Many international students like me spent last week counting down the days till the release of the December exam timetable on one hand, while counting the daily increase of flight prices on the other. This vigilance was a ruthless attempt by students to book the cheapest flights possible to return home to their families for the Christmas break. Nonetheless, a recent report published by the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University recommended that air fares should be increased to curb “frivolous air travel.”
According to the report, a rise in air fares would reduce the environmental damage caused by flying, a move that is supported by the travelling public.
Well, I am a member of the travelling public, and I certainly do not support this move. And how, by the way, are they defining “frivolous” travel? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning damage to the environment, but isn’t it all too easy to jump on board the environmental bandwagon and fly so high on moral hot air that one loses sight of reasonable and plane (sic) matters?
Those who attack cheap air fares are more often than not earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, plus expenses, and get first-class seats as a matter of course. At first glance, arguments against low-cost airfares can be seen as emanating from “soft socialists” who are concerned about the environment. And yet, the general disdain shown for those taking full advantage of these cheap flights-namely, students-leads me to think that the authors of this study are not progressive at all, but in fact conservative.
At one time only viable for the wealthy few, flying is now a commodity available to practically anyone. Even cash-strapped students are not confined to the summer sojourn choices of our parents’ generation: an Algonquin adventure or a wet weekend’s bird-spotting in Long Point Provincial Park. The low fares available today allow students to study abroad, gaining a window on education outside their home nation.
Many will shrug off these social benefits as a pathetic justification for the damage done to the environment by excessive air travel, but the broadening of horizons and the opportunity to see a world other than one’s own are not pointless luxuries that should be written off as mawkish.
The increased cost of flying that the Oxford policy advocates would hit passengers on low-cost flights hardest. Whilst this policy might be triumphant in smothering the demand for air travel, it would do so by pricing the less-wealthy out of the market, thereby quashing the positive trend towards cheap travel of recent years.
In Charles Dickens’ day there was, at best, a deeply rooted ambivalence towards the steam engine, and at worst a real contempt. The same apocalyptic fears now assail the jet engine. We survived that Victorian bout of scepticism-perhaps we can overcome the concerns raised today.
We must bear in mind that the aviation industry is taking steps in the right direction to address the pollution problem, but the kind of government intervention proposed in the Oxford report is not a convincing solution.
For who would be left with less freedom and opportunity if low-cost fares were to be raised? Not the Oxford graduates who produce these kinds of reports, I’ll bet.
