The vast majority of the public and 3rd sector have now banned internal flights for business travel....
I acknowledge that this is indeed the case for many public and third sector organisations, do you have a source for the claim that the 'vast majority's have? I'm doubtful, having spent most of my working life in the public and third sectors.
source: me
In all seriousness, it has been the policy in all of my last 3 organisations, and I have lots of colleagues I work with in different orgs who are subject to the same policy. Maybe "vast majority" could be a bit of an exaggeration
Two different parts of the CS I worked for had, even as far back as 2015
I worked for a public sector organisation in 2015/2016 and our policy was similar.
Oh sure, many organisations will have policies to this effect. I was mainly doubting the majority point. My experience is that even where policies do exist, they tend to discourage domestic air travel rather than ban it outright.source: me
In all seriousness, it has been the policy in all of my last 3 organisations, and I have lots of colleagues I work with in different orgs who are subject to the same policy. Maybe "vast majority" could be a bit of an exaggeration. I currently work for the 2nd largest employer in the very large city I live in - so probably counts as a large organisation - so not an insignificant number of people who are subject to the policy
If everyone did that, a large amount. For anything, you can't just say 'your small contribution is so small its not making a difference'- everyone makes a difference!
This is akin to saying well I don't vote because it won't make a difference.
Ok the contrary, it is my preferred way of travelling from my home near Edinburgh to work in London. I sleep like a baby, maybe similar to infants sleeping well in cars with the light rumbling.
It's happening in the private sector too - my company only allows internal flights by exceptionsource: me
In all seriousness, it has been the policy in all of my last 3 organisations, and I have lots of colleagues I work with in different orgs who are subject to the same policy. Maybe "vast majority" could be a bit of an exaggeration. I currently work for the 2nd largest employer in the very large city I live in - so probably counts as a large organisation - so not an insignificant number of people who are subject to the policy
No snowflake is the cause of an avalanche.
Good to see these sorts of policies in place (even if the edge cases need a bit of smoothing out) but back to the original point, an XC voyager takes c.7h from Bristol to Scotland (if theres even direct ones left) and the planes takes 1.5hrs.
sorry - but this kind of comparison irks me. I had the same argument with a *very* senior colleague who was upset he wasn't allowed to fly from Edinburgh to Bristol, because "it only takes an hour". I pointed out that the end-end journey (between the 2 company offices) is nearer:
yes - there are 12 south-bound and 11 north-bound per day. For completeness, there are 4 flights a day.
you're obviously better than me - there's no way I could have a productive day when also squeezing in >8 hrs of travel into a day, especially if you think you could make up the extra productive time from my journey that I wouldn't get from the flight. Doing it in a day that would skew the argument even more - because for a lot of people I know, travelling to Edinburgh airport would add about an hour to the journey, so 10 hours of travelling in total.
That's still 2hrs saved. Being on a 7am flight from bristol means taxi from home at 0530, pass security (day trip so no checked bag and checking in online) 0600, takeoff 0700 land 0815, on the tram by 0845, in the city by 0930.
You can't work continuously on a XC, the on-board Wifi or phone signal drops out on a regular basis. Not to mention it's cramped and you have to be careful what you work on because anybody could be peering over your back.
That would be great, except my location is Hampshire-West Sussex coastal border -
A lot of my actual day-job work involves contributing to open-source software. If anything, people peering over my back is a good thing!
Most people's jobs involve some level of handling data sensitively. My company will pay for the polarised screens and such for working more privately on the train but they're not great if you happen to be sitting next to somebody. Similarly you have to be careful what you say on phone calls/meetings etc in public.A lot of my actual day-job work involves contributing to open-source software. If anything, people peering over my back is a good thing!
For that specific journey. I hate airports and will generally seek to take the train as much as possible. However for a journey of 500km the plane is generally winning, especially if it means I get to sleep in my own bed both nights. If I was required to be at a meeting in Leeds, it'd definitely be the train. If it was in Newcastle, it'd be borderline but again probably the train.
Of course what my company would most strongly encourage is for me not to travel at all and instead hold the meeting online. I work daily with colleagues in Manchester and London, some of whom I haven't actually met in-person yet despite working with this company for years. The only times I've personally flown on business have been internationally, as it happens (and even then it's been single-digit numbers of trips). Also, I do not believe I'm more important than the climate, but I do find it funny that if I was proposing to travel from Bristol to, say Paris (a distance of 450km) nobody would bat an eyelid about the decision to fly rather than get the train as it's not an 'internal' flight, despite it being shorter than Bristol-Edinburgh and the train being if anything more competitive (1h40 Bristol-London, 1h30 to cross and check-in, 2h30 from London to Paris-Nord for 5h40 total).
sorry - I did simplify it here. When I laid it out explicitly to my very senior colleague, I did include all of those like-for-like values, and included 5 mins to station (rather than 10 to tram stop) and 10 mins looking for the correct platform / buying coffee (*very* conservative if you're a regular train-user!)
Surely the definition of "productive" depends on your role? I can justify a long journey time/short time at destination for some trips, but not for others where I will need to spend a long time at a desk.
It always amazes me how often I see an argument that can ultimately be summarised as: "well, that doesn't work for me, therefore I can't see how it could possibly work for anyone else either."
