Why we shouldn’t all stop flying
A recent BBC article posed the question ‘What if we all stopped flying?’ and discussed some of the implications that would have.
With the ever-increasing influence of the green ‘lobby’, the idea of people reducing the number of flights they take (or stopping flying altogether) has been resurfacing periodically for a number of years.
I wouldn’t consider myself a huge advocate of flying by any means. I’ve never had the fear of flying which afflicts some of my friends and relatives, but whenever I’ve flown in the past, I’ve found myself questioning whether the whole process could be done carried out more efficiently.
The fact that you need to be there a few hours before your scheduled departure time has always seemed a bit excessive, and I’ve found it’s almost impossible not to feel you’re wasting time. In addition, while I don’t want to see anyone get hurt (or worse), I’ve always felt that the security checks they make you go through are vastly over the top.
Having said that, I feel that for travelling long distances, flying is often the only realistic option, and have always regarded it as a necessary evil if I want to get to my destination.
I will concede that for certain things, flying may no longer be necessary in the modern world. For example, although services such as Skype, Zoom etc have existed for many years, it took the Covid pandemic for us to realise that a lot of business meetings can be carried out remotely. I would imagine that in future, remote meetings might be preferable, both from a cost saving perspective and to help boost companies’ green credentials.
However, whenever I hear the idea of everyone stopping flying, my first thought usually has to do with holidays abroad. It tends to be something along the following lines; ‘Are there seriously people sitting on a beach in Spain thinking ‘Yeah, the beach is lovely, the beer is great, but that plane I used to get here must be really bad for the environment’?’. Apparently, there are.
The above may appear somewhat flippant, but there are serious points to be made in favour of continuing to fly to other countries for tourism. The most obvious is the economic damage it would do to countries with large tourism industries.
It’s no secret that countries such as Spain, Portugal, Italy etc were struggling economically even before the Covid pandemic interrupted international travel, so if we were to stop flying altogether, this would make things even worse for them. I’m not sure how they would compensate for the sudden loss of tourist revenue, or if it’s even possible.
It would impact at the other end as well — for example, the airlines which take people abroad would go out of business, causing a large number of job losses, which would result in further economic damage.
There are other issues to consider as well. Following the advent of air travel, it has often been said that the world was getting smaller. It facilitated a greater degree of social and cultural exchange between different countries than we ever had before.
If we were all to stop flying, we would have far fewer opportunities to experience other cultures and to see how people in other countries live first-hand. Obviously we would still be able to connect virtually, but I would still argue that watching a YouTube video about La Sagrada Familia or the Trevi Fountain pales in comparison to seeing these landmarks for real.
If we couldn’t travel to these places, or at least travelling was made more difficult, the world would start to get ‘bigger’ and we would feel even less connected to people from other countries.
In addition, there are a lot of people who see holidays abroad as something to work towards, and something to look forward to. It might be that the thought of 2 weeks in Alicante later in the year is the only thing that makes your soul-destroying desk job just about bearable. I can’t see what you would replace this with.
Admittedly holidays in the UK would be an option, and I have fond memories of going to Great Yarmouth as a child, however never being able to go abroad again would be a depressing thought for many people, myself included.
To sum up, I’d argue that although flying does contribute to pollution, stopping flying would be worse for our overall wellbeing. It would be much harder to experience other countries and cultures, and this in turn would increase feelings of being disconnected from them. I don’t see how this can possibly be seen as progress — it would feel like a huge backward step to me.
