If there’s anything people can agree on these days, it’s that flying sucks.
And between the delays and cancellations, extreme turbulence, and jets literally falling apart in the sky, it seems that some people have had about enough of flying experiences getting ostensibly worse instead of better.
Which may partially explain the online roasting of WestJet’s new UltraBasic fare, where you can board the plane and that’s about it.
Announced Tuesday, the new “no-frills fare option” doesn’t permit carry-on baggage (unless you’re flying overseas), has pre-assigned seats at the back of the plane, and those who select the fare will be the last to board the plane. They also can’t collect WestJet Rewards.
Even then, an UltraBasic round trip from Toronto to Calgary at the end of June costs about $650.
Actually, you can put four passengers in a Chevy Suburban with a big V8 and they’ll be polluting less to travel the same distance compared to doing it in a passenger plane, the shorter the trip the better as well because planes burn a shit ton of fuel for takeoff.
Not including externalized road infrastructure
And not considering the impact of emissions at high altitude vs ground level which is much worse which explains why air traffic has a disproportionately high green house effect compared to the amount of emissions it releases.
I was just talking about the amount of fuel burnt over the distance covered. Also the road infrastructure will continue to exist even if it’s just for heavy transport (which is much worse on roads anyway).
If you’re not aware of how much it costs to maintain roads, that’s because it’s largely subsidized FOR trucking, and incompletely at that.
Witness the state of roads and especially bridges, and explain how they should be maintained considering who’s on them. Now remove trucking because we got smart and used rail for inter-city. You’re either going to be using a ez-pass a lot more or the roads will be straight outta Mad Max.
And finally, it’s a 6 hour flight or a 4-day driving trip. One’s shorter and far safer, and the other one destroys friendships because Dave will not stop snoring and I swear I’m going to stop this car right now.
Even if you have rails, you still need roads to deliver from the train yard to the final destination.
The fact that people need to travel 6 hours by airplane on a regular basis is an issue in itself, we’re way too mobile for leisure reasons and it’s fucking up the world.