Clipping The Airlines' Wings Would Do Us All A Favour: John Humphrys

[The Guvnor]

From today's Sunday Times.

John Humphrys: Clipping the
airlines' wings would do us all a favour

The death of the airline industry was announced in those dark days following September 11. If not the death, then at least the end of its extraordinary growth. The new fear of flying would see to it. For once it seemed that the gloomy forecasters had it right. Americans stayed at home. If you were brave enough to cross the Atlantic you could
travel in roomy comfort — even in the ghetto of economy class.

Each bulletin brought news of another airline going bust. Those national carriers that managed to struggle on cancelled so many orders for new planes that Boeing sacked thousands of people. So did the airlines. Some said they were pulling a fast one. They’d been losing so much money that they were already in serious trouble and they were blaming the terrorists to try to squeeze compensation from their governments. My, but it’s a cynical old world.

There’s no denying that it has been a tough time for the airline industry. Six thousand people who worked at Heathrow — one tenth
of the workforce — lost their jobs. So what, pray, are they doing announcing a new terminal at Heathrow? Have they gone mad? Here we have an industry on its knees and the government blithely announces that it has accepted the recommendations of a planning
inquiry to go ahead with a massive project that will cost a fortune and blight the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who live near the airport.

No, they have not gone mad. The terminal will be built because an inquiry was persuaded that it is needed. It was right. However much
the most badly managed airlines may bleat and whine, air travel is not on its knees. Its death has been prematurely announced.

Unless, God forbid, there is a repeat of the New York horror, it will continue to do what it has been doing for half a century. It will grow and grow and grow. And that is a crying shame.

To say its growth has been extraordinary is an understatement. In its first year Heathrow handled 63,000 passengers travelling on 2,000
flights to 18 destinations. Last year it handled 62m passengers travelling on more than 1,000 flights a day to 220 destinations. In the next 10 to 15 years it is estimated that the number of people travelling through all British airports will double. By the middle of the century this figure may increase tenfold.

That is great news for the industry and especially for the only people who are making any money at the moment, the low-cost operators, but it’s bad news for almost everyone else.

We all smiled at the silliness when a European court ruled last month that our human rights included the right to a decent night’s sleep and that right was infringed by night flights. But there is nothing funny about aircraft noise. Studies show that children who live under flight paths suffer from poor memory and have greater difficulty learning to read. And it’s no good saying that people knew what to expect when they bought their houses. Many did not.

Over the years people living near airports have been consistently misled with false promises about the number of flights.

We all pay a price for air travel. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says aircraft are responsible for a sizeable chunk of the pollution that causes global warming. The more flights, the more fuel burnt, the bigger the contribution. The new generation of sonic cruisers that will fly in the stratosphere at 45,000ft are going to damage the ozone layer, too. So that will add to the risk of skin cancer when we finally flop on to the beaches we have flown halfway
around the world to get to.

Ah . . . the beaches. What would all those foreign countries do if we stopped flying to their beaches? The World Travel and Tourism
Council estimates that foreign holidays of one sort or another account for no less than 11% of global GDP. It has produced scary
figures showing how many jobs would be lost and how different countries would suffer if there were even a modest fall in tourism. I
wonder.

The estimate assumes that we would stop spending the money. I can’t help feeling that we might spend it on something else instead.
We might buy things from shops — things that have to be made in factories. Or we might even spend a bit more on holidays in this
country. I wonder how many people have never been to Scotland or even God’s own country on the other side of the Severn Bridge.

Good for us, maybe, but not so good for some of the world’s poorest countries. We are told they would be in great trouble without all that revenue from foreign tourists. Again, I wonder. The most popular holidays are still package deals, and a great appeal of package deals is that you know what they will cost you. You know because almost everything is paid for in advance.

You end up in a compound (optional sentries and watch towers) where you eat, drink and make merry. The food and the booze may well have been imported by the owners of the compounds. Hence there is no incentive to go and risk a gippy tummy by eating something dodgy at the bar in the village nearby. So the local economy gets nothing out of it — except a few jobs at rock-bottom wages for the young women who clean the rooms.

A couple of years ago the Gambia got fed up with it and tried to ban all-inclusive holidays. Most of its holidaymakers were British. They simply went elsewhere — many of them to the Caribbean, where they found what they wanted. Last year the Gambians backed down. Holidaymakers can now enjoy all-inclusive packages there with the added bonus that high perimeter fences keep out all those young hustlers who try to sell them things. Can’t have the locals spoiling our holiday, can we? And if each guest in those air-conditioned hotels uses more water in a week than the average local family would have used in a year . . . well, there’s always a price to pay.

But, of course, travel broadens the mind. Maybe real travel does. Modern tourism narrows it. The old cliché of the Red Barrel- swigging lout on the Spanish costa dies hard. Some years ago the king of Spain remarked wryly that the British ought to give Gibraltar back now that we had taken over the Costa del Sol.

Flying is not the great liberator that we had imagined it would be. It has made possible a new kind of cultural imperialism. It pollutes the atmosphere. It makes life hell for people living under flight paths.

And yet we still treat the industry with an exaggerated respect and grant it concessions enjoyed by no other industry.

Fill your small car with petrol to drive to your granny’s and most of the bill for it goes in fuel duties. Governments defend the tax by saying we should use cars less to protect the environment. Fill a vast jumbo with fuel to fly a bunch of businessmen across the Atlantic and the airline pays not a penny in tax. So much for the environment.
It takes a mighty large fleet of family saloons to do the damage of one jumbo.

A tax on aviation fuel might mean fewer passengers. Good. Those businessmen would be better off staying at home and using a telephone or e-mail or video conferencing anyway. We could probably double our business productivity if we put to better use all the time spent by all those middle-ranking executives in airport lounges and business-class seats. We might even use some of the money raised to improve public transport on the ground.

Ah, but we must protect the airline industry. Why? Industries exist to do us good. We don’t exist to do them good. If anything was symbolic of our absurd approach to air travel, it was the return to service of Concorde. The media coverage was hysterical.

Yet Concorde is a monster. Beautiful, yes, but still a monster that allows a few clapped-out pop stars and overpaid businessmen to save a couple of hours at great cost to the environment. Our cost.

By all means let us admire its beauty. So let’s plonk it on the spare plinth in Trafalgar Square where it can do no more damage. And let’s park some of our outdated attitudes to the airline industry alongside
it. :eek: :mad: :eek:

[tilii]

Hear hear, Mr Humphrys. A superb piece of work.

I vote for the world-wide imposition of an aviation fuel duty at levels equivalent to those on car fuels. This must be concomitant with world-wide removal of all duty on booze and fags.

No need, then, for a terminal 5. No more will my wife's hairdresser and her aircraft refueller boyfriend (sorry ... partner) be able to afford their drunken orgies in Antigua. Flying will become one of The Guvnor's 'privileges and not rights'. Good show!

We can keep the good old pound, and spend it in dear old Blighty.

Mrs tilii (that's right ... we are actually married :eek: ), an environmental scientist, tells me that our current progress will inevitably lead to these things in any event. Why not cut the corner and save ourselves the heart-ache?

Again, well done Mr Humphrys. ;)

[ 25 November 2001: Message edited by: tilii ]

[Gantenbein]

Mr Humphrys is right, of course.

But businessmen will continue to fly because eye to eye negotiations can’t be replaced with video conferencing, holiday travellers will continue to fly because their holidays are affordable, people will continue to be impressed by the appeal of flying, whether on Concordes or on more modern machines, and governments will continue to support the airlines because although aviation is global, airlines are not.
(spelling...)

[ 25 November 2001: Message edited by: Gantenbein ]

[flaps to 60]

Mr Humphrys

If you read this site then I would just like to say that you sound like another bitter sad old failed pilot turned journo.

As with any form of journalistic media you report should have been neutral and informative.
But as a "lower than a snakes belly" journalist you are incapable of fair, honest and balanced news.
You reverted to type and contrived a biased and ill thought out story just to waste yet more paper.

I as an unemployed pilot require T5 and increased slots and night flying at LHR and any other airport to stimulate demand.

Lets have a look at some of your ill conceived comments.
"Ghetto of economy class". How dare you some of us don't have big TV wages or work for TST and have to pay for our own tickets.

"And yet we still treat the industry with an exaggerated respect and grant it concessions enjoyed by no other industry". By the way, I subsidise you and that outdated monolith the BBC with my unjust TV licence and the Beeb has been protected long enough from the harse real world.

"A tax on fuel might mean fewer passengers" Good! You really are stupid and arrogant as this will mean 1000's more of unemployed aviation personnel. What would you say to them when they can't afford Christmas for their nearest and dearest or can't afford the mortgage?

Oh and by the way here's somthing even a failed pilot like your can understand.
IF YOU DIONT LIKE AIRCRAFT NOISE THEN DONT MOVE NEAR TO AN AIRPORT. Its not difficult.

Have you considered that a package holiday is all that some can afford or that All Inclusive and sitting inside a compound is some peoples choice.

Heathrow is the worlds busiest International airport and along with Concorde (how dare you criticise something you not worthy of looking at) is something Britain can be proud of. We should build up to Terminal 10 and put down another 5 runways and fly all night. Why? well because there is a demand and it creates employment for 10,000's of people.

Your a horrid little man commenting on a very complex industry which you failed to get into. In Other words FOXTROT OSCAR and just keep giving us bad news every evening on TV to a world that needs chearing up (how can you live with yourself).

[tilii]

Have another beer, flaps to 60, and be cool. If you mean what you've said above then you are a sad git. Your profile suggests that you are no such thing, so why the venom?

Humphrys is entitled to write whatever his editors are prepared to put to print. If you don't like that, why don't you write to the Sunday Times. Let's see if they'll print their reply. Should make a good read. :D

[virgin]

Flaps to 60

I'm sorry you're not working at the moment, the strain and worry must be terrible. But your abuse does no credit to either you, or our industry.
Just because people hold views with which we stringly disagree doesn't make them stupid.

You may not agree with John Humphrys (nor do I) but he's none of the things you accuse him of being. He's not just a newsreader and, whatever faults he may have, he's certainly not stupid. Try listening to him doing his day job - taking evasive politicians apart on the 'Today' programme on Radio 4 in the morning!

[ 25 November 2001: Message edited by: virgin ]

[5by5]

W.r.t. 'Just because people hold views with which we stringly disagree doesn't make them stupid'

Really ?! :D

[Scottie]

As a pilot I do sometimes feel guilty for the 18 tonnes of Co2 my machine pumps out on the way to Rome.....

Tilii, if your other half is right about global warming etc then it is very worrying. CH4 had a programme on this subject and they reckoned the cycle would be self perpetuating & unstoppable within 50 years.
:eek: :eek:

[flaps to 60]

tilii

From your profile I assume that you are an Airline Pilot. You have obviously seen that I am a flying instructor who is waiting for thier big break.

On September the 10th things were looking rosey maybe in the not too distant future I too would kiss the sky above the clouds. One day later the whole world changed. The fact is people are not travelling and Mr Humphrys is not helping.
Yes I mean what I said and if that makes me a sad git then consider me the saddest (BTW your git comment was just as venonmous as mine to JH but I'm big enough to take it).

virgin

If I earn £100 this week I will be lucky so yes the strain is very intense and it is affecting my marriage.
Maybe I was a bit strong but you can see from the above why. Mr Humphrys has been stupid, to involve his personal opinions on a subject he seems not to have properly investigated. He has thrown lots of figures into his article but no facts. If 1m people read it how many will be convinced by his vitriolic remarks that flying is bad and decide not to travel.
He is excellent at taking politicians apart and his articles in TST have been average but I am just sick to the highest at yet another fame and scoop hungry journo having a "pop" at aviation which puts passengers off and therfore my chances of flying something a little bigger than a C150.
Think about it. How many jobs have been lost because of Bad Press? Remember Excalibur? Had the press and TV not made that report about the tech MD11 at MAN then maybe just maybe they would still be around. Remember C4's report on the BA pilots. Yes they were wrong for drinking but how fair was the rest of the report. As if that was not bad enough they then hounded them out of thier next job. Did they not pay enough for thier mistakes. I have no respect for journalists because to them why should the truth spoil a good story. and I firmly believe that if JH and all the other story tellers were to give aviation some good press for once then I will be employed now.

[tilii]

flaps to 60

Your assumption is right, and I did not know you were looking for your first break. I offer the following for you to ponder:1. If you really want that break, be patient and be cool. This industry is notoriously one of feast and famine. It’s famine now, but it will turn around. You will be better prepared to be offered that break if you resile from bitterness;

2. Airline flying may not be as wonderful as you dream about. It is a good job, but it does not encompass ‘kissing the sky above the clouds’. I admire your romantic enthusiasm, but temper it with reality;

3. It is not Mr Humphrys who has caused people to stop travelling. He is merely writing about it. You already know who is responsible for this, so don’t blame others who are merely doing their chosen job;

4. I’ve already said that your profile suggests you are not a sad git. If the term offends, I withdraw it;

5. If the fact that you earn only £100 a week causes strain so intense that your marriage is threatened, you have two choices: change your career choice or change the missus. Sadly, many of us have had to make such unpalatable choices in the past;

6. Excalibur emerged from TEA UK which was mainly formed by pilots ex Orion, and so on. Think about that with respect to your future career choice. And don’t be so ready to defend failed airlines. Broadly speaking, the industry self-regulates in precisely this way. Those that fail usually deserve to, for one reason or another.

FWIW, I wish you well in your future endeavours. :) :) ;)

[ 25 November 2001: Message edited by: tilii ]

[Roadtrip]

Mr. Humphry is one of the new elitists. He thinks he knows what's best for everybody else . . . only if it doesn't affect him. Why should common people be able to have affordable vacations where they can relax and enjoy themselves? Why should he be concerned with the thousands good jobs associated with the aviation industry, not to mention the tourist industry in the UK? Sure! Tax all the oil as a method of consumption control! Taxes on petrol in the UK aren't high enough yet, right.

Foolishness like the drivel he wrote doesn't deserve dissemination. What an idiot.

[flaps to 60]

tilii

1) I have been trying for a number of years now to get a job, came close a couple of times but learnt from the experience each time. Of course the airline industry is cyclical and I truly believe that things will sort themselves out next year.
It is not bitternes I suffer from but pure unadulterated frustration.

2) I am also accutely aware that being a pilot is not a bed of roses. Maybe I will get cheesed off flying but I'll make sure I have a damm good time up till then.

3) Totally aware that obl (refuse even to put his initials in capitals) is to blame for current situation but Mr. Humphrys is not helping with his self interest attack on what is a beleagured and needs a friend industry.

4) Honestly, no offence taken I've been called worse both on these forums and in life. I have a thick skin and know that I will get worse when I do eventually start airline flying.

5) This is a particulary bad week some have been better some worse. Like most instructors we want to be where you are but if I have to take the shyte that goes with it then so be it. Don't get me wrong I enjoy instructing and I'm learning plenty.
At least I get to fly and I'm in the right environment. As for the missus the problems we are facing are that she is as hacked off as I am about MY situation. She puts up with the stop aviation has up till now imposed on our lives. We have a very strong relationship and I would only trade her in for a B777 type rating. Joking apart she is quite literally the wind beneath my wings at the momment.

6) My intention was not to defend a badly run airline but to highlight the fact that the press may just have pushed it over the edge with an inaccurate and sensationalist report.

tilii, thank you for your advice and good wishes. You never know I might end up as your co-pilot one day and from this thread I think many good humoured debates could take place in the bar. And as for being cool,I'm captain cool except when it comes to the anti aviation press. :cool: :rolleyes: :cool:

[Ignition Override]

A bit off the topic, but as for the US media: you folks who receive CNN or watch other US channels have some idea of how the media here (or there?) repeated the same shocking videos many, many times. For weeks they have tried to have much of the public believe (quite often by implication, innuendo, distortion etc) that there could be anthrax anywhere and everywhere... Walking through airports which have tvs, one could only see CNN and everytime you looked, "the war on terror" or "US at war", "attack on ther US" etc. This was airports' "entertainment" for those waiting to board a plane. Not just in Detroit(KDTW), where you often must pass so many gates between flights. I was fed up with it soon after 9/11.
So many of our "experts" have never "worked", that is, worked outside of the university office or lecture hall, except changing a flat tire, or mowing the grass. My First Officer on a trip last week has such a father-in-law who thinks he really knows our jobs, but has only taught aviation in a classroom, or at times visited a simulator or ridden on a cockpit jumpseat.

The US media's unlimited thirst for higher ratings, which equals more advertising revenue ($$, francs, pounds, marks, schillings, yen... ), has contributed very much to the public's fear about airline travel. No matter what our FAA and US airlines do right or wrong regarding airport security, the public feels helpless and is very gullible, often believing almost anything they see on tv.

Flaps to 60: I'm glad you are flying often and building valuable experience. Despite your frustration, at least you are also the PIC (when you later upgrade to captain on a bigger plane and first return home, a wife might say "you are the captain, but I'm the general"). The pay and living standard might be worse if you instructed over here. No matter what your higher pay is later, believe me, it will disappear fast, some of it will simply evaporate.

[ 26 November 2001: Message edited by: Ignition Override ]

[Magnus Picus]

This article might help you understand the myth of media.
www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9710-mainstream-media.html (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9710-mainstream-media.html)

Humphreys is infact one of the few who stand outside the "Agenda Setting Group", although he seems to be banging on the door to be let in occasionally....

[brain fade]

I read Humphries article in the times and have to say i thought it typical of his rather low-brow output. Although JH does a lot of high profile interviews on radio 4 his whinging, sanctimoneous, negative always-moaning style is typical of many journos these days. The format is nearly always the same and while it sounds inquisatorial in reality it is never pressed hard enough to really make the pips squeek! Naughtie does a better job. What Humphries ignores is the fact that air transport is growing at a fearsome rate so new facilities are required. Its underinvestment in public transport (as detailed in a full two page spread in the same copy of the times) that got this country into the sorry state its in with regard to transportation. The current crisis in aviation is just that; current. It will blow over soon and the industry will be in better shape than ever with some of the dead wood cut away. Humphries short term outlook, dont do a five year project (like T5) because of a short term problem such as we have on our hands at the moment is typical of his sensationalising, and patronising manner. If he has nothing useful to say he should keep his smug trap fuggin shut! :D :D :D

[vertigo]

Is it any wonder these articles are written when airlines show such a scant regard for the enviroment.
Aircraft flying round in circles burning fuel because it is cheaper than sitting on the ground at their departure airfield.
Wasting tonnes of fuel and causing pollution by ferrying fuel throughout the world.

The airline industry is not exactly grabbing the initiative so far as the enviroment is concerned.

[buzid]

Yes, JH does make some illfounded observations in this article.
The theme however, touches a very valid point; How long is the exponential growth in aviation going to be globally sustainable in EVERY sense (not just environmental).
There is a day of reckoning coming for any industry completely dependant on the turning of black gold into noise and pollution.
....or so said the prophet of doom.
A third runway at LHR would go a long way to reducing that noise though......

[Harry Wragg]

I guess that Mr Humphry's is going to walk to his next war, insurrection, disaster, famine, **** up. Alternatively journalist's can all stay at home (or in the pub if they prefer), and do there work by watching the telly. We never should have left the comfort and safety of the tree's. Save the planet, hug a journalist.

Harry hates journalists, car salesmen, estate agents, lawyers, environmentalists, nimby's, politicians, and so called freedom fighters.

[basil fawlty]

John Huphreys has got it exactly right. Bring back the days of flying boats, lounges, bunks, daytime only flights, quality hotels overnight, passengers with manners, style, class, etc and we shall make progress. up until then NOT!!!!!!!!

[Raas767]

John Humphreys is obviously an idealist. If he wants to point out everything that is wrong with the world he would be busy writing from know until the sun runs out of hydrogen. So what? Aviation is what it is and it will continue to be a valuable part of the global economy. Perhaps no other sector as a whole contributes more to global commerce than aviation.
As for emissions. Even extreme environmentalists concede that the overall effects of aviation is minniscule compared to the overall global industrial vomiting of exotic gases in to the atmosphere.
To those who live near Heathrow ( or any other airport); move.
Any thinking person knows that we are racing toward extinction on this planet. Aviation will have a very amall part in that. :(

[GlueBall]

Just the volcanic eruption of Mount ST. Helen's alone, 20 years ago, had blown more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all of the World's automobile emissions have in the past 100 years.

The entire human population, with all of its gadgets and sewers, biochemical and nuclear included, is nothing but a pimple on mother nature.

[Raas767]

Glueball.

I hate to turn this in to an environmental discussion, but what you said is a load of crap!
That is the quintessential right wing bible banging republican view that is in all the right of center publications so thay can justify environmental destruction on a huge scale.
If anyone thinks that we can continue to burn fossil fuels, burn C02 absorbing rainforests, overfish our oceans, destroy ozone, pollute every inch of realestate that we don't develope in to condo's without putting every speceis on this planet in great perril, including our own, than they are smoking crack. In a benign environment this planit is in stasis, and volcanic eruptions is part of that stasis. We are no longer in stasis.
In my previous post I simply meant to say that, in the grand scheme of things, aviation will have very little to do with it. In the mean time, we are now in the largest extinction cycle this planet has seen since the destruction of the dinosaurs.

Have a nice day.

[GeofJ]

Yes the writer had many misguided points but I have to agree with his assessment on the Concorde - a dinosaur that few can afford to fly on!

[Devils Advocate]

All you green credentials type folks should have a look at these:

CO2 from lakes 1 (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/mhalb/nyos/disaster/indexdisaster.htm)

CO2 from lakes 2 (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/mhalb/nyos/disaster/8485disaster.htm)

CO2 from lakes 3 (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/mhalb/nyos/project/annexes/safety.PDF)

well who'd have believed it, to kill that many people from such a distance it must be a HUGE amount of CO2, and without doubt (though speculation on my part) must be many many times more than all the worlds airliners have ever produced ?!

Nb. It's been reported (and I'm trying to find it - it was posted on PPRuNe some time ago) that all the worlds lakes / dams exude HUGE amounts of CO2, and other gases - which kind of puts paid to the idea that hydro power is green.

Found it - hence the edit:

Hydroelectric dams are no solution to climate change

The international and national dam lobbyists have been fast to adapt their discourse to the changing world situation. Given the widespread concern over climate change related to greenhouse gas emissions, dam promoters are now stressing that hydroelectricity is a clean source of energy, thus being the best candidate to substitute fossil fuel-based energy sources. But: is it really clean?

The existing research shows that hydropower is not only socially and environmentally destructive, but that it can also make a significant contribution to global warming, particularly in the tropics.

Through the processes of growth and decay, soils, forests and wetlands continuously consume and emit large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, the two most important greenhouse gases. When those ecosystems are flooded by the dams' reservoirs, the pattern of fluxes of CO2 and methane with the atmosphere is totally altered. Plants and soils decompose when flooded and will eventually release almost all their stored carbon. Permanently flooding tropical wetlands will tend to increase their methane emissions as well as making them a net source of CO2.

Researcher Philip Fearnside carried out studies in 1995 on two dams in Brazil: Balbina and Tucurui. He calculated their impact on global warming by assessing the amount of forest they flooded and the rate at which vegetation would decay at different depths of their reservoirs. His findings were that in 1990 (6 years after Tucurui started to fill and 3 years after the gates were closed at Balbina), the Tucurui reservoir had emitted 9,450,000 tonnes of CO2 and 90,000 tons of methane, while Balbina had emitted 23,750,000 tonnes of CO2 and 140,000 tons of methane. His conclusion was that Tucurui had 60 per cent as much impact on global warming as a coal-fired plant generating the same amount of electricity, while Balbina had 26 times more impact on global warming than the emissions from an equivalent coal-fired power station.

The above should suffice to show that hydropower is not clean regarding climate change. But there's even more. A comprehensive accounting of a dam's contribution to global warming should also include the emissions from the fossil fuels used during dam construction, those from the production of the cement, steel and other materials used in the dam, as well as the changes in greenhouse gas fluxes due to the land use and other changes which the dam encourages, such as deforestation, the conversion of floodplain wetlands to intensive agriculture, the adoption of irrigation on once rainfed lands, and the increased use of fossil-fuel-based artificial fertilizers.

In sum, large hydroelectric dams are not only no solution to climate change but, on the contrary, are part of the problem.

Article based on information from: Patrick McCully, "Silenced Rivers. The Ecology and Politics of large Dams", Zed Books 1996

[ 27 November 2001: Message edited by: Devils Advocate ]

[PowerRanger]

Humphreys is one of those Guardian-reading bleeding-hearts of the Left-leaning liberal intelligentsia.

They spend their lives hand-wringing over the choices the rest of us make. They sneeringly pontificate in their condascending fashion and moralise vacuously over the new imperealism they feel we project.

Yet the whole time they are so blissfully ignorant of their own crass hypocrisy. Humphreys waxes lyrical about the special protectionism of the airline industry seemingly oblivious to the fact that he is paid out of a poll tax levied on virtually the entire adult population of this country irrespective of the ability to pay.

His employer churns out the most unpatriotic, utterly repulsive drivel in the name of investigative journalism. They will trash anyone, crawl under any stone and destroy anyones life just to get a few seconds of bile on the evening news. Humphreys interviews are a mixture of pompous interruptions and snivelling deferrance. The former employed in the interview of anyone outside the new Labour elites, the latter reserved in plentiful measure for cabinet ministers.

I am heartily sick of Humphreys and his kind. Al they know how to do is to kick people when they are down. He is no great journalist. He is no incisive interviewer.

He is a parasite on the collective back of society.

He can take his utterly banal piece on the aviation industry and cram it where the sun doesn't shine.

Perhpas then he'll stop talking out of it.

:mad: :mad: :mad:

[GlueBall]

Next large (.5 x .5 Km) incoming asteroid will wipe us out and regenerate what's left of our planet. It won't matter how big of an ozone hole there is or how much CO2 and methane is blown into the atmosphere. :(

[brain fade]

Power Ranger. Spot On! I'd like to shove a copy of the Guardian right up his fuggin ar@e :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

[Doors to Automatic]

The BBC makes me sick - from the pro-taliban filth it has been pumping out on the 6 o'clock news to the one-sided ultra-biased debacle called Question Time it is a disgrace.

We all pay the licence fee so it should be representative of the population - not of the ultra-liberal minority who seem to be dictating to all of us how we should live our lives.

[GlueBall]

Without entertaining journalists as John Humphry there would be little imagination to stir readers' brain cells. Let us not be overcome by a pervasive lack of humor. Besides, today's paper will be in tomorrow's trash can. :D

[moggie]

Just a thought - but for the benefit of JH just how much CO2 does a 747 pump out crossing the altlantic? Then, if you take kg of CO2 per passenger kilometre, how does it compare with your 10yr old Nissan Sunny?

I took the time to work it out once - and if I remember correctly the fully laden jet used LESS fuel per mile than a car. I may just be suffering from a faulty memory - anyone care to help out?

Edited because I'm a sad git who's just worked it out. Figures for a VC10 - so significantly WORSE than a modern jet.

London to Washington = 3672 miles
Fuel burn= 63 tonnes. 142 POB = 448kg per head. 448kg @ specific gravity 0.8 = 560 litres fuel per head. Divided by 4.54 l per gallon = 123 gal per head.
3672 miles divide by 123 gallons = 29.75 mpg per passenger.

Now, when Mr Humphries drives his Merc/Lexus/BMW to the BBC with only himself on board, through a London rush hour, he will be lucky to get 20mpg. Who is the polluter.

OK so the figures are simplistic - but would you operators of more efficient jets like to crunch the numbers for your steeds?

[ 28 November 2001: Message edited by: moggie ]