I would love to take trains or boats over planes but I’m just not wealthy enough. At least in North America and East Asia, the costs of these modes (sometimes flat out, but always when factoring in the resultant costs of room and board and such from the extended travel time) exceeds any flight. I was looking at getting from the west coast to the Midwest recently and the Amtrak ticket was similar to the flight ticket (or $800 more for an bed) and the travel time was four times as long. Would have needed to budget out five meals minimum, and that’s probably an underestimate given how bad delays are on the Empire builder line when running through oil country. Hell, even the Shinkansen crisscrossing Japan, regularly held up as a model of efficient long distance transit, is more expensive than a flight if you’re not traveling short notice. Better views than from the plane tho
Per the article, less than 5% of the global population take a flight in a given year. You're already incredibly wealthy in that light. We could at least eliminate short haul flights and private airplanes, but the reality is going to be a lot more ascetic if we expect to hit net zero by 2050.
I don’t think 5% take a flight because that’s all who can afford it. I stock groceries for $13/hr part time. According to a quick google, a salary in excess of 100k/yr puts one in the top 10% of global earners, so why are half of those people making in excess of five times my salary not flying? It’s surely not their wealth, although the “earners” qualifier probably isn’t equivalent to population.
It would be interesting if you could choose, instead of paying carbon taxes, to pay for a fraction of the plane's fuel to come from e-fuel produced from green electricity.
In fact, maybe flying is the wrong place to start — we should make green e-fuel available at the pump.