Some good comments there to add to the debate. I always try and think of the journey as part of the holiday, which probably helps, but I doubt I would consider taking two months to get to Australia unless I was emigrating!
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Yes, the travel becomes part of the holiday for sure when taking the train - and also, in most cases, when driving too. I don't particularly enjoy the driving on UK motorways, but in mainland Europe it can be a real pleasure to drive and enjoy the freedom (but that freedom does come at the price of fuel, hotel stays etc).
A plane never quite feels like part of your holiday, unless you're flying first class - but then all price comparisons go out of the window!
A plane never quite feels like part of your holiday, unless you're flying first class - but then all price comparisons go out of the window!
I do find flying a bit of a chore compared to other means of transport. But sometimes it's the only feasible option! I wish we'd taken the train up to Scotland last year, though, the flight took almost as long, with a lot more hassle and hanging around!
shinkansen1966
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You're not alone in your thinking. I've noticed this, too. For instance, the BA September seat sale offers a New York City return for £354. About 5 years ago, it was nearer £200. Now you have to pay to choose your seat on top of that.
This summer, I went, by train London->Brussels->Frankfurt->Marburg. Total return fare was £140. If I had travelled by plane, the non flying element of the trip would have cost £20 to Stansted and another £20 odd from Frankfurt Hahn to Maburg. For my train trip, I packed as much as I could carry. That same luggage would have been £30 with Ryanair. So my trip by plane has already cost me £70. And that's before I've even booked my flight.
On top of that, my £140 train ticket allowed to do things I wanted: visit Cologne and Aachen. The fly would only given a there-and-back option.
Sounds like fun though. Doing the whole journey by sea is possible as well, but I would imagine that two months in a container ship would get a bit tedious (Orient Line used to do it in four weeks in the 1950s).
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That's why flying has no real future. Costs will only continue to go up, especially since oil will become more and more expensive in the future (I predict $1,000 a barrel by 2050). As that happens, the market will begin to go away, and people will transfer to other forms of transport. Railways can rely on electric traction, although costs will go up somewhat, but nowhere near as much. Personally, I think that's no bad thing, but that's only my point of view.
When oil is getting more expensive and scarce, I am sure Governments will step in to control aviation. Given long-haul is still only really 'doable' by plane, I can see the short-haul flights not only getting expensive but possibly even being banned.
I don't doubt that it will happen at some point, though I sincerely hope it's the market that swings it not a political decision - after all, is any future government knowingly going to introduce a policy intended to make it so only rich people can fly?
That said, stopping the (accidental) subsidy of aviation fuel through its lack of taxation will require huge international political will, which means the US govt severing its ties with the oil majors. Not impossible, but still very unlikely.
Whether it's governements who step in or not, clearly at some stage we won;t be able to afford the lunacy of aircraft flying on routs of less than 4 hours. Lifestyle are going to have to change. It shouldn;t be too difficult, it;s only in the last 30 years at the most that people have become accustomed to regularly flying half way round the world for a holiday.
I can see that the reality will be that flying will return to something for the rich, but I would HOPE that we'll see the need to fly all over the world to attend meetings and conferences end - and flying can perhaps being prioritised more for leisure travel.
Quite possible with video-conferencing and recent advances with the mobile internet. Wind that on twenty years to make everything lighter and screens bigger, and international meetings will be very rare things. Conferences might continue to happen, but that's less likely.
For leisure travel, the QM2 can carry 3,000 passengers, with a passenger/mile fuel efficiency about the same as a 747-400. It's probably possible to get that up to around 12,000, taking the passenger/mile efficiency up four times. That's not entirely sustainable, but OK. This looks like the future of leisure travel, albeit in fairly cramped conditions in tourist class. It might be possible to build a 40,000 passenger ship of the same size, but only if you want troopship conditions on board. If oil becomes prohibitively expensive, switching to steam power (coal or nuclear, but the latter won't be popular) is an option. 20-odd of these liners, operating at around 30 knots, backed up by 200 or so 20-knot ships of half the size, should be enough for a complete service around the world. There would still be aircraft, but fairly rare compared with today.
Overland, passenger railways would make a major comeback in North America. Boat trains would revive and airport specials would fizzle out (replace GatEx with the Liner Specials to Southampton). However, traffic would be down quite a bit. Still, we'll get used to it.
tbtc
Veteran Member
I hope you're right, but people were saying this a decade ago and air travel still went up and up
Logically there ought to be more people working from home, more companies relocating away from big cities (to take advantage of lower labour costs elsewhere), modern communication meaning fewer business trips etc, but the reality is that demand for commuter travel into London etc is always going up.
The simple fact is that lots of people from certain cultures around the world will only work with face-to-face meetings as they like to build up trust before they sign anything. Until they change their ways of working (and it has to be them, not forced by us) those willing to travel will get the pick of the deals. In a competitive marketplace this means lots of people travelling for the forseeable future, for better or for worse.
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