this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
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Solarpunk Travel

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Can a flight be ok to do for "holidays"? (slrpnk.net)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I like travelling by bike, but i am not the biggest fan of doing roundtrips, i much prefer moving further and further away. So on longer trips i will end up way far from home, and since travelling by train across Europe, can be a real ordeal (especially with a bike), i sometimes take a plane back home. I guess busses would be an option too from some locations, i personally absolutely hate travelling by bus though. Weak excuse i know.

I am able to rationalize to myself that it is ok to take that flight, i spent now weeks doing low impact travel and can end it with a boom and still probably had less impact then with my regular life at home (i have not really done the calculation tbh). Of course, if it is reasonably easy to get home by train i will definitely prefer that, and i absolutely don't always end up taking a plane.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you ever take a flight?

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[–] gimpchrist -2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

The flight will happen with or without you..... they won't be gassing the plane up just to take you to and from, so I don't see why hitching a ride on something that's already going that way would be terrible

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The flight will happen with or without you.....

If enough people buys a ticket, they will schedule more flights, so this is not true.

they won't be gassing the plane up just to take you to and from

Yes, they will. There are (somewhat rare) cases where person was only passenger on the flight.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Yes, they will. There are (somewhat rare) cases where person was only passenger on the flight.

Here is probably fair to admit that the flight would fly even totally empty, because it needs to get to the destination for some follow-up flight.

It might get worse - during covid, airlines in Europe were flying empty planes there and back just in order not to lose their contracted gate slots - the amount of fuel burned just for the fucking bureaucracy is mindblowing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That take would certainly sooth my conciousness, but aren't all bookable flights "already happening"? Unless nobody would book it? TBF i book my flights back last minute, because i usually cycle with loose plans and don't even necessarily know beforehand where i will be going home from, so those flights would absolutely happen no matter if i booked it i guess.

[–] gimpchrist 2 points 7 months ago

Yeah I was going to say try to book last minute if you're worried about that first part haha.. but to be fair, airplane routes are canceled all the time because nobody uses them so that's a good thing? I don't know haha I think I've flown twice in my life so I'm probably not the best person to ask

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

they won’t be gassing the plane up just to take you to and from

Pilots are required to calculate the amount of fuel needed for the trip +30 extra minutes. The payload weight is part of that calculation. For small 4-person aircraft that means asking each person for their weight (yes, even women must answer that). For big commercial flights they just multiply the head count by an average. The fuel weight itself is also part of that calculation, which increases as the payload increases.