To be pissed off at people who constantly say we need to fly less?

[lockdowncockdown]

I'm probably going to get flamed for this but here goes. Am I being unreasonable to be annoyed by the people who constantly say 'well, we need to fly less anyway'. Well, yes that's ok for you to say at 40/50 years old after you've spent the last 20 years flying all over the world and brandishing yourself as ' well travelled' and cultured. What about those of us in our early twenties like me who has been abroad four times in my whole life, not even to anywhere particularly exciting and I'm just about to finish university and was hoping to finally be able to travel a bit? It's ok to spout nonsense about flying less when you've been lucky and already had your experiences but I find it very hypocritical to want to deny others the same experiences that you were lucky enough to have.

We need to fly less. In my thirties. Boat and train are better anyway.

I think fewer, longer holidays would be better for everyone than two sunbathing trips a year.

But not especially practical.

OP you are being very judgmental about people when you haven’t considered the luxuries and rights you enjoy in life that you only have because someone in history invented it , developed it or fought for it.
It would take all day to rattle off but you wouldn’t even have gotten abroad at all unless someone else invented planes or ships and developed infrastructure to allow mass travel.
And remember those people you slate had less of something else
Growing up in the 80s we had zero holidays other than camping. I wasn’t on a plane til I was 19 and the next time 24.
My first child I was only entitled to 18 weeks maternity leave and that was only 18 years ago. Family tax credits only came into force a few years prior to that meaning families had to survive on what they earned with no top up. Therefore holidays were a real luxury. Mums often couldn’t work as no childcare systems or financial support. Yet you now enjoy these support systems as our generation campaigned for it. This enables you to do more with your life.

My mother is 66 and has never left the island of Ireland once in her whole life. My father has only been to 4 countries from his time serving in the army.
Going back further I had an uncle who walked with a stick and a limp due to not having access to polio vaccine as a child.

People of those generations didn’t run around with plastic water bottles stuck to their face all day long. Most homes didn’t have one car never mind 2. They didn’t have technology in homes. They didn’t run automatic washing machines or tumble dryers or dishwashers. In the 80s my mum used a twin tub and a clothes horse.

Stop blaming other generations OP and stop the sense of entitlement. Everyone alive on the planet now will have to adjust what we do
It won’t stop you travelling to some degree. I too crave to see more of the world than the handful of countries I have been too. let’s be honest only those who are truly wealthy will ever really get to see the whole world. Most of us will get a foreign holiday to Europe once a year if we are lucky.

If it bothers you that much consider a career that allows you work in a company that can transfer you to other counties. Be adaptable. Emigrate. Work abroad for a summer. Take a train across Europe. Become a continental lorry driver. It’s not us 40 somethings that are holding you back. Perhaps it’s been your own life choices ?

I really hope this virus spells the death of the airline industry. The planet can't take it.

YABmassivelyU OP and sound bratty tbh. "Oh X got to do that and so I should be allowed to do it to. Who cares about the planet?"

I used to work with a bunch of people who seemed to travel competitively and come back all smug from their travels across Asia telling me how you couldn't understand the world without travelling. I'm pretty sure they could have got a better understanding of those countries by reading foreign literature or watching a good documentary rather than staying in fancy hotels full of other Westerners for a couple of weeks.

FWIW I'm mid-thirties and can count the number of times I've been on a plane on one hand. I'm not planning on doing it again. I might get a ferry/train abroad in the future at some point, but no more bloody flying.

It is even worse when these are the same people who STILL travel and haven't actually reduced their flying but are 'carbon neutral' because they've bought whatever package to make themselves feel better.
Harry and Meghan take the biscuit with this. Preaching about the environment before boarding a private jet. Emma Thompson too, flying transatlantic for the sole purpose of lecturing other people about their carbon footprint. Al Gore likewise uses more electricity in a year than the average American family use in 21. In July last year the mega-rich of this world gathered in Sicily for a Google event about global warming. They certainly didn't sail or cycle there. Nor did they use public transport. Private jets, helicopters and yachts abound.

FWIW, I'm 26 and haven't flown in seven years. I will probably fly long haul next year but certainly don't intend to make a habit of making three return transatlantic flights every year as many people do. One return trip every few years will suit me fine. Europe is easily accessible by rail, you can save a lot of money if you shop around.

We do need to fly less. It's a fact. I have been on an aeroplane roughly once a decade on average throughout my entire life. Not everyone spends their time jetsetting around - the fact that you think it is normal demonstrates how privileged you are. So yes, you are being entitled.

If we follow the logic that younger people shouldn't have to fly less than older people, at what point do we start addressing climate change? Never?

I really hope this virus spells the death of the airline industry.

as people - families and businesses - have spread so much across the globe, that is not going to happen. More people want to be able to travel than not. Just look at the numbers who used to go through somewhere like Heathrow on a daily basis.

We are flying again. We just don't know how long it will take.

I’m going to repeat myself OP and state you have nothing to complain about. It’s unarguable that flying has never been easier or cheaper - literally unarguable.

All you seem to be bothered about is people’s opinion. If you let all different groups affect you - then you’ll always have something to complain about.

Look we can all do our bit for the planet if it be recycle, walk more, eat less meat or whatever. But when I’m with my family watching a a herd of elephant In the Masai Mara , shark diving with them in Cape Town, shopping with my daughter in New York, or having a romantic meal with my husband in a piazza in Florence - I’m not thinking one bit about that Tarquin head of the Oxford University Labour association is mouthing off on Twitter that everybody who flys is more evil than Hitler.

Just enjoy yourself and see the world.

at what point do we start addressing climate change? Never?

if you think the only and main issue is people regularly flying, you need to study the issue a bit further.

My ex was flown to the company HQ every week. He stayed their for 3 nights then would fly back for the weekend and did this for 3 years. I suspect that he's not the only one taking flights for business that could be done using technology. Of course the plane would fly with or without him being there but if each company was more mindful of whether or not flights were necessary then it would surely help.

I think that there is a lot if preachiness about climate change. People who drive massive tanks of a car but whose rubbish is full of single use plastic. People who use reusable cups but fly to a resort that's more like home because it's all English-speaking tourists than see the other country.

Of course you're disappointed that your travel plans have been ruined- especially if you didn't take a gap year and went straight to university. I love travelling too but I have limited funds and secondary school kids who don't want to be apart from their friends for long so I have to live vicariously through the Internet.

as people - families and businesses - have spread so much across the globe, that is not going to happen.

Just to clarify as I wasn't clear, I don't think it's likely to spell the end of the airline industry, I just hope it does.

But it’s irritating when a generation of people who grew up on two foreign holidays a year turn around and preach to the plebs about it. It’s understandable that people who didn’t have those opportunities growing up are less thrilled about curbing travel than those whose families had a second home in Tuscany.

As always, lump everyone in a generation into one homogenous blob. The last time I checked it was the teens and twenty year olds within the last year wagging their finger at the "adults" telling us that we have to stop travel, we have to stop consumerism, we have to stop cheap goods etc etc ad nauseam because of what it's doing to the environment.

And pray tell what the proportion of people with second homes in Tuscany is, compared to the average person in a job, with kids, wanting to have an annual Easter or Summer holiday in Spain or Greece.

I don’t think an annual holiday is the problem really. A bigger problem is the high cost of public transport compared to driving etc. I’d hope the long lasting effect would be more people working from home and a reduction in traffic etc. This has shown that lots of things can happen remotely and a balance of home/office can only be good really.

In hindsight, flights used to be too cheap. I remember getting flights for £0-10. It was often cheaper to book a domestic flight than a train. I’ve never seen anything as cheap in the last few years as I did in the early to mid 2000s. I remember travelling in Europe and ruled out inter railing because it was much more expensive than just getting lots of flights.

I don't want it to end! The world is a big place, I want to see as much of it as possible and show it to my kids.

The UK is the worst place to live, you can't freely drive anywhere - being on an island and all that...

Flying less doesn't mean not flying at all. We need to subsidise train travel and tax air travel so we can travel by train while still on the same continent.
There would still be intercontinental by plane, but the ones doing too much of that are business people and celebs, not people like you. Many of those meetings could and should become virtual.

I presume "the plebs" means just the average family and they're definitely not jetting off on 4 holidays a year, or going to their second home in Tuscany.

It’s not the worst place to live is it!

Maybe train companies will reintroduce night trains to travel across Europe at least. People might be more willingly to put up with the inconvenience of a train journey if they go to bed in London and wake up nearer their destination in the morning

emz771
each to their own, I only tolerate being in this country because I can get away when I want.

The weather is awful, and there's no landscape that you can't find somewhere else abroad whilst there are lots of things that simply don't exist here.

It’s true, you don’t have to like it & May think it isn’t “fair” but that is how life works. Either suck it up or don’t and live with the consequences

Even if you believe that to be true - it quite simply isn’t true that this is the worst country to live.

Go by train. You can travel far and wide see "race across the world".

You're coming across a bit spoilt and childish, honestly!
Different generations have different advantages and disadvantages.

My gran's generation had to live through a couple of major wars, couldn't call in a doctor for sick children when she was a child because of cost, and she herself lost her only son to illness that would probably be curable now, women were paid less and expected to quit work when they had children, and there was pretty much no opportunity for university at all, or for international travel. But, she had good family relationships, a lifelong marriage (age 20 to 80s), good sense of community and my grandad was able to work throughout his life with a good pension on retirement.

My mum's generation (boomers!) got pretty good education through grammar schools, could mostly choose whether to go to university if they were academic enough or if not could walk straight into a job from school with pretty minimal qualifications, got to live through some pretty exciting social and cultural change, could buy really decent houses on their wage (from their job with O or A levels only), could travel a bit but again probably restricted by income. On the other hand they still suffered appalling sexism at work, a lot of relationship breakdown and domestic violence, quite a few economic crashes, Thatcherism, racism, homophobia, mental illness being completely undiscussed and poorly treated, and so on.

My generation (Xennial) paid uni fees although lower than your age group, still got student debt, couldn't afford houses until 30s, struggled to get jobs even with degrees, didn't get listened to at all as children (so if you went into school from an abusive home, or extreme poverty, you'd still be expected to just get on with work, and childhood mental health was ignored as basically we were all thought to be much better off than previous generations- which we probably were!), but then also got told we weren't proper adults at 20s. But we did (in some cases) get to take international flights- though like you I didn't until I was in my 20s and paid for it myself- holidays as a kid were in the UK and much less than once a year, we had to deal with much less sexism (but still a lot of homophobia), we got access to new technology from teenage/childhood, etc.

Your generation gets student debt and yes there might be restrictions on flights (but there aren't yet? So you still have time?), and like mine may have more trouble buying homes. You have better employment rates than some previous generations on graduation though, you get to study pretty much what you want and education systems are much more responsive to your needs (my kids have been able to access school counselling for example, which didn't exist when I was in school, and are taught about rights of the child), you don't get bullied for being gay (hopefully), you get good medical care free from birth to death (which will be when you're much older, so have more time to travel later in life), and you get massively listened to because the media seem to think you're "millenials" and therefore important, even though you're actually GenZ. You aren't going to have to go to war (unless you choose to join the military), and you probably aren't going to get sacked for getting pregnant. If you're rich enough to be considering travel straight after your degree, you've pretty much won in life's lottery.

Also, you might like to google Greta Thunberg. I think you'll find she's actually younger than you (and has a much wiser perspective!)

OP I am 57 - you can have all my remaining flights with pleasure. It's generally a shit experience anyway, aside from fucking up the planet.

And to those saying travel by train for most with kids this isn’t practical. How do you get from UK to go and the gorillas in Rwanda and back in a two week Easter holiday?

Only works for short distances, those on a gap year, the retired etc.