Monday 8 December 2008

Arguments against additional aviation

The Guardian's report on today's protest at Stansted makes the case against allowing an inexorable expansion of aviation - in the words of those who are inconvenienced.

Vivienne Brinton, 56, of Harlow, Essex, had been due to fly to her second home in France until her flight was cancelled. "I suppose people will have some sympathy with the protesters," she said..

"But in the modern world we live in, people want to travel. Cheap flights allow us to have homes elsewhere."

Another woman said she was flying to Bremen, Germany, to spend the day at a Christmas market. "The flight has been cancelled because some delightful people have decided to drive a fire engine around a runway, we hear. I think it really is a shame because they are not going to get any sympathy because of this disruption."

Clearly disrupting passengers risks being counter-productive but why someone flying to Germany to spend the day at a Christmas market expects sympathy is unclear. Or rather, it shows the situation we've got ourselves into.


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