I really wonder what will happen if flightshaming continues and starts to have an impact.
I work in a travel heavy industry (semiconductors) and the first year and a half where only the bare minimum of folks travelled (getting engineers into Korea & Taiwan in 2020/2021 was interesting) productivity noticeably plummeted.
Not only that though, international teams became openly more hostile towards each other and retreated into their national, culturally familiar shell.
The Taiwanese became way more sceptical of the Americans. The Americans started to openly disdain the Europeans and everybody shittalked the Chinese and Japanese („They are lying about their numbers Anyways.“)
My thesis: the danger of international conflict rises and the ability to cooperate in humanities interest sinks linearly with the decrease of international travel.
Since many countries can visit each other only via airplane (unless we start researching international HSR & get back ocean liners ^_^), we need more international travel where there is no HSR alternative (Europe only).
When I grew up a military dependent, all of my parents peers were world travelled and very open minded. Wanted to serve overseas. Today’s military, they cloister around bases/ American bars and seem to have hated everywhere they were stationed.
I'm currently on a contract working for an airline, and I have to wonder if there's much of a future for general commercial passenger air travel.
Among other things, I've learned that internally airlines don't even pretend those extra-cost items (extra bags, better seat, food) are priced to cover rising costs. They are just profits, upsells, like fries with your hamburger. This is especially true of the seat upgrades within the main cabin. The first 4-5 rows only differ from the rest of the plane in that you get to board earlier and get out sooner; you get first crack at overhead bins, and that's about it.
Anyway, aside from climate change concerns, the costs of fuel are only going to go up, more companies are shifting to hybrid of fully remote work (however reluctantly) and reducing travel. The pandemic was a huge disruption to the travel and hospitality industries, and probably signaled the end of an era as much as airline deregulation did in 1978.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 21.4 ms ] threadI work in a travel heavy industry (semiconductors) and the first year and a half where only the bare minimum of folks travelled (getting engineers into Korea & Taiwan in 2020/2021 was interesting) productivity noticeably plummeted.
Not only that though, international teams became openly more hostile towards each other and retreated into their national, culturally familiar shell.
The Taiwanese became way more sceptical of the Americans. The Americans started to openly disdain the Europeans and everybody shittalked the Chinese and Japanese („They are lying about their numbers Anyways.“)
My thesis: the danger of international conflict rises and the ability to cooperate in humanities interest sinks linearly with the decrease of international travel.
Since many countries can visit each other only via airplane (unless we start researching international HSR & get back ocean liners ^_^), we need more international travel where there is no HSR alternative (Europe only).
I guess it will make it easier to kill whomever.
Among other things, I've learned that internally airlines don't even pretend those extra-cost items (extra bags, better seat, food) are priced to cover rising costs. They are just profits, upsells, like fries with your hamburger. This is especially true of the seat upgrades within the main cabin. The first 4-5 rows only differ from the rest of the plane in that you get to board earlier and get out sooner; you get first crack at overhead bins, and that's about it.
Anyway, aside from climate change concerns, the costs of fuel are only going to go up, more companies are shifting to hybrid of fully remote work (however reluctantly) and reducing travel. The pandemic was a huge disruption to the travel and hospitality industries, and probably signaled the end of an era as much as airline deregulation did in 1978.
I remember when companies started doing that.
I interpreted it as a big FU to low-frequency fliers like me. I could no longer get enough miles to qualify for a free flight.
Because of course the goal of expiring miles was to get people to fly more often.