The Netherlands National Airline Encourages People To Not Fly (qz.com) 127
"KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has an unusual message for its customers: Maybe don't take that flight," reports Quartz:
In a June 29 open letter from its CEO, Pieter Elbers, the airline invited air travelers to make "responsible decisions about flying," and encouraged customers to invest in the airline's carbon offsetting scheme, CO2ZERO... It's all part of KLM's new "Fly Responsibly" campaign, which includes a website with information on its commitment to sustainable fuel and practices. A short video poses three questions to customers: Do meetings always have to take place face-to-face? Could you take the train instead? And could you contribute by compensating your CO2 emissions or packing light? "We all have to fly every now and again," it concludes. "But next time, think about flying responsibly..."
Environmentally conscious customers, especially in Europe, are increasingly opting out of flying, which contributes about 2.5% of global emissions. (Few personal actions are quite so harmful for the environment.)
The article also notes that planes with more business and first-class seats "have a greater carbon footprint, relative to the number of people they are able to transport" -- and that by that standard, KLM is already one of the most fuel-efficient airlines in the world.
Environmentally conscious customers, especially in Europe, are increasingly opting out of flying, which contributes about 2.5% of global emissions. (Few personal actions are quite so harmful for the environment.)
The article also notes that planes with more business and first-class seats "have a greater carbon footprint, relative to the number of people they are able to transport" -- and that by that standard, KLM is already one of the most fuel-efficient airlines in the world.
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Why? They have been a great airline by general air standards. Just personal experience though. Lufthansa on the other hands are the pits of intercontinental carriers of Europe, but this is one race none of us complain about the USA winning. #fuckUnitedAirlines.
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LH is okayish as a carrier, but they are the top dog when it comes to aircraft maintenance.
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They may be good at maintenance but they are right up their with Ryanair in terms of reliability, LAX in terms of luggage handling (despite which airport they fly to), and only marginally better than United in customer service and even then because they've yet to make a customer bleed on one of their planes.
I have never had a smooth flight with them where everything just worked.
But YMMV, as it always does with these things.
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This has - as with any other airline - more to do with luck than anything else. Flew with them twice a week for a while, only had a problem a couple of times and the main cause for these has been FRA, not the airline.
United also breaks guitars. [youtu.be]
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I like KLM. Their food comes in cute little boxes that look like dutch houses and they sell stroopwaffeln on board.
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I have had no significantly bad experiences with Lufthansa, and they've handled delays, re-routes etc admirably every time.
I have had no good, or acceptable, or really barely tolerable experiences with KLM.
Flown half the word for work, had plenty of poor experiences, KLM is the only one I've ever asked a booking agency to blacklist in my profile.
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KLM is okay. Cheap, basic, but okay. And at least they seem to see the writing on the wall for business class flights.
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Also they have a king as one of their pilots. Making them literally the royal Dutch airline.
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Extremely expensive is what I would say.
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Seems they got more expensive... Maybe 10-15 years ago I flew with them a few times, and they were cheaper than BA, JAL and ANA. They used to compete with Virgin, but then Virgin stopped doing the route I was using.
here in the USA i refuse to fly, because... (Score:1)
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I'm a weirdie beardie giant mutant of a mofo and while I haven't flown in a while, I have flown under the TSA regime a bunch of times (once or twice in a tee shirt which was a munition) and never so much as had my nuts grabbed, not that I'm complaining. But I don't want to fly just on the principle that people who are flying are being sexually abused, even if it never happens to me. (Fingers crossed... and cheeks clenched)
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As you would expect, it's mostly attractive women that get groped, and ogled in nudie-vision. In TSA slang, "red alert" and "yellow alert" mean an attractive redhead or blond in line.
I'd support any president who banished the TSA. Everyone on the right talks about "smaller government", but clearly none of them mean it, if they can't even get rid of the most despicable and needless agency.
Re:here in the USA i refuse to fly, because... (Score:5, Interesting)
And I HATE when sky waiters blame things on "federal regulations" when it's a total lie. They lie to make their pathetic little jobs easier.
Technically the aircrews are right when they make this claim. What they don't tell you is that the "federal regulations" were passed by airline lobbyists, who like pharma lobbyists have Congressional votes of their own, to make the airlines' silly self-serving business rules into federal mandates. You used to be able to correct a misspelled name on your ticket or even transfer the ticket to another person if your plans changed, but "federal regulations" got passed to prevent this from happening.
Re:here in the USA i refuse to fly, because... (Score:5, Interesting)
i dont want to be sodomized by a TSA agent
This is understandable, but most Americans are willing to have their little girls fingered up the hooha by latex-gloved goons who couldn't get a real job at McDonald's, if it means they can go to Disney. Not to mention sending them into the epithelial-DNA-mutagenic millimeter-wave radiation booth.
All semblance of the Fourth Amendment's protection of natural rights has been drummed out of them by an education system that is designed to indoctrinate obedient corporate workers, not train free citizens. And that's the best reason to not fly - to not economically support a morally bankrupt system.
More exasperating is that America had a real chance after 9/11 to make air travel perfectly safe and non-invasive. Separate cockpit doors, like the Israelis use, and requiring Jujitsu or a similar means of self-defense in high school curricula would have meant by now that an entire generation was capable of fucking up any highjacker who could get through a magnetometer.
But, you see, that's not what was called for in the PNAC whitepaper. Control and destruction of rights is a feature, not a bug. Me, I'm buying a FSD Tesla RV so I can wake up where I want to be. Or my own damn plane (I've always loved aviation).
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The Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures. Please explain to me why an inspection prior to boarding an airplane is unreasonable.
Really stupid message (Score:1, Insightful)
The airline itself has the power to schedule fewer flights if they think that important.
But instead they are trying to convince people not to fly, so the airline wastes the same amount of fuel to transport half the people? Who will then stay home and increase emissions with everything they do there...
Never has there been a time when virtue signaling has been so strong, and so devoid of any logic or reason.
Re:Really stupid message (Score:5, Informative)
The airline itself has the power to schedule fewer flights if they think that important.
No it is not a stupid message. If you just reduce the number of your flights, passengers are most likely going to take a flight on a different carrier. If you advocate for less air travel in general, you have a chance at actually reducing the number of flights in the long run.
But instead they are trying to convince people not to fly, so the airline wastes the same amount of fuel to transport half the people? Who will then stay home and increase emissions with everything they do there...
If there are less people flying, flights will get cut.
Staying at home is very unlikely to generate more emissions than a flight. If you are replacing a trips from a dozen people with one videocall or two videocall, you are definitely reducing emissions.
Nope, not going to work (Score:2)
If there are less people flying, flights will get cut.
Maybe after years. Until then airlines have regular routes they maintain, the first thing that happens if usage trails off is they have sales to encourage more people to come back.
What you and apparently others do not understand is how much work goes into setting up a route. Airlines have gates they put a lot of effort into squired space at across various airports, personnel who know how to run operations at that airport. You can't just simply drop rou
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And that's a distance that could be covered by high speed train in probably the time you're wasting at the airport.
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The airline itself has the power to schedule fewer flights if they think that important.
But instead they are trying to convince people not to fly, so the airline wastes the same amount of fuel to transport half the people?
False. By simply reducing scheduled flights they don't at all reduce the amount of carbon emissions. There's pretty much no customers in the world who would choose to fly less simply because one airline decided to not offer a service.
It's like the oil industry. Shutting down an oil platform doesn't make people stop driving cars. You either need to be in a position to dramatically affect the price, or you need to change the minds of the people themselves.
Who will then stay home and increase emissions with everything they do there...
Erm unless your hobby is idling the car while mowing t
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You read that as "don't fly?" The message was very clear,: Feel guilty about flying. Then offset your guilt by buying carbon offsets through us. And don't create so much carbon (or force us to use so much fuel) by packing lighter, you selfish ass actually bringing a bag onboard.
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Just crash a few planes. A lot of people will stop flying.
lies, flying not personal choice that emits most (Score:2)
Personal transportation on wheels by far is the major emitter source. Choosing to use electricity instead of living like a caveman is even bigger emitter. Add those together and it dwarfs flying, planes really doesn't matter one way or the other.
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If you had half a brain you'd realise that the activity matters not the raw consumption and in that regard flying is the worst and electricity is the best.
But we can follow your suggestion and then conclude being born is just environmentally damaging, so please kill yourself before you do any more damage than you already have.
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Personal transportation on wheels by far is the major emitter source. Choosing to use electricity instead of living like a caveman is even bigger emitter. Add those together and it dwarfs flying, planes really doesn't matter one way or the other.
Note that the message does not encourage people not to fly and drive instead; but not to fly and take a train instead, or use video conferencing tools.
Flying is not the problem, and driving is not the problem. Excessive and unnecessary flying and driving is. Actually unnecessary pretty-much-anything is a problem.
What they are arguing for is reconsidering choices and see if there is a more environmentally friendly of doing what you need to do. To achieve a sustainable energy consumption we need to revise our
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Heh, going to see in laws in SE asia with cruise ship would be even worse, 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile, compared with 0.257kg for jumbo jet. Big diesel train is 40% the plane.
As reference average car is .35 kg per mile but if more than one person start dividing and it's better deal.
Please don't reconsider ship for flying for international travel! Trains are great though.
Re:All Americans who are reading this (Score:5, Interesting)
It won't reduce profits, the message is bent on increasing it. It's greenwashing at its best. Companies consider not face to face meetings, hence why Cisco, Polycom, Zoom and Skype for Business are a thing. People wanting to take trains already do, because it's a lot less hassle than a plane. Trains, even In Europe don't go as far as fast though, 2h plane ride from Netherlands to Spain could take 2 days on a train if you don't miss or get delayed any connections.
What the message really is about and the only thing people can conceivably do is pack lighter and choose economy over business or first class. Yes, it will be cheaper for KLM to fly lighter flights that are packed with more people. The only green in the message is the money they'll make.
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choose economy over business or first class
I wonder. Business Class is their cash cow, it's the (purported) reason that airlines have been reluctant to offer a truly comfortable economy-plus class. They are afraid that business travellers on long haul flights will no longer opt for the rather overpriced business class fares.
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What I would like is an Economy Plus seat that gives you twice the are
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That's illegal in the US, take them to small claims.
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You might be surprised to find that this is a common thing on US airlines as well - if you don't show for the first leg of a ticket, all subsequent legs are cancelled. There are a few airlines around the world which sell all legs as separate tickets, and thus don't care, but the vast majority of airlines handle this the same way.
So no, it's not illegal in the US, it's actually a common scenario.
The Continuing Irony (Score:1, Insightful)
Fortunately, they tend to be absolved of these sins by vocally blaming the white working class for not âbelievingâ(TM) enough in their contributions to climate change.
Then again, affluent whites often scapegoat working-class whites for their sins. In Washington State, Democrats tried to push through payday loan in
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Is that self-described progressives take more flights each year
That's a bold statement. You might try backing it up with some data...
What a load of dingoes kidneys (Score:2, Insightful)
Environmentally conscious customers, especially in Europe, are increasingly opting out of flying
Where the hell does this come from? Airline usage has been going UP for decades. This is basic propaganda.
The REAL story is there's a small group of extremists who want to demonize anything they don't like. Everything from gas stoves, to air travel, to beef, to Air travel. In my city of Minneapolis two of our stupidest city council people wanted to ban new drive-thru's... because cars bad! Nevermind people
Lip service (Score:3, Insightful)
If they don't want people to fly they can just increase the price.
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If they don't want people to fly they can just increase the price.
No they can't because they don't have a monopoly, especially in their country where there is a choice of 3 airports within 100km of most of the population one of which being Europe's 3rd biggest airport, and a further 6 just inside the border of neighbouring countries.
That healthy competition means that no one will decide not to fly somewhere based on any actions of KLM, and hell when I fly for work I couldn't give a crap what the price is. I once flew to Heathrow for 840EUR, and it's only a 45min flight.
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If they don't want people to fly they can just increase the price.
No, that would just encourage people to pick a different airline.
OTOH, rather than PSAs perhaps they should lobby for a carbon tax. That would raise their price and all of their competitors' prices. It would increase the price of the train as well, but not as much, making train travel more cost-effective where feasible.
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It's not flying (Score:5, Insightful)
So basically they're just encouraging people not to travel as far for business or vacation.
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The most likely alternative for people who choose not to fly KLM within Europe is an electric train of some sort (because trains in Europe tend to be really good from my limited experience) and those produce less CO2 than the airplane (how much less depends on the source of the electricity)
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No, the most likely alternative for people who choose not to fly KLM within Europe is actually for them to fly Ryanair, EasyJet or one of the other bargain basement airlines - they have good networks and low prices.
Trains are a distant third.
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It's not just CO2 though. Aircraft release water vapour directly into the part of the atmosphere where it causes the most warming. Per kilometre they are worse than equivalent per-passenger L/Km road vehicles in terms of overall contribution to climate change.
with more business and first-class seats "have a g (Score:2)
(m0+ ax + x*m1)/x = m0/x + (a+m1), where m0 is the mass of the empty plane, a is the mass of fuel per person and m1 is the person mass, while x being number of people. The dependence on x is reverse: the more the number of people the less the amount of fuel per person
Of course the absolute footprint is less, because less people were flown .
And Second Life (Score:2)
IBM tried it, as did many other influential organizations. Now almost 10 yrs later wonder how the experiment turned out?
"Virtual Meetings Get A Second Life", https://www.cnbc.com/id/294294... [cnbc.com]
"Going to the virtual office in Second Life", http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINE... [cnn.com]
FaceTime, Hangouts, FaceBook Messenger, Telegram, WhatsApp and others too.
Encouraging people not to fly? (Score:2)
The US has an airline for that too - American. But no matter what lengths they go through to keep us on the ground, we fly anyway.
Maybe don't take that flight (Score:2)
Our pilots are drunks, the cabin people are cranky, the planes are from Boeing (sic) and the security people are predators.
Welcome to the KLM lounge!
Why not do this (Score:1)
Spelling. (Score:3)
Why do you misspell our country's name in the title and then do it right in the first line of the article?
> The Dutch National Airline Encourages People To Not Fly
Quite so harmful (Score:2)
> Few personal actions are quite so harmful for the environment.
Except having that extra child, which beats everything else you can think of by orders of magnitude.
How do they make money from this? (Score:2)
Wouldn't they lose money from this? :/
Why KLM encourages people not to fly (Score:1)
cheap flights (Score:1)