It's "not wasteful" if you assume that everybody is going to travel a fixed distance, regardless of the price and availability of flights. That's obviously not

It's "not wasteful" if you assume that everybody is going to travel a fixed distance, regardless of the price and availability of flights. That's obviously not true. In an instance of Jevon's Paradox, the increasing efficiency of travel has increased the amount of travelling done, and vastly so.