Have we reached a turning point for travel by air?
No more flights are leaving for London from Sweden. We live in strange times and nothing may ever be quite the same again. Right now the air we breath is cleaner and the skies are bluer. Just think about what a refreshing change that is. Perhaps it is time to rethink our behaviour and take measures to reduce how much we travel by plane.
On 9 April 2020, the last scheduled flight took off from Sweden for the UK. It was a British Airways flight from Arlanda in Stockholm to London. The British Embassy in Sweden warned this could be the last chance for British citizens to fly home from Sweden during the worsening pandemic and they could not say when flights would resume. I am a British citizen but I have made Malmö in Sweden my home. I am staying.
In effect I am grounded, as are the fleets of aircraft standing at major airports. Arlanda is so full of aircraft on the ground that they don’t have room for anymore. Airports have become parking places for planes.
Last year I took 10 flights to and from London. Shame on me! The Swedes have a new word for this: flygskam. My excuse is that I became a grandfather in 2018 and I went to see my little granddaughter and family several times. My daughter lives in London with her husband and she gave birth to her first child in February 2018. Since then, she has given birth to a baby boy in March 2020.
Grandad is grounded
I would love to see the new-born baby but there is no way to travel to London at the moment. Most of the world is also grounded and certain sectors of the economy have ground to a halt.
Let’s look closer at the word ‘grounded’. It has another meaning: to have your feet firmly planted on the ground. And perhaps that is what is happening – we are having to slow down the pace of life and we now have more contact with the earth.
We have time to stop and stare. I have never seen the skies so clear and blue as they have been this spring. There used to be a steady trail of planes plying through the skies over my head but now there is not a con trail in sight.
Everyone wants the current crisis to blow over but every cloud has a silver lining. The air is suddenly a lot clearer and cleaner. We have done what we thought was extremely difficult – cut our carbon dioxide emissions and levels of pollution drastically. The planet is taking a breather.
Breaking habits
Don’t get me wrong – I am not advocating that an economic standstill and countries on lockdown is the solution to the climate crisis. However, the corona crisis is making us all think twice about our behaviour and our habits.
It is supposed to take about 30 days of regular practice to adopt a new habit. One of the important things about this crisis is that it has broken some of our old habits that were bad for the environment, like flying.
This pandemic gives us the possibility to think of another way of living. It can act as a wake-up call for humanity. Something has to change moving forwards. What is happening is not just about a virus. If this virus had not affected us, then sooner or later, a worldwide climate crisis would have affected us.
We can now see the positive effects on the air we breath. I hope that we can learn something when this is over so we don’t go back to exactly the same way of living as before.
I am not saying that working from home every day is possible for everyone or having video conferences instead of physical meetings is always the answer. But travelling so much by plane is something we have to look at carefully. Is it really necessary to fly so much?
Of course I can’t wait to see my grandchildren in real life. In the meantime, the wonders of modern technology allow me to see them via Facetime.
Eight changes
It is estimated that you can make 40,000 train trips between Stockholm and Gothenburg before your carbon footprint is equivalent to taking one scheduled flight over the same distance.
I have checked out the trains from Malmö to London. The journey requires changing trains eight times. It’s a lot of hassle so what could make me change to the train?
The low-cost airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet have made plane travel more competitive than trains on price over certain routes and distances. As a consumer who is concerned about climate change, I would certainly consider train travel as a good alternative, especially if the price of flying increases.
After this corona crisis is over, it is time for a change or two or even eight! I am not making any promises, but maybe I have taken my last flight to London.
By Peter Goddard