What is the real price of cheap air travel?
While the rest of us snap up £1.99 flights to Rome, a small but growing band of conscientious objectors are making a stand by refusing to fly. Is this the beginning of the budget travel backlash, asks Tom Robbins
Sunday January 29, 2006
The Observer
Michael Gibson's new year's resolution was a tough one, but nothing to do with giving up cigarettes, alcohol or junk food. He has decided to stop flying.
'I just realised that all my other efforts to be green - recycling, insulating the house, not driving a giant 4x4 - would be totally wiped out by a couple of holidays by air,' said Gibson, 32, from Manchester. He's not alone. Suddenly and spontaneously, growing numbers of travellers are deciding they must give up, or at least cut back on, their far-flung weekend city breaks and long-haul holidays in the sun.
Melissa Henry, a marketing director from Bristol, quit flying a year ago. 'How could I look my four-year-old daughter in the eye in 20 years' time and say "There was something I could have done but I chose not to"?' she said. 'For too long, I was saying "they must do something about it", then suddenly I realised I can't expect others to change if I'm not prepared to change myself.'
And it's not just the hardcore eco-warriors who are taking a stand. Last week, one of Britain's most influential travellers told Escape he had decided to cut down on flying. Mark Ellingham, founder of Rough Guides, the travel publishing company that played a key role in encouraging the independent travel boom of the last 20 years, said he would be limiting his trips by plane, and taking his summer holiday in Britain.
'Being in the travel business, I've taken more than the average number of flights, and was used to casually flying off to Naples for the weekend or whatever,' he said.
'So I've taken the decision that I should reduce the number of flights I'm taking and take at least part of my holiday in places that you can drive to or take a train.'
Ellingham has just commissioned the Rough Guide to Climate Change and from this summer all Rough Guides will have a section warning readers about the negative effects of flying. 'Of course it's a contradiction, but we are in the unique position of being able to put information about climate change across in exactly the right context.'
What about the danger of damaging his own business, which sells thousands of guidebooks to weekend city break fans? His response is stark: 'If that happens, so be it.'
The arguments against flying are compelling. One return flight to Florida produces the equivalent carbon dioxide to a year's motoring. A return flight to Australia equals the emissions of three average cars for a year. Fly from London to Edinburgh for the weekend and you produce 193kg of CO2, eight times the 23.8kg you produce by taking the train. Moreover, the pollution is released at an altitude where its effect on climate change is more than double that on the ground.
More frightening is the boom in the number of people flying, fuelled by cheap flights with carriers such as Ryanair and Easyjet. In 1970, British airports were used by 32 million people. In 2004, the figure was 216 million. In 2030, according to government forecasts, it will be around 500 million. The trouble is that the people most likely to be aware of these figures, are the ones who probably enjoy popping over to Europe for a weekend. It makes for a large amount of guilt, and a lot of denial.
'Most people seem to say "I should cut back, but I'm not ready to yet",' said Sarah Delfont, an oncology support specialist from Devon, who stopped flying last year. 'It's not an easy decision.'
Now, it seems, we are on the cusp of the guilt turning into action. Next month sees the launch of the first formal campaign to limit flying. Flight Pledge, will focus on a website (
http://www.flightpledge.org.uk) on which people can commit to cutting back on flying. There's a choice of a gold pledge - a promise to take no flights in the coming year - or silver, representing a maximum of two short-haul or one long-haul flight. The idea, says John Valentine, its creator, is to collect enough signatories to press the European Union into taxing aviation fuel, thus increasing air fares and stifling the growth in air travel.
But aren't there less drastic ways of addressing climate change without giving up air travel? What about carbon offsetting, where you pay a small fee per flight which goes towards tree-planting or energy saving schemes? To make your return flight to Rome carbon neutral costs just £5. A small price to pay for a clear conscience.
'It's a way of assuaging middle-class guilt,' says Liz Postlethwaite, 28, a community arts worker in Manchester who gave up flying more than a year ago. 'At the end of the day the carbon is being placed in the environment regardless of the offsetting and, if we are honest about it, the only way we can stop that happening is by reducing the number of flights we take.'
Objectively, offsetting is clearly better than nothing and has already funded some impressive schemes around the world, although environmentalists are beginning to turn against it. Friends of the Earth argues that tree-planting schemes are not reliable because it is hard to guarantee how long the trees will live. 'If there's a fire or they're cut down, you've lost your offset but you've already done the damage,' said Richard Dyer, the group's aviation campaigner.
Campaigners say energy-saving schemes, such as funding solar panels, or low-energy lightbulbs, are laudable, but should be done anyway rather than simply to offset pollution from flights.
This is bad news for the travel industry, which has latched onto offsetting like a drowning man to a life raft. 'Sustainable travel' is one of the tourism industry's favourite phrases, but there is simply no way to reconcile a business encouraging people to fly as often and far as possible, with concerns about the effects on the environment.
The Association of British Travel Agents sets the tone for the industry. It backs offsetting, and pays for its annual conference, which takes place abroad, to be made carbon neutral. At the same time, it is lobbying the government to increase runway space in Britain.
'We need more runways to cater for increased demand,' said Sean Tipton, an Abta spokesman. 'I know environmentalists are calling for a tax on flying, but that would bring about a return to the Fifties when only the well-off could fly.'
There is a positive side to this story, however. Many of those who have given up flying are finding that, far from it being a sacrifice, they actually enjoy travelling more.
'We've had some superb holidays as a result of not flying,' says Alex Smith from Balham, south London. 'Leaving Madrid on the overnight train to Paris, and having a superb meal and glass of wine in the dining car while watching the sun set over the mountains cannot be beaten as a way to finish a holiday.'
Nor is it a bar to long-distance travel. Sarah Delfont's 22-year-old Joe has also quit flying, but that won't stop him setting out in a fortnight's time on a backpacking trip to Thailand - by train. The route, involving the Trans-Siberian railway, will take far longer than a direct flight to Bangkok and probably cost more, but it promises to be much more of an adventure.
Exactly how many people are cutting back on flying is impossible to know. But it seems likely that 2006 will be the year in which the issue finally enters the mainstream. Already there has been a flurry of headlines when members of Transport 2000, the group which campaigns for more train and bus use, raised concerns about whether Michael Palin should continue as their chairman, because of the vast amount of air miles he clocks up on his travels.
The crunch is likely to be the government decision, expected later this year, on whether to allow a third runway at Heathrow. Much as we might like it to, it seems the backlash against bargain flights is not going to go away.
· Do you feel guilty about the number of flights you take each year? Will you be limiting your air travel because you are worried that you are contributing to climate change? Email us at
escape@observer.co.uk 
