Against flight-shaming (53)

The wrong villain?

Aviation gets a lot of heat these days. In fact, a part of society has even started embracing the concept of “flight shaming”: the idea that flying is an environmental sin. But here's the thing: aviation accounts for roughly 2% of global CO₂ emissions. That’s it. Compare that to road transport (around 15%), industry (24%), or agriculture (over 18%, with methane and nitrous oxide making it even worse). Yet somehow, the plane ticket becomes the guilt trip.

Of course, I understand - it’s easy to blame jets! Aircraft are loud, dramatic, visible and often associated with private flights and excess. But what we don’t see is often more damaging. Agriculture is a massive emitter, not just of gases but also in terms of water use and land degradation. Shipping, which silently brings us almost every physical product we buy, leaves a heavy environmental footprint. Especially considering the inefficiencies of ship engines and the degraded quality fuel they use.

Perhaps however, the biggest foil to aviation seems to be rail transport. It is humble, useful for everyday commutes and can be designed in a way that its operation is super efficient. But building out rail infrastructure requires immense amounts of concrete and steel, both of which are carbon-intensive to produce. Laying track across a continent isn’t exactly light-touch - its simply impossible to link up all destinations not to mention the issues with train network interoperability and the difficulty to adjust to dynamic passenger needs.

Ultimately, we have to realize that there is no such thing as impact-free travel. Whether you're on four wheels, two rails, or in the air, movement requires energy, materials, and space. The real question isn’t whether flying is bad, but how we design a transport network that optimally uses all means. And while we are at it, let's also work on mitigating the ugly parts of our current transport means.

Clean skies

Case in point: the aviation industry isn’t blind to its footprint and has started to work on sustainability programmes thanks to a generous (mostly European) public funding. The last decade has provided us with plenty of options to choose from:

• Sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) which is basically a fuel that can work on current engines while minimizing emissions. If you thought too good to be true, you are correct! SAF has to be made somehow and you either need to spend a lot of energy to make it on the ground or you can only make little amounts based on renewable sources. It is what I would call "too little, too late".
  
• Battery-powered electric flight or in other words joining the trends in the automotive world. It sounds nice, but unlike cars the extra weight of the battery matters a lot to aircraft. Energy density currently can support short hops with a few passengers. Foreseeable applications will have to be limited to emergency response vehicles and air taxis, unless a dramatic improvement to battery technology is achieved. 
• Real promise lies in hydrogen, which could power medium- and long-haul flights cleanly. But there is a catch: hydrogen aircraft need new infrastructure to store and deliver the flammable fuel, new engines, and political will to standardize and harmonize it all...none of which come for free.

Sky high aspirations

Still, I’m optimistic. Human beings don’t give up. We redesign, rethink, re-imagine. Aviation is one of our greatest collective achievements. We’ve built machines that leap into the sky, crossing oceans and continents in hours. We shouldn’t take that for granted...or worse, turn it into something shameful! 

Flying has always been a symbol of imagination and ambition. It enabled a whole new world of exploring other places and cultures new to us. It connects family and friends and enables innovation and business collaboration in a totally new level. But even more importantly, we shouldn't forget the joy of flying and of innovating! The challenge should be to make it sustainable — not to stop doing it.