End Domestic Flights Now!

Campaign against Climate Change | 06.07.2010 12:13 | Climate Chaos

Start: 04 Sep 2010, 11:00 am

Demonstrations in London and Manchester, Saturday 4th September

The Plan:

11.00 am Demonstration outside City Airport, London. (take the DLR at Bank to get to the ‘City airport’ stop on the Woolwich line)

12.30 “Train not plane” party board the big red (open top double decker) ‘bus-for-the-future’ which takes the message through the streets of London to Euston station.

1.40 pm "Train-not-plane" brigade boards the Manchester train at Euston.

3.49 “Train not plane” party arrives at Manchester Piccadilly station

4.00 pm Demonstration at Manchester Airport – “train not plane” party arrive around 4.25.

Evening - Party, party, party for aviation activists in Manchester

Join us on the special "train-not plane" carriage on the 13.40 train ! Cost is £ 11.50
Make it a full fun day of aviation activism! (return from Manchester Saturday night or party in Manchester and return Sunday morning ) Book a ticket at

enddomesticflights@campaigncc.org Cost is £11.50 for a seat on the carriage, first come first served for available seats. (Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester airport is £ 3.20 Return by train is £11.50 if booked well enough in advance, or £ 5.50 on megabus )

Put this date in your diary now! This will be the time to take the agenda forward on aviation, and insist that at this time of climate emergency we cannot afford to be using high-emission forms of transport where viable alternatives exist. And that aviation will need to bear the burden of emissions reductions along with other sectors

Campaign against Climate Change
e-mail: info@campaigncc.org
Homepage: http://www.campaigncc.org/

Comments

Hide the following 13 comments

No

06.07.2010 13:19

This is a hypocritical, if not pointless, protest.

There are two options:

1. Your campaign is targetting domestic flights only.
Consider the example of a passenger who wants to fly from Edinburgh to, say, Cairo. Said passenger could make a domestic flight from Edinburgh to Heathrow, then connect on to the Cairo flight. This is nice and easy. Your method would involve catching a train into London (or possibly Reading), connecting on the the underground, Heathrow Express or Railair to Heathrow, then continuing as normal. Regardless of environmental concerns, this is needlessly tenuous.

2. Domestic flights are an easy target, and once they are abolished, you will move on to European flights, and then the world.

Perhaps a better campaign would be for renationalisation or subsidisation of the rail service. Running empty trains up and down the country causes more emissions per head than a 737 on a commuter route.

or

06.07.2010 13:36

Better yet, abolish all plains and bring back air-ships.

f00l

@f00l

06.07.2010 14:01

I think you will find the energy required to purify sufficient helium to float a decent sized airship to be quite considerable.

re: Regardless of environmental concerns, this is needlessly tenuous

06.07.2010 14:14

AH: "Regardless of environmental concerns, this is needlessly tenuous"

This doesn't make sense. Environmental concerns are the whole point. Are you implying the rail journey would be more environmentally damaging than the plane journey?

Regardless of your tedium, the oil will run out eventually.

Or more strictly, it will become uneconomical to extract, but same effect. What are you going to do then?

Is it wise to use up all our oil flying everywhere? Oil has other uses on which our oil rations are better spent..

anon

@anon

06.07.2010 14:40

You are, deliberately or otherwise, missing my point.

I am illustrating good reasons why people make domestic flights, and why alternatives, to them, are not realistic. I am also suggesting that anyone who targets domestic flights purportedly for these reasons is either misguided (point 1 above), or hypocritical (point 2 above).

My summary is not specifically in support of domestic flight, but either to come out with what you mean, or make more reasonable demands on people.

doing something

06.07.2010 14:55

this is stupid.

lotek

Campaign against business flights

06.07.2010 15:51

Against all business flights and the whole idea of air miles. Campaign for one standard class only regardless of the journey. You want to fly half way round the world or over the ocean you do it in a standard/economy seat bubba..

Bertie Basset (BB)

@ AH

06.07.2010 16:28

"Perhaps a better campaign would be for renationalisation or subsidisation of the rail service. Running empty trains up and down the country causes more emissions per head than a 737 on a commuter route".

I don't understand this argument - surely commercial companies have less incentive to run trains for which there is little demand?

Matthew

Unique and meaningful title

06.07.2010 16:30

"Your method would involve catching a train into London (or possibly Reading), connecting on the the underground, Heathrow Express or Railair to Heathrow, then continuing as normal."

If the f'ing politicians had a clue then there would be a direct train from Edinburgh to Heathrow.

"Running empty trains up and down the country"

Not something I have experienced, and I have used a lot of long distance trains in the UK.

A N other

It's cheaper to travel by plane

07.07.2010 09:03

For domestic routes it is simply less expensive to travel by plane.

That's all that matters to people.

Our privatized railway system costs the UK tax-payer almost 5 times what it did when it was publicly owned and was an affordable way to travel for non-business users.

Excessive profiteering by the private rail companies means that it's cheaper, not to say a great deal quicker, to travel by plane.

Helen Stephenson

Here is What I do

07.07.2010 21:05

I do not try to change other peoples habits.
I change mine:

I have never been on a aeroplane in my life nor shall I.
I only travel when necessary and Holiday in the UK in a old caravan which uses solar power to charge the batteries.
My computer is running from re-cycled car batteries charged from solar and wind,
I only use a vehicle when the journey is outside cycle limits/ time limits .
I use a 11 year old Renault Megane diesel as building a new car creates more emissions that it can ever save.
My 11 year old Renault is fitted with a cat and averages 55-68 MPG on the odd occasion I have to drive to feed my family by earning money
I buy local produce which is grown by small holders on allotments behind my house and pay them over supermarket prices,i buy eggs from a local farm,by cycle. the food is delivered by hand

What do you do ?
Change that first, the get on the soap box

Mark R

I want to see the world man

07.07.2010 21:31

If you don't want to fly that's cool. One less weirdo messing around with the flight seats.

Macy Skipper

re: I want to see the world man

08.07.2010 01:28

You'd better hurry up - at the rate we are burning up oil there won't be much left for long.

anon