To think soon it won’t be socially acceptable to fly

[Pigletspal]

I’m sad because I’ve been saving up for 6 years to go on holiday. I want to go to South America and Southeast Asia next year. I’ve also just got a job with a decent wage and I have been looking forward to much to making holidays a regular thing.

But they’re about to get more expensive aren’t they?

And suddenly I feel guilty about wanting to fly. One of my friends has already said that she will be going on “one last” foreign holiday and then stopping due to climate change.

And I really want to save the planet too. I’m just sad that it’s all going this way.
Am I overreacting or shall I get used to the idea my travelling days are numbered?

You can't really bemoan not being able to fly to go on holiday and then say you are concerned about climate change.

@Lockheart

houses are bought to rent out (at extortionate rates)

Same where I live. (Highly popular tourist city, so peaceful now...).

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I have family who live abroad so I need to fly to see them.(and help the local economy whilst there). I don't own or drive a car however and always pay the carbon-offsetting charge on flights. I'm also 90% vegetarian so I guess it all balances itself out, hopefully.

Why dont we do us on the biggest polluting countries like India and china where pollution comes from mostly traffic, fossil fuel burning power plants and heavy industries.

What differentiates China from India is that in the latter, there is still a lot of burning of agricultural stubble when farmers want to clear their fields. The burning usually takes place in autumn.

That contributes far more than planes flying.

Given that our mortgage depends on the aviation industry, I hope you're wrong.

I can't see people wanting to give up their overseas holidays. We've had to cancel our last two overseas trips due to first thomas cook going into liquidation and then Covid. I am desperate for a fornight in a nice hotel with other people cooking and cleaning so it's certainly socially acceptable in my world.

Business travel should become socially unacceptable as we've now seen that so much can be done from home.

I love travelling and feel it has enriched my life enormously but I have to balance that with limited finances and concern for the environment. I am not jetting off for weekend beaks or just to lie on a beach somewhere but each to their own. I go abroad once or twice or year and try to put something back into the local economy, offset the carbon etc I also love exploring the UK and it can be very varied.

As BarbaraofSeville said, it's the totality of how you live your life and the carbon footprint you have as a result that matters. So, travel with a conscience and not too often. Business flights need to drop dramatically and public transport needs to improve.

I think most people will go back to flying as much as they want, as soon as they can. It may be more expensive however.

Eventually it won't be sustainable though, and people will have to stop. They will be too busy spending their money mitigating weather disasters and flooding and dealing with famines.

It's a little sad, there are lots of places I'd love to go. On the other hand I live in a tourist destination and anyone who thinks they are getting our authentic culture here is being taken for a ride - what they are getting is a packaged reproduction of it. Locals don't even bother to go to the places tourists like, they are too expensive and crowded. And it's only good for the economy in a very superficial way.

And we aren't at nearly the level of some destinations, I can't imagine people who live in places like Venice. (Though I suspect their citizens may put their foot down.)

I take comfort that people were actually quite happy and enjoyed their holidays just as much before air travel was common.

Planes including freight, military etc only account for 2-3% of emissions so I wouldn't feel bad about your occasional trips on that score. I do think it's going to become more expensive though and I'm sad about that. Similar to you I've only in the last couple of years had enough money to take the dcs on holiday abroad or indeed on holiday anywhere and it's a shame we likely won't be able to continue.

I have never given a rat's ass about what's socially acceptable and am not about to start now.
I will still fly to take my little boy to see my family. I don't care if my wanting him to actually have a relationship with his aunts and grandparents doesn't sit well with people.

I think flying is too cheap and customers should pay the true costs - as should the airlines. It's a privilege to be able to fly, drive, all the travel that we do and if we want to do it, we have to pay. Just because we've always been able to, doesn't mean that we have a right to it and the environmental cost has always been there, we just paid lip-service to it/ignored it.

Perhaps the fairer way would be to make the seats proportionately more expensive? If you fly business/first class then you should pay the lion's share - over and above what the current rates are.

If we want airlines to survive then we have to pay - and enough for the airlines to offset carbon, properly funding it rather than piecemeal and inadequate pacifying.

I will definitely by flying as before - we only did on average one flight a year so I don't think that is excessive. I am dreaming of a Caribbean beach with a rum punch in my hand and palm trees gently wafting around.

I've often thought people should be given some kind of lifetime flight allowance, to limit the number of flights taken. It could be used on one or two long haul flights or several short haul flights. Businesses too could be given a similar (very limited) annual allowance. While I don't think flying should be abandoned altogether, it should definitely be made an exception rather than the norm.

Covidusrex - I only get three weeks' holiday a year. If you can find a boat that can get me to Australia, give me time to spend with my DD and then get me back in time for work, then I shall take it! (I hate flying!)

Tardis. 👍

Of course it won't be socially unacceptable to fly. The whole environment issue and climate change was going on long before covid 19.

Prices may go up tho as the airlines try to recoup their losses. On the other hand maybe some of the airlines will go bust and that leaves a lot of cheap stock around waiting for someone to buy it up.

My local airport is Farnborough - a dedicated business hub. In 2019 it had over 32,300 take-offs & landings. The average number of passengers per flight is 2.7.
These are the flights that need to end.

I'm guessing it may get more expensive but cant see any other problems with wanting a holiday abroad. I'm going away in October to Cyprus and im sure my holiday hotel are in great need of us tourists to stop them going bankrupt. They rely on us and don't get handouts like this country if out of work.

Nothing will change

I absolutely don't agree. Outside of Mumsnet and Twitter, very few people have issues with air travel. I have no intention of cutting down and spent 10 months travelling last year.

Some people currently feel superior banging on about not flying anymore, probably because it really doesn't suit them anyway.

They are surprisingly quiet about eating local and seasonal food or shopping in general.

Reducing unnecessary business travel - when your 2 hour meeting has proven to work just as well if not better when held virtually - that's not a bad thing.

Flying is just one part of the equation. A few short haul flights per year is no worse than:
heavy personal car use
high consumption of services/energy/products
high consumption of meat

The way forward is slight moderation of ALL consumption over the next few decades, buying more locally where possible, and supporting government's which are looking to renewable energy and sustainable development. In terms of the last of those, in the UK that currently means voting any party but the Conservatives (see friends of the earth brutal assessment of the last Conservative manifesto)

It is not unlikely that cheap flights and package tours are over with for many years. Travel by air will go back to how it was
in the 1950s and early 1960s when it was considered an "occasion". Cheap package holidays and flights have encouraged the wrong kind of tourism with many remote tribal cultures having been corrupted and wiped out. I think of wonderful places like the Galapagos Islands with their unique species which are now over-run with hotels and incomers for whom the creatures are a nuisance. Mass tourism has a lot to answer for.

Cancel one transatlantic flight = equivalent annual 1.5 tonne CO2 reduction
Have one fewer child = equivalent annual 60 tonne CO2 reduction

It's sad that so many people here can't wait to go flying again. No respect for the planet.

There are plenty of places you can travel to by train.

Flights will - I hope - become prohibitively expensive.