VA Announce Business Class Only Airline

Originally posted by VS-EWR

Originally posted by pkatmk

A fallacious argument. A plane of 55 business class seats produces more or less the same amount of CO2 as a plane full of 200 economy passengers, during each flight.

The only relevant point so far as the environment is concerned is that another scheduled flight has been put into the air.

Not quite. We're not talking about just CO2 emissions, but CO2 emissions per person, which is more important. A plane carrying 55 people has a higher CO2/person rating than the same plane carrying 200 people.

Why is it more important? The environment does not pass moral judgement on individuals it merely reacts to the cumulative CO2 emmisions.

The poster was suggesting that an all business class flight was a poor choice so far as the environment was concerned. I am merely pointing out that the impact to the environment is determined largely by the number of extra planes that VA are putting into the area (flight hours to be precise) and not on the class/quantity of passengers flown. The fact that VA could have flown more passengers for the same environmental damage is interesting but nothing to do with Virgin's green credentials.

Of course the situation in reality is more complicated because you have to also take into account the reaction of the market and of competitors.

However, let me re-inforce my point by prognosticating that if the entire world's fleet of aircraft were converted to business/first class only, then this would have a positive impact on the environment.

A free lollipop to anyone who can explain why I believe this, or alternatively convince me that I am wrong. Offer strictly limited to one per household.

Originally posted by pkatmk

Why is it more important? The environment does not pass moral judgement on individuals it merely reacts to the cumulative CO2 emmisions.

The poster was suggesting that an all business class flight was a poor choice so far as the environment was concerned. I am merely pointing out that the impact to the environment is determined largely by the number of extra planes that VA are putting into the area (flight hours to be precise) and not on the class/quantity of passengers flown. The fact that VA could have flown more passengers for the same environmental damage is interesting but nothing to do with Virgin's green credentials.

I'm not sure you understand what I was saying. My logic rests in the fact that it would be impractical and basically, impossible, to simply stop making airplanes and stop putting them into the air, but what can be done is to make sure that the number of emissions in an aircraft per passenger is low - so therefore a plane holding 200 passengers would be better than the same plane holding 50 passengers. This fraction is more important because when you examine the world population as a whole you can never stop emissions, what you can do however is to reduce the emissions of each and every person in that global population, a realistic approach.

Originally posted by VS-EWR

I'm not sure you understand what I was saying. My logic rests in the fact that it would be impractical and basically, impossible, to simply stop making airplanes and stop putting them into the air, but what can be done is to make sure that the number of emissions in an aircraft per passenger is low - so therefore a plane holding 200 passengers would be better than the same plane holding 50 passengers. This fraction is more important because when you examine the world population as a whole you can never stop emissions, what you can do however is to reduce the emissions of each and every person in that global population, a realistic approach.

VS-EWR I understand perfectly what you are saying but it is a flawed analysis. 'Reducing the emissions of each and every person' is a paper concept not an actual solution to the problem of CO2 emissions. You have to state specifically what policy you would enact to bring about this reduction. Now banning or restricting business class seats probably will reduce the CO2 emmisions per passenger and more passengers will probably be travelling, but paradoxically it may not reduce the overall emmissions and quite possibly will increase them. A good example of an action having the opposite effect to its intention.

Underlying this paradox is a view driven by an emotional reaction to the unfairness that business class travellers are expending more resources and causing more polution individually than economy travellers. Its true, they are. Its not fair! But it matters only to individual sensibilities not the environment.

This emotion is sometimes called envy. The world economy thrives on capitalism the consequence of which is that resources (money, goods, food etc) are not distributed evenly or fairly. Whatever environmental policies are eventually put in place I guarantee that the more affluent you are the larger will be your carbon footprint.

Policies can be based on the emotional or the logical, but lets be clear on their intent. Are you really dealing with the environmental
issues or just pandering to a base emotion?

Originally posted by pkatmk

Originally posted by VS-EWR

I'm not sure you understand what I was saying. My logic rests in the fact that it would be impractical and basically, impossible, to simply stop making airplanes and stop putting them into the air, but what can be done is to make sure that the number of emissions in an aircraft per passenger is low - so therefore a plane holding 200 passengers would be better than the same plane holding 50 passengers. This fraction is more important because when you examine the world population as a whole you can never stop emissions, what you can do however is to reduce the emissions of each and every person in that global population, a realistic approach.

VS-EWR I understand perfectly what you are saying but it is a flawed analysis. 'Reducing the emissions of each and every person' is a paper concept not an actual solution to the problem of CO2 emissions. You have to state specifically what policy you would enact to bring about this reduction. Now banning or restricting business class seats probably will reduce the CO2 emmisions per passenger and more passengers will probably be travelling, but paradoxically it may not reduce the overall emmissions and quite possibly will increase them. A good example of an action having the opposite effect to its intention.

Underlying this paradox is a view driven by an emotional reaction to the unfairness that business class travellers are expending more resources and causing more polution individually than economy travellers. Its true, they are. Its not fair! But it matters only to individual sensibilities not the environment.

This emotion is sometimes called envy. The world economy thrives on capitalism the consequence of which is that resources (money, goods, food etc) are not distributed evenly or fairly. Whatever environmental policies are eventually put in place I guarantee that the more affluent you are the larger will be your carbon footprint.

Policies can be based on the emotional or the logical, but lets be clear on their intent. Are you really dealing with the environmental
issues or just pandering to a base emotion?

Fascinating and true - albeit that you eschew the power of the individual to make a difference versus the combined mass effect of capitalist economies. Currently the latter is stacked to win, perhaps there are scenarios in which the former may gain ascendancy?

In my opinion, the a plane carrying 200 pax is far more environmentally friendly than a plane with the same emissions carrying 55 pax. Look at this way: it's going to take four times the emissions of the latter to carry the equivalent of the former example.

45.

[Decker]

I'm with PK if we're looking at this from an economic perspective rather than a moral one. In fact a business only plane will use less fuel than the mixed class equivalent as there'll be less weight to move around. So the carbon footprint SHOULD be smaller. Now OK if we're going to fly 6 times more planes that will obviously increase the carbon footprint but we're operating in the sphere of the hypothetical here - who says that 6 times more planes would fly? 6 times more slots would not suddenly become available - so assuming that the number of slots were static, converting all planes to business only should decrease the levels of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere.

GAIA doesn't give a monkey's about the efforts of the individual - she cares about the net effect. So she wouldn't really care if we trebled flights but invented a carbon scrubbing technology. If industries were taxed on CO2 output you can be sure they'd either move to somewhere which didn't have the tax OR come up with the appropriate technologies - whichever was cheapest, because again, like Gaia industries care about net effects.

[Scrooge]

Just having a think while taking a shower, wouldn't a 739er be the perfect plane for this route ? either that or the 737-7er ?

A319?

45.

[Scrooge]

Could be...anything around the 319/737 size should have the legs for a trans Atlantic flight in an all premium set up.

[honey lamb]

Originally posted by Scrooge
Could be...anything around the 319/737 size should have the legs for a trans Atlantic flight in an all premium set up.

I'd rather they had wings than legs [:w]

Interesting follow up on this story in the New York Times, seems its going ahead with VS due to reveal plans shortly

Link


HighFlyer: Edit to tidy URL

Well according to this from Flyer Talk VS have halted plans to do any TATL all UC flights due to lack of suitable aircraft. Not sure of their source though.

[mcmbenjamin]

Originally posted by willd
Well according to this from Flyer Talk VS have halted plans to do any TATL all UC flights due to lack of suitable aircraft. Not sure of their source though.

Makes sense. If you look at the various press releases/news article, SilverJet/MaxJet had 60 to low 70% load factors where EOS and L'Avion had high 70 to low 80% load factors. Now that does includes the non-revenue seats to TAs, corp marketing, etc.

MaxJet/SilverJet use a 767 with 100 seats at a lower average fare than EOS/L'Avion. EOS/L'Avion use a 757 with 48/90 seats with a high fare and thus a high revenue per seat mile (RSM). Look at L'Avion's number: may shock you. They do not get much press but are doing well.

(summary of recent paper w/o charts off)

Well - with Maxjet going under - there is now a space in the market. I flew with them and was really impressed - a million times better than VS PE and less money. Maybe thats why they went under!!

Please see this post in the BA forum about BA's new airline Open Skies.