Flights of fancy: Ruth Audus’s Thought for the Week

‘I think I’m a bit of a climate fatalist.’

In the first week of the school holidays I flew with my new husband, his two teenage sons, and my two adult children, to Crete, for a fortnight’s holiday (pause to allow the collective gasp of horror from Friends who have taken the decision not to fly (and maybe don’t own a car – sorry, I have one of those, too)). This is maybe the last holiday we’ll have all together as the younger generation build their own lives.

At Gatwick we boarded the plane on time, walking across the tarmac trying not to breathe in the fumes of the aircraft fuel. But once we were loaded up, the captain announced that we had to wait an hour for a take-off slot. Frustrating. We decamped to allow an incoming aircraft to use our departure gate.

After about forty-five minutes’ wait, our engines revved up again and we taxied towards the runway, where we joined a queue of seven or eight aircraft waiting to take off, between those coming in to land. I was sitting by the window, so I watched our progress up the queue of planes towards the runway. And I watched those coming in to land. And I watched the planes joining the queue behind us. And I thought: that’s a lot of planes. A lot of fumes. And this is just one airport on one summer morning. The same would be happening at Heathrow, Luton, Stansted, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Teeside, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff… all day today, tomorrow, all through the summer and beyond.

‘I thought: that’s a lot of planes. A lot of fumes.’

Over the last forty years I’ve probably taken between two and six flights a year, mostly to Europe, all for leisure. None of this really worried me until ten or fifteen years ago when I really started to engage with my faith. Every time I’ve booked a flight since rediscovering my Quakerism I’ve considered – sometimes vaguely, sometimes seriously looking at alternatives – whether I could travel a different way, or not at all. So far I have found that the extra time the journey would take, or the difference in the cost, or the importance of the trip to my loved ones, has meant that I have still taken the flight.

I think I’m a bit of a climate fatalist. I’m not sure I believe that anything would be different if I hadn’t taken those flights over the years, or if I hadn’t turned down the heating thermostat, or not chosen to walk or take public transport rather than drive. But when I visit my sister in Basel next year, it is my intention to take the train and make the travelling part of the adventure. Family holidays might now need to be closer to home. There may be obstacles and complaints. There will probably be exceptions while we get used to this new way. I hope all six of us end up reducing the number of flights we take.

George Fox once advised William Penn to wear his sword ‘as long as thou canst’. After sitting watching those planes take off and land I may have worn this particular sword as long as I can.

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Comments

I smiled as I opened this edition of “The Friend” and started reading Ruth Audus’ thought for the week.

I’m sitting in a train which left Milan and hour ago and hasn’t moved for 85 minutes! I am on my way to Crete - the same destination as Ruth - but following the train-ferry-train-ferry-bus route that takes me 3 days instead of half a day.

I am fortunate because I can afford both the time and extra cost of travelling. I also happen to favour this mode as it offers a more congenial way of interacting with fellow-travellers like to duo of Egyptian women I met earlier this morning and the couple sitting next to me on the train with nine canaries in a cage!

I salute Ruth’s decision to forsake air travel and would encourage her and all who follow such a path to speak out and let people know that she is making a principalled decision. However, I also think it’s necessary for everybody to make their own rules. Mine are simple. I won’t fly unless there is a medical emergency. As a result I did fly back from Crete 2 years ago when I had concussion, but I won’t go to Dubai to visit a son who lives there with his family. 

Like so many, I bemoan the missed opportunity to make the necessary behavioral step-change when we came out of those wonderful clean-air and empty-sky times of the pandemic. Will we ever be able to achieve that as a permanent state without a revolution in legislation?

In the hope that humanity will one day come to our senses

Bruce Cadbury (Westminster)

By BruceJJCadbury on 2025 08 07

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