Cheap Flights Do more Harm Than Good

Flying used to be a thing for the rich. Now the prices have come down and it is also open to people from poorer backgrounds. This is surely the best way for a democratic society. We have become used to flying and to now render it unaffordable for the poorer classes of our nation is snatching away a great opportunity.

Flagrant disregard of social justice is neither democratic nor fair.

This concept that the aviation industry pays not tax is a myth! Train users pay on average 8.5p in tax, plane users pay £10 tax in Air Passenger Duty.

There was controversy when APD was doubled suddenly from £5 to £10 in February 2007. It is a well known fact that airplane users are already taxed, how the government manage this money is a concern entirely up to them. If the money is not being put towards carbon dioxide emissions or the necessary services then it is a mismanagement of money on the government’s behalf. The management of funds needs to be sorted out before more tax is piled on. More money will not solve the problems of mismanagement.

It is all very well replacing short haul flights with trains, but this can be no substitute for traveling abroad. We cannot develop underground trains to other countries! So yes, seen as there is another mode of transport, which is just as effective, short hail flights should be taxed heavily. However, the case with long haul flights is totally different. There is no viable option. Possibly trips to the Isle of White and Ireland could be made by boat, but further a field is too much of a strain on modern day time constraints.

So get money for trains via long haul flight taxation. There is no benefit in taxing people to cater for more trains when trains are not a viable option for the journey.

According to Plane Stupid it is the middle class who make the most use of the aviation industry. Therefore, by increasing the prices, all it will do is lower the chances of the poorer, working classes being able to go abroad. But the lower working classes would not then spend their money on the local economy. People save up for holidays abroad, it is a great incentive. But if they knew all they had to look forward to was a British summer for the umpteenth time, they would lose the incentive to save and instead spend their holidays on the sofa infront of the TV instead.

Britain now has an unemployment level of 1.79million, this is set to rise to 2 million by Christmas(1). This is all due to the credit crunch. Imagine what the figure would be if cheap airlines were to lose trade. Yes, pollution would be lowered by them sending out less flights per day, but in turn it would reduce the amount of staff needed. It would result in large scale sacking.

It would not only be pilots and air hostesses. There would the cleaners of the plane and airports, the engineers, the admin staff in offices and then the financial jobs in big firms. In the current financial climate, Britain could not afford to lose this many jobs that range from low skilled to high skilled.

(1) as of 15th October 2008

–I fear the counter point here is dreadfully poor.

Increased costs equals less people flying, equals less demand for plane companies, equals fewer flights per day, equals less employment vacancies in the aviation industry. This is all too obvious! It is not just cleaners, as has already been made quite apparent.

This debate is not about migrant workers, nor spening money. And the average cost of a long haul plane journey is far more than £20. These figures have merely been pulled out of the air and have no informative content.

Travel cultures us. We can go to another country, find out how they live their lives. We begin to appreciate how lucky as a nation Britain is. We begin to realise how different world cultures are. This culturing of Britons is very important, travel breeds tolerance. In a multicultural nation such tolerance is necessary.

By artificially raising the prices of flights you are preventing the lower classes from experiencing different cultures and in effect increasing the chances of them being racist.

Ryanair, the most popular provider of budget flights, is not opposed to the environment. In fact they invest in the environment. Ryanair wants to use less fuel, and using less fuel helps the environment. It is for this reason they invest their money into the latest technology. In the last 10years Ryanair has reduced its fuel emissions by 55%. The average age of an aircraft with Ryanair is 2.5 (1).
When the average age of aircraft across more expensive airlines, such as British Airways, is 11years, it is easy to see that the relation between cheap flights and environmental damage is not necessarily as strong as organizations such as Plane Stupid make out.

(1) http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/about.php?page=About&sec=environment

I think people forget that beyond certain distances (probably around 600 km or 372 miles), flying will become way more convenient.

I mean, let us consider traveling from London to Madrid in Europe. Even after the Spanish AVE high-speed rail system is integrated so it can interchange with the French TGV system, it will take may 8-9 hours to travel from London to Madrid by train travel (London to Paris by Eurostar, Paris to southern France by TGV, southern France to Madrid by AVE). Meanwhile, from any London airport you’ll be in Madrid in less time than it takes for a Eurostar train ride from London to Paris alone!

Imagine if you need to go to Africa or Asia from America or Europe by not using airplane. How long it would take you to arrive at Shanghai or Tokyo from London or New York? Time is money. Without affordable flight, one would find it hard to travel, to work in our world now.

Cheap-flights make the aviation industry more competitive, therefore more affordable to a wider range of customers. Wouldn’t you like to save some money to take your children out for a dinner together instead of paying high priced flight? Wouldn’t you like to see you family go abroad to learn about other cultures? Wouldn’t you like to go abroad for new opportunities or even pleasure?