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Author Topic: Could you give up flying? Meet the no-plane pioneers  (Read 43757 times)
TonyK
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« Reply #15 on: May 23, 2019, 20:09:07 »


Air Passenger Duty does the same thing but in a different way. It also means that airlines aren't tempted (where it would be possible) to refuel for both journeys overseas where the fuel tax would be lower.

That doesn't happen, except for the very limited cases where fuel isn't available at the destination.

A pilot calculates the fuel he will need by first working out how much he needs to taxy to the runway and queue for takeoff. At somewhere like Heathrow, this is not negligible. Pilots sometimes taxy on one engine only in the smaller aircraft (which leads to the noise like an angry dog hitting something - side issue) even at Bristol. Next the pilot works out how much is needed to get to the destination airport. This gets more complex with length of flight, as the predicted wind directions and speeds likely to be encountered become more unpredictable. The heaviest fuel consumption happens at takeoff and climb to altitude, mitigated by the pilot making another complex calculation involving weight, weather, wind, temperature, altitude of airfield and more, to use as much of the runway as is safe to use for the takeoff run. Some aircraft start that run weighing more than the maximum they can get off the ground with, the pilot knowing that enough fuel will be burned off before the aircraft reaches rotation speed to bring it under the line. At the other end, the aircraft must have enough fuel to divert to an alternate airfield, plus an additional 30 minutes to hold there if need be. So a flight from (for example) Rome to Bristol, about 2 hours most days, will depart with fuel for about 3 hours, to give enough to get to Cardiff, or more likely Exeter or Birmingham, in case of bad weather or airport closure. Most pilots will use their experience of the route to decide whether or not to add a bit for good luck.

Airlines do not encourage pilots to carry more than they need, because to carry fuel means using fuel, especially in that portion of the journey from tarmac to 39,000 feet (actually flight level 390, which is almost never 39,000 feet, but I digress again). It also means on extremely long flights that an extra bit of cargo, a lucrative sideline on passenger flights, especially mail, cannot be taken.

An alternative to flying there and back on one tank is to refuel en route, but then you have to bring that big bird down to ground and back up again. In my many flights, I have only had one refuelling stop. That was at Brussels on a Turkish airline (Onur) flight from Bristol to Dalaman. We also took on all the catering, so I guess there was an arrangement. My son in law often gets refuelling stops, but then he is heading to and from the Falklands. Doing it to avoid tax may be cutting off your nose to spite your face, but it could tempt airlines to land in UK (United Kingdom) with more on board than they would otherwise to enable them to buy less at our price, leading to less revenue than the taxman expected, and probably higher emissions over UK.

General aviation is different. Unless you are carrying an exceptionally heavy load (like three Coffee Shop members), you fill up to the recommended level, then take off at full power every time. The maxims are that you only have too much fuel if you are on fire, and you can use any fuel except what you left behind in the bowser. Plus you need 45 minutes' fuel in reserve as well as the diversion.

Tap water is greener and cheaper.

I have been somewhere where the tap water was a lot greener, and where I even cleaned my teeth in bottled water.

………..did the new planes not have a satisfactory buffet?  Wink
Only a trolley  Grin

Etihad have a very satisfactory service on the A380s, with one of the few airline meals that I would have enjoyed on the ground. Plus free drinks throughout, even if the flight is preceded by a travel prayer from the Holy Qur'an, played discreetly on the seat-back screens. It was in Arabic, so I can't tell you the actual form of words, except that it began Bismillah (In the name of God) which I recognised from another context.

Getting back to the very interesting question, my answer is probably not, at least not yet. I do try alternatives - taking a 9-hour train journey from New York to Canada, for example, then using Canadian railways rather than internal flights, but I had to get to New York first, and the other members of my party were too time-constrained to sail. Plus marine diesel is probably the filthiest fuel used anywhere in the world.I'm not sure which does more total harm. I have flown within Britain, though (ignoring my hobby flying for a moment) going from Bristol to Edinburgh and back most recently, for about £15 each way, which compared very favourably with rail.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2019, 20:30:37 by TonyK » Logged

Now, please!
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« Reply #16 on: May 24, 2019, 07:02:21 »

I hadn't realised that I was a pioneer.

I gave up flying within Europe back in 2006, after having to fly back from Strasbourg (well, Ryanair's funny operation at Baden-Baden actually) for a funeral up in Durham. The return journey was with EasyJet and wasn't very good. We got waved off from Geneva when we were on our final approach and had to go round again for what was a hard landing. After which I decided that flying wasn't very green and that I didn't like it anyway. Since then I've always done Europe by train. I have some advantages : my other half has an uncle with a convenient flat in London, while I have an uncle with a convenient flat in south-east France. But I've done Barcelona, Santiago, Wien, Milano and Budapest quite happily. I do Ireland and the Netherlands by ferry, using the excellent RailSail offers.

Since 2006 I've done a long-haul flight to India, for which there really wasn't a serious alternative, and an Edinburgh - Schipol when I was tight for time and couldn't have got to the Harwich ferry.

Travelling by train has the advantage that you get a much better sense of geography. In the Alps, climbing up the Maurienne valley to Modane to go through the tunnel from France to Italy, even the TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) slows down. Well, it is 1 in 33 with lots of curves and only 1.5kV, so there's a 115 km/h limit (70 mile/h). Alas, that'll go when these base tunnels get opened. By comparison, all airports are pretty much alike, though some (like Geneva) are hemmed in by mountains and some are bigger than others (like Schipol, where the taxi in from where we landed took forever).

I suspect I'll try to avoid the base tunnels. When going to Germany, I tend to avoid the Koeln-Frankfurt high-speed line and go for the 'old' Rhine Gorge route instead.

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grahame
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« Reply #17 on: May 24, 2019, 08:19:29 »

Looking to get an idea of the (UK (United Kingdom)) volume of flying ... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_in_the_United_Kingdom gives passenger [journey] numbers at the 40 top UK airports ... starting with 80 million annually at Heathrow. That's compared to 94 million at Waterloo. (from the ORR» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) data).   40th airport in the list was Alderney at 53 thousand passengers; that's one I HAVE flow to and it's small - you would need to get a long way down past the 1000th station to get to figures that low.  So many more rail journeys already that plane journeys - at least in the UK. 

Taking BRISTOL as an example - which flights could easily be replace by trains for many people? Here are the next flights out ...

Quote
Amsterdam   Klm   KL 1050   09:20   
Krakow   Ryanair   FR 7226   09:30   
Palma   easyJet   EZY 6041   10:05   
Sanford   TUI (Touristik Union International. Also known as TUI Group - )   TOM 452   10:20   
Copenhagen   easyJet   EZY 6135   10:35   
Faro   Ryanair   FR 8248   10:35   
Toulouse   easyJet   EZY 6139   10:55   
Alicante   Ryanair   FR 8286   11:10   
Edinburgh   easyJet   EZY 425   12:00   
Rome   easyJet   EZY 6185   12:10   
Knock   Ryanair   FR 8202   12:15
Guernsey   Aurigny   GR 643   12:20   
Girona   Ryanair   FR 9336   12:40   
Cork   Aer Lingus   EI 3843   12:50   
Glasgow   easyJet   EZY 403   12:50   
Nice   easyJet   EZY 6113   12:50   
Belfast Intl   easyJet   EZY 445   12:55   
Dublin   Aer Lingus   EI 3283   13:00   
Beziers   Ryanair   FR 6022   13:00   
Berlin   easyJet   EZY 6237   13:10   
Newcastle   easyJet   EZY 568   13:15   
Tenerife   Thomascook   MT 1422   13:15   
Athens   easyJet   EZY 6061   13:30   
Basel   easyJet   EZY 6085   13:45   
Amsterdam   Klm   KL 1052   13:45   
Inverness   easyJet   EZY 393   13:55
   

12 - mainland Europe
4 - UK mainland
4 - Island of Ireland
4 - Europe offshore islands
1 - USA
1 - UK offshore islands
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« Reply #18 on: May 24, 2019, 13:30:46 »

From the BBC» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) ... not doing great things for the climate, right?

Quote
The number of flights using British skies on one day is set to reach an all-time high of 9,000 on Friday.

More than than six per minute are expected, exceeding the previous record of 8,854 set on 25 May 2018.

A bank holiday, school half-term, the Monaco Grand Prix, and Cannes Film Festival have added to the spike, air traffic controller Nats said.

The record may soon be broken again, with flights to the Champions League final in Madrid on 1 June contributing.
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« Reply #19 on: May 24, 2019, 15:50:39 »

It can be done.

I know someone who will be doing UK (United Kingdom) Australia both ways by rail and ship!

Not sure which route is out

 China near Hong Kong by Trans Siberian etc. Ship to Melbourne

Australia Singapore ship then train  to china and Trans Siberian. I understand ther my be coach inviolved between Cambodia and Vietnam.
Probably take 6 weeks.
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SandTEngineer
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« Reply #20 on: May 24, 2019, 17:18:52 »

It can be done.

I know someone who will be doing UK (United Kingdom) Australia both ways by rail and ship!

Not sure which route is out

 China near Hong Kong by Trans Siberian etc. Ship to Melbourne

Australia Singapore ship then train  to china and Trans Siberian. I understand ther my be coach inviolved between Cambodia and Vietnam.
Probably take 6 weeks.

Is that by cargo ship or other means?
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patch38
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« Reply #21 on: May 24, 2019, 17:21:34 »

From the BBC» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) ... not doing great things for the climate, right?

Quote
The number of flights using British skies on one day is set to reach an all-time high of 9,000 on Friday.

More than than six per minute are expected, exceeding the previous record of 8,854 set on 25 May 2018.

A bank holiday, school half-term, the Monaco Grand Prix, and Cannes Film Festival have added to the spike, air traffic controller Nats said.

The record may soon be broken again, with flights to the Champions League final in Madrid on 1 June contributing.


The airlines put on extra flights for the Monaco GP and Cannes? That's news to me.
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stuving
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« Reply #22 on: May 24, 2019, 17:35:30 »

From the BBC» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) ... not doing great things for the climate, right?

Quote
The number of flights using British skies on one day is set to reach an all-time high of 9,000 on Friday.

More than than six per minute are expected, exceeding the previous record of 8,854 set on 25 May 2018.

A bank holiday, school half-term, the Monaco Grand Prix, and Cannes Film Festival have added to the spike, air traffic controller Nats said.

The record may soon be broken again, with flights to the Champions League final in Madrid on 1 June contributing.


The airlines put on extra flights for the Monaco GP and Cannes? That's news to me.

I'm not sure that's a valid inference.
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patch38
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« Reply #23 on: May 24, 2019, 18:43:33 »

The number of people flying may increase but aren't the number of commercial flights relatively constant? Or do the figures include things like private jet charters, which will definitely increase the number of flights to NCE and environs at this time of year?
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Robin Summerhill
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« Reply #24 on: May 24, 2019, 20:08:00 »

I am old enough to remember the days when the only people who could afford to fly were the filthy rich. And the problem is that if a government should seek to restrict flying options by using taxation, those days could easily return. It’s an example of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

When I was a kid nobody I knew had ever flown anywhere, and I’d hazard a guess that at least the vast majority of those people didn’t know anyone who had flown either. Most of ‘em wouldn’t even have left the country. That’s how it was in those days (and I’m not talking ancient history here, I’m talking the 1950s and 1960s).

I had an aunt by marriage whose sister had married a GI during World War 2 (WW2) and went to live in the USA. Aunt went over two or three times in 15 or so years, and that meant getting herself to a port (Southampton I think), then a liner to New York and presumably a train or Greyhound bus from there to wherever it was in Ohio she was going. When she went she was gone for a couple of months. This of course was in the days when men worked and women stayed home as housekeepers so that was how she managed to do it. Her husband never went with her because at best it would have meant weeks of unpaid leave after he’d used up his annual fortnight’s holiday, and the family couldn’t have afforded that. That was the way things were. Do you want to see those days come back?

But that was then and this is now. The world has moved on, and aviation has done more than any other form of transport to turn the planet into a global village. Ordinary people, whose grandparents may have considered the Isle of Wight to be “abroad,” now have the opportunity to visit and see other parts of the world that their ancestors wouldn’t even have dreamt about. The cat is out of the bag; the can of worms has been opened, and it would be a brave politician indeed who advocated policies to try to put them back in.

But why stop at aviation? This is a railway-related forum, so it is worth bearing in mind that the railways did much the same thing getting on now for 200 years ago. Our ancestors from not many generations ago rarely went more than 10 miles from the place they were born in their lifetimes. The railways made mass transit possible, and brought new horizons to people who previously had to walk or use a horse. Perhaps in our quest to “save the planet” we should restrict the use of railways as well, and indeed the tarmaced roads that came along 100 years later and continued the process. What do you think about that? Perhaps you think I’m being daft?

Now don’t get me wrong – I have as good green credentials as the rest of them, but I do believe in looking at the practicalities. What we have done – globally – is to make all forms of transport more energy efficient, and what we should be doing (and still are) is to continue with that process. What we should not be doing is trying to attack one particular element of the transportation industry with a “hair shirt” policy which would severely restrict the actions of large swathes of the global population, whilst at the same time simply tut-tutting at the parents who take little Johnny the 800 yards to school in a Chelsea Tractor because its “not safe” for the little dear to walk it like we had to when we were kids.

Oh – and by the way – I’ll take no lectures from a millionaire actress who flies from LA to London to take part in a climate change protest and then flies back again. I presume those flights were in first class… If they were, that rather supports the point I made at the top of this post.

Rant over  Grin



Edit:VickiS - Clarifying acronyms
« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 22:18:14 by VickiS » Logged
Bmblbzzz
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« Reply #25 on: May 24, 2019, 20:47:12 »

I am old enough to remember the days when the only people who could afford to fly were the filthy rich. And the problem is that if a government should seek to restrict flying options by using taxation, those days could easily return. It’s an example of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Would it be unintended? If you want to reduce the number of people flying, there are only really three effective ways to do it: make it unaffordable, ration it or ban it. Persuasion is not effective in things like this. None of them palatable. Not doing anything also unpalatable. So we'll probably have a lot of talk about how to find the least unpalatable option and then talks about the talks and other talks about how to define palatability...

I do agree about the social and cultural benefits of travel, mostly.
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« Reply #26 on: May 24, 2019, 23:17:37 »

If you want to reduce the number of people flying, there are only really three effective ways to do it: make it unaffordable, ration it or ban it.

Stick, stick, stick.


How about making public (train) transport travel cheaper over long distance, easy to find out about, plan, book, use, and with much more space on trains making them a pleasure.  Add a section in each train where you can walk up and buy a decent cup of coffee, perhaps even a bacon bap, and chat with a real staff member who doubles up as a safety and customer host.  Seats / carriages where you can lay down and sleep. High speed [too/two]. Ease personal movement to that you can remove intermediate paperwork and admin. Come into the city centres and include "total journey" in the fare - suburban train and bus to get you to where you really need to be.

You may still want to gently apply the sticks, but do add the carrot alternative!

Realistically, you will not remove all the very long distance (intercontinental) air stuff.  But the British Isles / France / Belgium / Netherlands / Germany short hauls ...
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« Reply #27 on: May 25, 2019, 00:02:20 »

Well, as the oil will slowly run out, so our abilty to fly wil be reduced at an afordable price, and as we are due an ice age, global warming may stop that,.
And as for transport in the Uk we have  very much coal for our steam trains of the future!
Mother nature always likes to balance out the climate, over a cold winter to the next being warmer, through to millions of years timescales, the planet wil go on, just perhaps not us humans.
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« Reply #28 on: May 25, 2019, 11:16:41 »

This British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)) link ... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48217969 ... suggests how to best travel overland to Baku for the Europa League Cup final on 29th May.   Oh - you needed to set off yesterday (24th) ...


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« Reply #29 on: May 25, 2019, 11:27:50 »

Yes, carrots are good. But they are different from sticks. I was really concentrating on the idea of unintended consequences: that if you intend to raise taxes on aviation in order to reduce numbers flying, that's going to mean a mechanism of higher prices. Therefore, the unaffordability is not unintended. (I suppose you could construct an economic model in which airlines absorb the higher costs and as a result either have to cut routes, concentrate on a smaller number of first class passengers, or go bust.)

Coming back to carrots, yes you could make long distance train travel more attractive, but that would tend to increase train travel rather than reduce air travel. Modal growth usually outpaces modal shift. Flying is a good example: the numbers of people flying to America or Australia now far exceed the numbers who went by ship a hundred years ago.
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