A short thread on aviation, @AlokSharma_RDG and people. Triggered by the BEIS sec’s answer to a today programme question about flying and climate targets, to which he replied it would down to ‘the individual choice of people.’ Here’s some people choosing to be on a plane.

Except that at the moment planes look more like this.

Because, since the pandemic, people have been choosing not to fly. This is from OECD 2019, with data from @flightradar24

There are a wide range of predictions as to how quickly aviation demand will return but this from @chappersmk for @NEF gives an idea about the outlook - the climate impact on aviation is probably a lot lower than the pandemic threat around half the period of the new target

In the middle of a jobs crisis, this is very bad news but as Alex - supported by some of the big unions in the sector - also points out, the threat from automation in airports and by airlines is a greater threat to jobs than climate policy. https://neweconomics.org/uploads/files/aviation-workers.pdf

But what about ‘people’ and their choice? According to the @transportgovuk, in the year up to September 2019, 48% of English residents didn’t fly at all.

One theory might be that decision makers like @AlokSharma_RDG and lots of managerial types are among the top 1% or 10% of frequent flyers, so their view of what ‘people’ will choose is coloured by that. For most of us, flying is a luxury that links us to our prized holiday.

A proactive policy on aviation, linking job retention and a skills strategy to a mechanism for taxing flights that removes levies for most of us, but ramps up charges for frequent flyers, is needed and, with demand suppressed, now is the moment.

Fortunately, thanks to @crisortunity (and @NEF), such a proposal - a frequent flyer levy to replace APD - exists. http://afreeride.org 

Tweet 3 should be OECD 2020 obvs. Just my subconscious desire to erase 2020.