flight journey. Whether that is viable depends on the traveller, but it is certainly more competitive than “1 hour versus 8 hours” suggests.
I admit that for me, living about an hour north of the Hamburg main station but only 15 minutes from the airport, the plance for a business trip in Munich can still be a viable (albeit seldom taken) option. More often than not, if time permits, I take the train, work on the train. But as said - there still are situations, that make flying such a distance viable (to me).
I just wanted to point out, that it is not as clear cut as 1 hour vs. 6 to 8 hours.
Of course there are a lot of variables, if instead I leave from my house the aircraft would actually be faster, mostly due to the extra time it takes to get to Central London and from Waterloo to Euston.
In reality we usually drive in about 6-8 hours because, as a family of 4 traveling, it's considerably cheaper even before you take into account having transport on the other end.
It’s also the activity least likely to be decarbonised.
Of course there are alternatives, I haven’t flown on a plane since 2001.
Air travel is a very recent modern invention(1960s, at least for everyday folk) and people act like flying around the world is a right.
Modern capitalism is an excess machine. Air travel is a great example. Travel and tourism are seen as "musts" by people nowadays. It's insane how destructive and unnecessary it is.
Give yourself an edgy name, like the Children of Kali, to make it stick.
Honestly, if you think the stakes are that high then you implicate yourself with anything but fully committed action. Anything less, and you just seem preachy and screechy.
PS: It's a book called The Ministry of the Future. Try reading once in a while. Whoosh.
This argument has been made so often and in so much detail that I’m surprised to still see people suggest climate terrorism in, presumably, good faith.
I don't know if there was really a 'message' more than just reporting what 'happened'. But, I have to say I came away with the idea that that kind of political violence is futile. Non-violent political action seemed to have MUCH more beneficial action than any bomb. (of course it wasn't as clear-cut between non-violent groups and revolutionary groups at the time)
Maybe thats only because I just read the ONE book.
There is a reason Rosa Parks was chosen to start the bus boycott - she comes off as "just like me" to the average person. Thus when she couldn't take it anymore the rest of America didn't write her off.
The total average across the industry in 2018 was between 67 and 81 mpg. Modern planes are in the 100-120mpg range.
It is often cheaper to take a connecting flight to an airport and flying from there than to start from that airport. That disincentivises taking a low-carbon-emission train to the airport and experiencing more of (and spending more in) the city near the airport than just its airport.
Often, for longer flights, the more stops, the cheaper the total ticket gets. Planes consume more fuel at take-off and landing, making the the carbon footprint increase with these cheaper tickets. And the more you fly, the more points you get that could pay for more flights.
It should be the other way around: air-travel carbon tax should be progressive. You should pay more each time if you fly more often. That would reduce the number of flights in total while still allowing everyone to take that "trip of a life-time".
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