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Global flying demand has been increasing[0] year-on-year and is estimated to continue increasing[1] into the foreseeable future, partly due to flying subsidies

Global flying demand has been increasing[0] year-on-year and is estimated to continue increasing[1] into the foreseeable future, partly due to flying subsidies provided by many countries[2] to encourage tourism, etc. If you are alluding to a problem of people flying too often, I would work towards eliminating these subsidies first. [0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/193533/growth-of-global-air-traffic-passenger-demand/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/193533/growth-of-global-... [1]: https://www.iata.org/contentassets/d4b60cffceeb4213bb5993d5fa2f358f/toptenpaxmarkets_graph.pdf https://www.iata.org/contentassets/d4b60cffceeb4213bb5993d5f... [2]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318691221_Subsidies_in_Aviation https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318691221_Subsidies...

jorvi 7y ago
.... which inevitably turns flying / vacationing far abroad back into something exclusively for upper class people, which is easy to advocate for when you work in the tech salary bubble. If we're gonna slash subsidies and introduce carbon tax on flights, it needs to hit corporate and expensive tickets as hard as possible whilst sheltering cheaper tickets as much as possible. There's so many things HN proposes should be taxed / excised extra: cars, flights, gas, soda, alcohol, meat, rare metals in devices, batteries, electricity consumption etc etc. They aren't bad ideas (hell, I agree fully with the sentiment of most of said ideas) but it's so easy to be blind to the fact that you'd basically be turning daily life into a two caste system where only the rich are allowed vices.
- Brave-Steak 7y ago
  > whilst sheltering cheaper tickets as much as possible. I'm sorry, why? I don't see being able to travel across the world at high environmental cost to be some god given right. It's not sustainable, especially as use of long-distance travel continues to grow with no end in sight. Make it expensive for everybody, instead of subsidizing it for whatever group you have a bias for.
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    I still can't wrap my head around the prominence of this idea that the only way to solve our problems as a species is to live worse lives and to be more disconnected from others. Whether "it" is international travel, point-to-point personal transportation, or whatever, make it sustainable for everybody, instead of criticizing it for whatever group you have a bias against.
    - honestoHeminway 7y ago
      We call it physics, its a novel concept.. and the limitations imposed by physics, we call economics. If you do not like the limitations, and want to shove them towards somebody else, we call that state.
    - Brave-Steak 7y ago
      > I still can't wrap my head around the prominence of this idea that the only way to solve our problems as a species is to live worse lives and to be more disconnected from others. I'm sorry, I still can't wrap my head around the idea that consuming more is always going to be okay. Or that consuming less is automatically living worse lives? Are you serious? You're all insane. Sustainable means consuming less. For fuck's sake. It's called reduce, reuse, recycle. In that fucking order. Oh wait. This is mostly a US audience. So the idea of consuming less is anathema and utterly incomprehensible to you.
      - saber6 7y ago
        > Oh wait. This is mostly a US audience. So the idea of consuming less is anathema and utterly incomprehensible to you. There's a huge difference between consuming less... and not living at all. If people like you had your way, life as we know it would pretty much end. What you are advocating for is essentially genocide for our collective society and culture. Exchange of people and ideas is a net benefit to (most) societies.
        Brave-Steak 7y ago
- DrScientist 7y ago
  Hmm - if you have super rich you have inequality be definition - don't know why you are focusing on flying - what about super yachts or effective immunity to prosecution? If you don't like inequality then there are other ways to deal with that - rather than using it as an excuse to keep flying. I do however agree that a frequent flyer tax would be a good start, though be aware that a lot of airline routes are effectively funded by business class seats, so you might find flight frequencies dropping - but that's the point right?
- glenneroo 7y ago
  > There's so many things HN proposes should be taxed I think you got my statement backward. I was advocating for the removal of taxes, since AFAIK subsidies generally utilize tax money. Maybe as you suggest, "hit corporate and expensive tickets hard" to subsidize the flying for the poor (economy) classes (which I'm assuming already happens).
- Vinnl 7y ago
  > .... which inevitably turns flying / vacationing far abroad back into something exclusively for upper class people Is it not already primarily upper-class people vacationing far abroad?
  - mcny 7y ago
    > Is it not already primarily upper-class people vacationing far abroad? I don’t think of someone who makes $400k+ a year working as a software developer as necessarily upper class. In my view, upper class means someone who is financially independent and can afford to not work for money for a year or longer without a change of lifestyle.
    - hnarn 7y ago
      Only on HN will you find someone seriously arguing that a salary of over 400K USD a year does not make you upper class. Sure, you can't afford to stop working for the rest of your life, but with a salary like that you're only a few years away from being able to if you wanted.
      - logfromblammo 7y ago
        No amount of salary makes you upper class when the class boundary is defined by having passive income sufficient to meet all expenses. A salary of 2x expenses will put you in the upper class within 22 years (with average market returns), and passive income will fully replace the salary within another 8 years, but until then, that's still middle class. Basically, if you can afford to invest 1/6 or more of your income, you can make it to upper class within your lifetime, and still have time left to enjoy it.
      - mcny 7y ago
        > Only on HN will you find someone seriously arguing that a salary of over 400K USD a year does not make you upper class. Sure, you can't afford to stop working for the rest of your life, but with a salary like that you're only a few years away from being able to if you wanted. Sorry but I think we need to be real. We are not the middle class. We are poor working class people. Most of the 10% is squarely the middle class. I'd imagine a big chunk of the 1% is middle class because one medical crisis could likely bankrupt them. Look at the wealth distribution graph. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Wealth_distribution_by_percentile_in_the_United_States.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Wealth_d...

jorvi 7y ago

.... which inevitably turns flying / vacationing far abroad back into something exclusively for upper class people, which is easy to advocate for when you work in the tech salary bubble. If we're gonna slash subsidies and introduce carbon tax on flights, it needs to hit corporate and expensive tickets as hard as possible whilst sheltering cheaper tickets as much as possible. There's so many things HN proposes should be taxed / excised extra: cars, flights, gas, soda, alcohol, meat, rare metals in devices, batteries, electricity consumption etc etc. They aren't bad ideas (hell, I agree fully with the sentiment of most of said ideas) but it's so easy to be blind to the fact that you'd basically be turning daily life into a two caste system where only the rich are allowed vices.

Brave-Steak 7y ago
> whilst sheltering cheaper tickets as much as possible. I'm sorry, why? I don't see being able to travel across the world at high environmental cost to be some god given right. It's not sustainable, especially as use of long-distance travel continues to grow with no end in sight. Make it expensive for everybody, instead of subsidizing it for whatever group you have a bias for.
- nitrogen 7y ago
  I still can't wrap my head around the prominence of this idea that the only way to solve our problems as a species is to live worse lives and to be more disconnected from others. Whether "it" is international travel, point-to-point personal transportation, or whatever, make it sustainable for everybody, instead of criticizing it for whatever group you have a bias against.
  - honestoHeminway 7y ago
    We call it physics, its a novel concept.. and the limitations imposed by physics, we call economics. If you do not like the limitations, and want to shove them towards somebody else, we call that state.
  - Brave-Steak 7y ago
    > I still can't wrap my head around the prominence of this idea that the only way to solve our problems as a species is to live worse lives and to be more disconnected from others. I'm sorry, I still can't wrap my head around the idea that consuming more is always going to be okay. Or that consuming less is automatically living worse lives? Are you serious? You're all insane. Sustainable means consuming less. For fuck's sake. It's called reduce, reuse, recycle. In that fucking order. Oh wait. This is mostly a US audience. So the idea of consuming less is anathema and utterly incomprehensible to you.
    - saber6 7y ago
      > Oh wait. This is mostly a US audience. So the idea of consuming less is anathema and utterly incomprehensible to you. There's a huge difference between consuming less... and not living at all. If people like you had your way, life as we know it would pretty much end. What you are advocating for is essentially genocide for our collective society and culture. Exchange of people and ideas is a net benefit to (most) societies.
      - Brave-Steak 7y ago
DrScientist 7y ago
Hmm - if you have super rich you have inequality be definition - don't know why you are focusing on flying - what about super yachts or effective immunity to prosecution? If you don't like inequality then there are other ways to deal with that - rather than using it as an excuse to keep flying. I do however agree that a frequent flyer tax would be a good start, though be aware that a lot of airline routes are effectively funded by business class seats, so you might find flight frequencies dropping - but that's the point right?
glenneroo 7y ago
> There's so many things HN proposes should be taxed I think you got my statement backward. I was advocating for the removal of taxes, since AFAIK subsidies generally utilize tax money. Maybe as you suggest, "hit corporate and expensive tickets hard" to subsidize the flying for the poor (economy) classes (which I'm assuming already happens).
Vinnl 7y ago
> .... which inevitably turns flying / vacationing far abroad back into something exclusively for upper class people Is it not already primarily upper-class people vacationing far abroad?
- mcny 7y ago
  > Is it not already primarily upper-class people vacationing far abroad? I don’t think of someone who makes $400k+ a year working as a software developer as necessarily upper class. In my view, upper class means someone who is financially independent and can afford to not work for money for a year or longer without a change of lifestyle.
  - hnarn 7y ago
    Only on HN will you find someone seriously arguing that a salary of over 400K USD a year does not make you upper class. Sure, you can't afford to stop working for the rest of your life, but with a salary like that you're only a few years away from being able to if you wanted.
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      No amount of salary makes you upper class when the class boundary is defined by having passive income sufficient to meet all expenses. A salary of 2x expenses will put you in the upper class within 22 years (with average market returns), and passive income will fully replace the salary within another 8 years, but until then, that's still middle class. Basically, if you can afford to invest 1/6 or more of your income, you can make it to upper class within your lifetime, and still have time left to enjoy it.
    - mcny 7y ago
      > Only on HN will you find someone seriously arguing that a salary of over 400K USD a year does not make you upper class. Sure, you can't afford to stop working for the rest of your life, but with a salary like that you're only a few years away from being able to if you wanted. Sorry but I think we need to be real. We are not the middle class. We are poor working class people. Most of the 10% is squarely the middle class. I'd imagine a big chunk of the 1% is middle class because one medical crisis could likely bankrupt them. Look at the wealth distribution graph. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Wealth_distribution_by_percentile_in_the_United_States.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Wealth_d...