Flights to Nowhere aka Let Them Eat Cake

By Robert McGarvey

Call it seven hours of inexplicably unaware vanity flying.

That was the recent Qantas flight to nowhere which stuffed 150 travel starved flyers onto a 787 Dreamliner that – flying at altitudes as low as 4000 feet – went literally nowhere. Passengers paid $566 to $2734 for seats in economy, premium economy and business class.

The flight apparently sold out in 10 minutes.

The usual reason for buying: the passengers just missed flying. So when Qantas came up with this idea – Australia’s borders are closed so external flights are a no-go – people bought.

One has to assume that none of the passengers can spell “climate change” without help.

The stunning fact is that there are many more such flights to nowhere. And people are buying them.

Air travel produces about 3% of the world’s carbon emissions. A Guardian story reported, “Taking a long-haul flight generates more carbon emissions than the average person in dozens of countries around the world produces in a whole year, a new Guardian analysis has found.

The figures highlight the disproportionate carbon footprint of those who can afford to fly, with even a short-haul return flight from London to Edinburgh contributing more CO2 than the mean annual emissions of a person in Uganda or Somalia.”

It is one thing if a flight is to return home to be with a sick relative, to attend a close friend’s birthday party, or to close a big business deal. All valid reasons, all reasons we all have had for flying before.

Offhand the only flights I regret taking are two where I discovered upon heading to the meeting location that the event had been abruptly cancelled (a federal courthouse hearing in New Orleans and a trade association committee meeting at Newark Airport) and that isn’t bad in multiple decades of flying. No argument from me: where long distances are involved, I will be flying.

Yes, nowadays I will question if the event is actually necessary and I will also question if it could be done virtually. But when in-person is the best way, I’ll fly when a drive would be more than 4 or 5 hours.

And I’ll defend my choices.

But I also acknowledge that climate change is a reality – where I live in Phoenix we are recording one of our hottest years, ever. In Sonoma County, CA, where I used to live, wildfires have ravaged tens of thousands of acres. Up the west coast, the destruction is monumental. I own property in Taos County NM and that state has significant water issues that are exacerbated by climate change. Only a blithering idiot would deny the reality of climate change.

So I find myself rationing my own carbon impacts. I drive much less (walking is good for you!). I turn up the thermostat in the long Sonoran desert summer. In just about every way I strive to produce a little less carbon.

That of course means flying only when necessary.

And then I read about what amounts to a new fad, flights to nowhere, where the environmental impacts are real – but not much else is.

In Taiwan, for instance, three carriers – EVA, Starlux Airlines and China Airlines – are offering flights to nowhere and they are filling up.

Here’s what they experience, per the South China Morning Post: “The captain of EVA Airways Flight BR5888 tells his 309 passengers – a full cabin – he will fly east from Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport, to give them an ‘extremely clear’ view of the airport on the tiny Japanese island of Yonaguni, before swinging the aircraft back, and then towards Taiwan’s southernmost peninsula. The 2.5-hour flight will land where it took off.”

Really? Not only is this environmentally harmful it’s flagrantly unimaginative.

For four years Google has offered a VR ride that will let “passengers” experience “the whole wide world.”

In Japan there’s even something of a fad centered around VR flights. Per the Washington Post, “When an in-flight virtual reality experience called First Airlines started offering faux flights in the Ikebukuro neighborhood of Tokyo in 2017, you could say it was ahead of its time. Three years later, in the grips of a global pandemic that has grounded the vast majority of flights, Tokyo’s business travelers are leaning on the VR experience for a taste of international travel without leaving their city.”

No carbon involved.

VR flights are, well, odd – but if that’s your pleasure, have at it.

Flights to nowhere are different. They give all flying a bad rep.

And with US and European companies looking for every reason to flatten travel budgets for years to come, it just doesn’t pay to make plane travel into an unfunny joke with real environmental consequences.

So far, thankfully, flights to nowhere have not caught on in the US or Europe.

Let’s hope it stays that way.

And if there are complaints about the end of truly pointless flying, tell ’em to go eat cake. Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.

That will distract them from the rolling tumbrils.