34,000 feet (about 10 km) up above in the air I am on my way to Geneva. To put the height of the aircraft in perspective, the peak of Mount Everest measures 29,029 feet.
Dinner has been served, everyone has been given their plastic bottle of water, and in a few hours, we will land in Geneva where I will be in transit and board another flight on the way to Lisbon.
If you are wondering whether I am on my way from Stockholm to Lisbon with a stopover in Geneva, you would be wrong in your guess.
I am flying from Washington DC to Lisbon and my route to the destination flies me close to Lisbon while on the way to Geneva. I would then go backtrack from there and fly to Lisbon. The route taken is a quirk of the economics of the pricing of airline tickets and the premium that is put on the perceived value of our time.
When I was checking the flights to have a week of vacation in Lisbon, the fares for direct flights from Washington DC to Lisbon were the most expensive. The flight time was around seven hours.
Then there were other flight options that first took me to different cities in Europe, had a layover, and then continued to Lisbon. These options were priced cheaper, but their flight time to Lisbon ranged from 14-24 hours.
You can see the logic of the pricing model here. If you are willing to sacrifice your time, then you could fly cheaper. This is one down to earth example of the saying that time is money.
Being conscious of my wallet, I picked up the cheaper option; I opted not to pay a premium on the value of my time. After all, what else have I got to do? It is not that I am CEO of some start up and must fly to Lisbon to talk to some venture capitalist in the afternoon and then have another meeting lined up in the morning the day after in some other part of the world.
In picking up the economically cheaper option there was collateral damage. The cheaper option had a larger (personal) carbon footprint.
Physics is simple. The carbon released in the atmosphere, and attributed to me, is proportional to the flight time I have in the air. But even though being a proponent of reducing carbon emissions I still took the option of a longer route.
I wonder if we can live in a world where the economics of flight would be different. A world where instead of putting a premium on time, airlines will have a pricing model that will put a premium on the carbon footprint – the price of ticket would be proportional to the carbon footprint.
It would be a world where longer route options to get to a destination will be more expensive than shorter routes. Flying from Washington DC directly to Lisbon would be cheaper than flying there via Geneva.
You could argue that some pricing model genius would turn the logic upside down – the lower the carbon footprint is, the higher will be the price of the ticket. This model, however, would only work in an ideal world where its citizens cared about their carbon footprint over their wallets. And if we did, we would not be in the current mess of the climate crisis anyway.
An irony is that in an indirect way, by owning the stock through some index fund I have invested in the airline, and it is in my interest to make profit and pay a dividend back to me. By doing that, I am also encouraging the current pricing model that puts a premium on our time.
We are getting close to Geneva and are about to land. The flight attendant is walking down the aisle one last time asking us if we would like to return the plastic bottle of water because they are passionate about recycling and saving the world. I dutifully deposit my plastic bottle in the trash bag and my conscience is that much lighter of guilt.
Ciao
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