I will confess that back in the '80s, I once took advantage of an offer on Continental to fly round trip the 50 miles or so between Houston’s two airports (Intercontinental and Hobby) to get 500 air miles on each segment. In a DC-9, no less. The loss-leader offers weren’t enough, apparently; the service was discontinued a few months later.
I hereby apologize for wasting all that jet fuel, and in penance I won’t fly from Houston back to PA for Christmas.
My Dad’s a million+ miler, and it really is a different world. I love traveling with him. Free drinks, free bags, less lines, airport clubs, exit rows (and better seats in general), first class upgrades. . .
He maintains that what seems like icing to me (on vacation) is a necessity to someone spending 200 days a year on the road, like he did back in the day. (Now he and Mom just travel for pleasure). Though he says for a business traveler the increased standby/flight change/seat availability upgrades, as well as the first-class upgrades for long flights where you have to sleep on the plane and be sharp for a 9AM meeting in London. For him the airplane was literally his commuting vehicle to get to his job. Maintaining your exec status is like the difference between driving your car for 15 minutes and having 1.5 hours of walking & city bus riding to get to the same office.
I joined him on “weekend” trips to interesting places when I was growing up. Always during Christmas break, as my Dad was doing a mileage run. They are some of my fondest memories of father-daughter times.
(It does allow them to do funny things like randomly fly to Sweden for a couple of days for my mother to do genealogy research, or call me and say “Hey, wanna come to Italy next month?” like they’re inviting me to a barbecue.)
The oft made claim on The Dope about how somehow people flying in planes ought to be excused from the carbon emissions resulting because, “the plane is going to be flying that route anyway,” is almost utterly unparalleled in its stupidity. Personally, I doubt much can be done to effectively control global warming through greenhouse gas emission cuts, but its cute that people perceive that as a potentially viable effort. But, how do you think an airline decides to fly a route? Is it because the airline CEO decides, “gosh, Rome is pretty and having my airline fly there would simply make me a sublimely happy person,” or is it because an airline predicts the revenue which it could derive from operating such a route?
The aggregate effects of individuals deciding to give an airline money to fly them somewhere will just as certainly alter the behavior of that airline in deciding which routes to fly as the aggregate effects of individuals deciding to buy an Hummer H2 or Prius will have a significant effect on the greenhouse gas emissions produced by a nation’s automobile fleet.
I’m not criticizing the person who made the mileage jaunt, but if you start from the position that people ought to tailor their behavior to minimize their carbon emissions, its difficult for me to understand how you wouldn’t be critical.
I love it. It’s like a real world version of level grinding in an RPG. Only you might die.
As long as you want to level with people here, those who go on mileage runs do so when there is low demand for a particular flight which results in low ticket prices. I’ll bet you anything that a non-stop flight to Rome is fairly crowded most of the year, but there are times (like between the holidays) where such a flight isn’t going to be booked solid.
Airlines don’t like to have constantly shifting flight schedules because it makes things difficult, both as a business and for its customers. Having a handful of low demand days on a particular flight isn’t going to compel the CEO to say, “You know, we should run that JFK-Rome flight on December 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9, skipping the 4th and the 6th, but then return to everyday service next week, and then cancel the flight on the 14th, but run two flights on the 15th, since that’s a busy day…”
Once we run through all the facts, we get back to the simple point that the flight is going anyway.
I don’t know about what people have said historically in this regard. But this thread is about one person taking a mileage run on a flight that is already going to Rome. There is no reason that person needs to be taken to task over it.
Perhaps you didn’t read the sign when you came into this thread?
Well, duh. The fact remains that people are going to fly to Rome. Either for business, pleasure or both. People will be going there on vacation and for business. And unless they build Star Trek style transporters or a big assed bridge, people will be flying.
Yes, it can be mitigated by better use of conferencing technology, but if I wanna see the Coliseum, I’m gonna have to go there.
Why in the blue hell would you think everyone’s idea of miminizing their carbobn footprint is the same? In fact, why would you think that everyone starts from that
position?
I’m sure your personal global warming would be alleviated if you just pulled your head out of your ass. I hear it’s pretty warm up in there.
I think you start from the position that whatever people are doing now is necessary and go from there with the justifications, eliminating that pesky middle step of re-evaluating all the flying and figuring out if there might not be better ways to do some things.
So a person concerned about the environmental impact of global warming has their head up their ‘ass’, whilst yours is buried in the sand? Poetic eh?
And no, you needn’t apply your rapier-like wit to suggest which object I have, or should insert, into my rectum. I’ll take it as read.
Well, a person who rails against someone taking a flight on an airplane that is already going to a destination doesn’t exactly simply line up with someone who “is concerned” about the environmental impact of global warming. And make no mistake, calling out the flyer is exactly what OP did.
If OP wants to make a case for an overall reduction in the amount of air travel/flights, they are free to make it. But it has little to do with one person taking a flight that is already scheduled and will fly anyway.
And that is why I think OP has his head up his ass.
I’m pretty sure it was the pink panther and a termite. 
The stupidity and mental gymnastics continues to amaze me.
Airlines do not simply plan routes based upon peak demand, they plan them based upon total demand. A profitable route is one where the cost of operating it is smaller than the revenue it generates, and every single time you add to the revenue a route generates, it increases the profitability of that flight. Presumably, a smart airline will aim to operate only routes which are profitable, and increased revenue on any flight will increase the number of flights which can be profitably operated. So, even if the $500 this guy paid to get to Italy isn’t a fare at which the airline can break even, that latent demand puts the airline $500 closer to profitability on that route. Does this type of consumer behavior increase the airlines incentive to operate a route or operate it as often? Of course it does.
We had a similar thread about Al Gore flying in first class recently. The incomprehensibly asinine statements from individuals that wanted “something to be done” regarding global warming finding ways in which to exclude commercial air travel from the calculations continues to make it difficult for me to take such people seriously.
Yeah, yer gonna really convince people with that kind of winning attitude.
This is a prime reason I start to tune out when enviros get on their soapbox.
tacoloco, I presume you’re doing this for comedic effect. If so, I offer a tip of my cap to your delightfully understated humor.
Please refer to my previous posts:
“We had a similar thread about Al Gore flying in first class recently. The incomprehensibly asinine statements from individuals that wanted “something to be done” regarding global warming finding ways in which to exclude commercial air travel from the calculations continues to make it difficult for me to take such people seriously.”
“Personally, I doubt much can be done to effectively control global warming through greenhouse gas emission cuts, but its cute that people perceive that as a potentially viable effort.”