alt.hn

7/28/2026 at 1:15:19 PM

Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History

 https://simpleflying.com/over-150000-flights-airlines-busiest-day-recorded-history/

by cainxinth

7/28/2026 at 1:46:06 PM

This feels like one of those cases where it’s safe to say “history” instead of “recorded history.”

by addaon

7/28/2026 at 2:20:19 PM

History, as recorded by Flightradar24: "a whopping grand total of 153,359 commercial flights were tracked between 00:00 UTC and 23:59 UTC on July 23, 2026" So I would say it's justified to qualify it. Not sure how Flightradar24's coverage has evolved over time, but it could theoretically be that there were more flights at some point before 2020, but some of them weren't tracked?

by rob74

7/28/2026 at 11:56:05 PM

I think the parents point was that before recorded history we can be pretty sure there weren't airplanes for anyone to take flights on

by bluefirebrand

7/29/2026 at 8:23:52 PM

safer to hedge ones bets. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. We could dig up a dinosaur equivalent of a 747 tomorrow.

also, recorded history pulls double duty here limiting the record to earth. You never know what those shady schmucks in the delta quadrant are up to...

by snapplebobapple

7/28/2026 at 10:05:35 PM

Minor commercial flights at minor airports? The kind of 20 people flight between two cities in Indonesia not even Indonesians know much?

by epolanski

7/29/2026 at 4:11:16 AM

One would generally think that even those had ADS-B running.

by FireBeyond

7/29/2026 at 8:40:26 AM

Sure, most commercial aircraft were probably broadcasting their position etc. via ADS-B, the question was just if they were picked up by a Flightradar24 receiver. Also, I'm not sure what the threshold is for Flightradar24 to consider a flight "tracked" - probably at least the takeoff and landing? So (to use the same example) if there was a receiver near the larger city in Indonesia where the flight originated, but not near the remote airstrip where it landed, it probably isn't considered tracked?

by rob74

7/28/2026 at 1:53:42 PM

Even history is not safe if you consider the entire universe.

by amelius

7/28/2026 at 2:31:50 PM

Technically history only refers to the parts of the past for which we have written records.

by dudefeliciano

7/29/2026 at 4:39:42 PM

What if the aliens wrote stuff down?

by amelius

7/28/2026 at 11:03:52 PM

Paleontologists would like to have a word…

by reaperducer

7/28/2026 at 11:16:30 PM

No the study of history started at written records. It's call pre-historical for a reason

by casper14

7/29/2026 at 5:40:36 AM

Paleontology != History

by dudefeliciano

7/28/2026 at 2:17:02 PM

I dont think they are refering to that. I think it is a reference to all the non-recorded flights happening every day. Maybe there was a day last week with more flying, but it wasnt all recorded.

by sandworm101

7/28/2026 at 8:49:13 PM

i don't understand how we can be setting new records on airflights at a time when there is a major oil crisis unfolding. oil isn't at 200$/barrel yet but you'd think even at 100$/barrel the price signals would cause at least some demand destruction.

and wasn't there talk in europe of jet fuel shortages. and governments everywhere are supposed to run out of emergency oil supplies in the next 1 to 6 months?

i'm a bit confused.

by leaves83829

7/28/2026 at 10:22:01 PM

The need for transportation grows but the margin is likely terrible bc of the fuel prices. Hence why you can have "the most flights etc etc" but Spirit and other airlines are going under

by caycep

7/28/2026 at 10:02:58 PM

If a price of a ticket goes up 10/20/50 euros it's not gonna deter me a bit if I have to fly.

Most people fly because they have to, family gatherings, planned vacations, business trips.

The number of people genuinely deterred by a small amount in price is still going to be small.

Also, inflation adjusted, fuel isn't that expensive. 80/90$ a barrel are prices we've seen already decades ago.

by epolanski

7/28/2026 at 11:13:52 PM

More people, more flights.

by HDBaseT

7/28/2026 at 10:14:52 PM

The narrative that the online news-driven world tends toward is more a result of ideology and wishful thinking than reality. Hence the term “fake news.”

by profeaturr

7/28/2026 at 1:53:08 PM

Yes let's continue burning fuel. It's fine.

by bestouff

7/28/2026 at 2:03:04 PM

Flying is a bit unique in that there aren't really viable alternatives. It also accounts for a fairly small portion of emissions. Land transport (cars and trucks), power generation, and heating are where the big wins exist with viable alternatives.

by K0nserv

7/28/2026 at 7:40:12 PM

Per person, it is reliably the single most polluting thing you will do. The reason it accounts for a "small proportion" of emissions is that most people in the world do not fly at all. Indeed, a tiny (<1% IIRC) elite of the world's population account for most of the world's flight kilometers. Flying is an absolutely unscalable form of transport in a world of 8 billion people.

by bluebarbet

7/28/2026 at 7:55:53 PM

> Flying is an absolutely unscalable form of transport in a world of 8 billion people.

So is the private (ICE) motorcar. ~4000kg of CO2/y for typical US use.

by tmnvix

7/28/2026 at 2:28:26 PM

It only represents a small portion of emissions because so few people fly. For the people that do fly it represents a large portion of their emissions.

It’s also the activity least likely to be decarbonised.

Of course there are alternatives, I haven’t flown on a plane since 2001.

by tonyedgecombe

7/29/2026 at 12:39:47 PM

In Europe you can take the train. Although for whatever reason it's priced similarly to airplane tickets but obviously has far longer travel times.

A lot if not most airplane traffic is holiday related, and only a handful of rich people actually get to enjoy it. There's no need for it.

by Levitating

7/29/2026 at 12:39:35 PM

In Europe you can take the train. Although

A lot of

by Levitating

7/28/2026 at 2:55:59 PM

I think if high speed rail was a viable option in the US and Europe those numbers would look a lot different.

by dudefeliciano

7/28/2026 at 5:56:29 PM

In Europe flying is subsidised and ridiculously cheap. That would need to end.

Further than removing subsidies, if flight cost would include its negative externalities, few would fly.

by bergie

7/28/2026 at 2:08:58 PM

What?? In Europe there are lots of viable alternatives. Same as Asia!!

by megablast

7/28/2026 at 2:12:28 PM

For transport you're right. I think the parent your referring to was specifically saying there's no alternative way to power a plane. That's my assumption at least.

by jjice

7/28/2026 at 2:27:02 PM

I was saying a bit of both. megablast is correct that there are alternatives, but I'd maybe quibble with "viable". For example you can get from Stockholm to Umeå with a 1 hour flight or a 6-8 hour train journey, is the train a viable alternative? For aviation there aren't alternative fuels and on many journeys even the alternative transport options aren't in the same ballpark.

by K0nserv

7/28/2026 at 2:39:29 PM

Calling it a “1 hour flight” is a bit misleading when comparing transport options. The relevant number is door-to-door travel time.

Once you include getting out of Stockholm to the airport, security, boarding, the flight itself, possible baggage collection, and the trip into Umeå, I would be surprised if the total were much below 4 hours. Comparable German domestic flights such as Hamburg–Munich usually took me around 4–4.5 hours in practice in the past when traveling for work before the pandemic.

That makes the train a 6–8 hour alternative to a roughly 4-hour flight journey. Whether that is viable depends on the traveller, but it is certainly more competitive than “1 hour versus 8 hours” suggests.

I admit that for me, living about an hour north of the Hamburg main station but only 15 minutes from the airport, the plance for a business trip in Munich can still be a viable (albeit seldom taken) option. More often than not, if time permits, I take the train, work on the train. But as said - there still are situations, that make flying such a distance viable (to me).

I just wanted to point out, that it is not as clear cut as 1 hour vs. 6 to 8 hours.

by sdoering

7/28/2026 at 2:47:07 PM

In the UK I could get from Central London to Central Glasgow in 4.5 hours on the train. The same trip on a flight, it takes an hour to get the airport (assuming it's not one of the budget airlines pretending Essex or Bedfordshire is London...), I need to be there 2 hours before (maybe less is you are brave and Security isn't messed up) the flight takes an hour and then I have to get out of the airport and find my way from Paisley back to Glasgow Central.

Of course there are a lot of variables, if instead I leave from my house the aircraft would actually be faster, mostly due to the extra time it takes to get to Central London and from Waterloo to Euston.

In reality we usually drive in about 6-8 hours because, as a family of 4 traveling, it's considerably cheaper even before you take into account having transport on the other end.

by VBprogrammer

7/28/2026 at 3:05:05 PM

I'd say that 4-6 hours is often the cut-off point for total travel time city-to-city -- provided that the train is fast.

I and a friend once started at Stockholm Central station to Malmö Central Station at the same time. I boarded a bullet train; he took the bus to the airport ... We arrived at the same time six hours later.

I've been looking at travel in Japan recently. Between Hiroshima and Tokyo, the bullet train (fast Shinkansen) and flight are both about four hours.

A bullet train is much more comfortable than flight within these limits because there are so fewer steps: no travel to/from airport, fewer tickets to book and often no check-in or security checkpoint.

by Findecanor

7/28/2026 at 3:16:23 PM

Yeah fair, having experienced Japanese trains I fully agree about the comfort. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't build high speed rail and try to shift more travel to trains instead of aviation either to be clear. I love trains and I especially love Shinkansen style trains, but aviation still has a big edge in big parts of the world and on some journey lengths.

by K0nserv

7/28/2026 at 2:23:29 PM

I'd like to see an attempt at modern air cruises on giant zeppelins.

by RankingMember

7/28/2026 at 2:30:02 PM

Then the plane takes longer than the train!

by lbriner

7/28/2026 at 2:33:14 PM

A price I’m more than willing to pay to for my Final Fantasy IX airship

by phoghed

7/28/2026 at 2:34:09 PM

Exactly what I had in mind

by RankingMember

7/28/2026 at 2:34:43 PM

Yeah this would be more making the airship part of the experience rather than a means to an end.

by RankingMember

7/28/2026 at 2:34:43 PM

For short trips. Most plane trips are at a distance where there isn't a viable alternative. Sure there are some nice trains that can handle the more common trips, but airplanes really shine for much longer trips.

by bluGill

7/28/2026 at 2:59:33 PM

And planes go to more places than trains do. You want to add a new destination? Go through a few years of planning and construction for a couple thousand feet of tarmac, and people can go there using existing planes. Best of all, you don't need a large passenger base to justify the expense.

For rail? You're looking at an order of magnitude more for planning and construction, all new infrastructure, all new rail stock. It will take a much larger passenger base to justify the expense and effort.

Airplanes don't just shine for longer trips. There have been some interesting developments with commuter airplanes that are either all electric or hybrid with a 200-plus-mile range. If they are as energy efficient as they promise to be, we could see a resurgence in municipal airports for transportation between regional centers where rail is either unavailable or excessively expensive.

by rickydroll

7/29/2026 at 3:26:14 AM

OTOH, there's a lot of stuff that is far more feasibly moved on the Earth's surface rather than in flight. So some sort of surface-level infrastructure will be required: highways, railroads, canals, rivers, oceans.

Some of those are amenable to high-speed variants, some less so. And once you've established transport corridors, much of the hard part (rights-of-way acquisition) is accomplished, so that adding a high-speed route becomes far more tractable.

For the most part, actual construction costs are fairly modest, modulo bridges and tunnels, both of which can of course be quite expensive.

by dredmorbius

7/29/2026 at 6:50:23 AM

Good points. I think that running rail parallel to highways, especially if the rail can travel twice to three times as fast as road traffic, is a good plan.

I think increasing the viability of travel between smaller airports is a good thing for those times when you don't want to spend a lot of time traveling or waiting for a transit vehicle. If the equivalent of micromobility air travel comes to fruition, you'll see two- or three-person vehicles that get up and go when someone wants a ride. Another benefit could be the airport-to-airport delivery of packages with different-sized drone craft and autonomous navigation.

#IFoundMyFlyingCar

by rickydroll

7/29/2026 at 10:56:26 AM

Flying still require an airport which means you need a fair amount of distance. Sure some make short flights today but they have made their life center around flying those short flights they can't accept houses or joins that are not close to an airport. Most wouldn't accept that compromise in their life.

by bluGill

7/29/2026 at 7:59:49 AM

Flying is usually the cheapest and quickest option. Madness!

by rienbdj

7/28/2026 at 2:12:17 PM

Depends on where you're flying to and from in Asia, and how far.

by FredFS456

7/28/2026 at 9:50:59 PM

if people prefer flying even if alternatives exist, like what's going on in Europe and Asia, then the alternatives aren't good enough -- price, convenience, availability, comfort, whatever reasons.

by jryle70

7/28/2026 at 11:04:42 PM

Even if some high speed rail existed in the US, do you think it is practical to go from California to Maine? If you are going 2,500 miles on a train that is going 150 miles an hour it would take you 16 hours assuming there are no stops. Obviously there are going to be stops so your trip is going to be an entire day.

I think a lot of people do not understand just how massive the US is.

by ImJamal

7/29/2026 at 3:53:59 PM

You are correct, most people who were trying to get from California to Maine or the reverse for the purpose of getting there would probably prefer to fly. Unless a ticket were significantly cheaper than air travel almost everyone doing the full trip has at least one train enthusiast in their party who is doing it because they want to do it.

The thing is, a high speed corridor enabling that trip would, as you note, involve many stops of which each pairing represents another potential flight that the same train might replace. Many of those pairings will be short enough flights that a proper high speed rail corridor would easily compete with if not destroy the short-haul flight offerings.

To use your example, it looks like there are currently two flights between California and Maine, both run weekly by United between PWM and either LAX or SFO flying east on Saturday mornings and returning west on Sunday morning. A hypothetical high speed rail corridor connecting coast-to-coast between either of those city pairs might not replace a lot of flights across the whole country but one train running along that full route might have replaced one from Portland to Buffalo, another from Boston to Columbus, another from Cleveland to St. Louis, et cetera.

by wolrah

7/28/2026 at 11:53:14 PM

California to Maine is a lot of distance. But would people fly from NYC to Boston if they had a bullet train?

by elzbardico

7/29/2026 at 1:24:41 AM

The person I was responding to was saying that Europe and Asia have alternatives so it is wrong to say that flying has no viable alternatives. I was pointing out that some routes in the US are just not viable.

Sure some routes could have viable alternatives, but others just do not.

by ImJamal

7/28/2026 at 2:47:49 PM

There are plenty of alternatives. Most importantly: traveling locally. Nobody needs to visit 30 countries by 30 years old or whatever dumb social media excuses they have.

Air travel is a very recent modern invention(1960s, at least for everyday folk) and people act like flying around the world is a right.

Modern capitalism is an excess machine and it'll feed us constant excuses for why our reasons are valid. Air travel is a great example. Travel and tourism are seen as "musts" by people nowadays. It's insane how destructive and unnecessary it is. It's wild how entitled everyone is nowadays. I'll happily take down votes for calling out the insane excess that we have nowadays. We're killing ourselves one funco pop at a time and we all deserve that funco pop according to the latest excuse(won't someone blame the rich!!!)

by chneu

7/28/2026 at 3:19:17 PM

Even if you are correct, in practice there's no way to put this particularly genie back in the bottle. It's the same as trying to argue that we should solve our energy problems by asking people to consume less energy. Outside of some climate dictatorship, it's not happening.

Also, on travel, I think there's a lot to be said for the value of travel and being exposed to other cultures and societies. "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness[..]" and all that.

by K0nserv

7/28/2026 at 4:55:06 PM

I believe climate dictatorship will come already this century if our decarbonisation efforts stay as weak as they are. It won't be under that name though. One sufficient policy would be to price everything in money + co2 equivalent currency. Every person in a country gets a certain co2 currency budget per year. Pretty simple actually (yeah yeah, the small print will still be long but the gist is simple).

by Tarsul

7/29/2026 at 10:00:29 AM

> One sufficient policy would be to price everything in money + co2 equivalent currency. Every person in a country gets a certain co2 currency budget per year. Pretty simple actually (yeah yeah, the small print will still be long but the gist is simple).

Just having a carbon tax, that accurately prices the cost of carbon, is enough. It's one of the few taxes that has broad support among economists. However in a democracy like the US I don't see how it ever gets implemented and even if it does, it will get ripped up 2-4 years later.

by K0nserv

7/28/2026 at 5:17:24 PM

I could easily be convinced that dictatorships make a big comeback this century, however I find it unlikely that they will have a good carbon policy.

by adrianN

7/29/2026 at 3:53:18 PM

Many people travel for work, though.

I have a highly specialized skill set that require me to be at site.

What am I supposed to do, no longer go home?

by Gud

7/28/2026 at 3:01:21 PM

It’s 2.5-3% of all global emissions.

People who complain about aviation do more harm than good.

We would accomplish more by closing a few coal power plants and replacing them with renewables or nuclear. And no one would even notice.

Can you believe it’s almost 2030 and we still haven’t reached peak coal.

by melling

7/28/2026 at 8:10:21 PM

> People who complain about aviation do more harm than good.

I find this a bit hard to swallow. It speaks to a sense of impunity wrt emissions for a demographic that very arguably drives much of the rest of the way energy is consumed. It is one of many choice this demographic has the privelage of making, in contrast to much of the rest of the population.

Have you ever met a coal or oil exec who was shy about flying? If anything, the latter would no doubt lobby hard against efforts to reign in flights, as it's directly tied to the interests of their industry.

by greggoB

7/28/2026 at 8:24:53 PM

Who cares. Fix the big problems first. The general public is already complaining about subsidizing EVs, renewables, etc.

It’s ridiculous the amount of fossil fuels we still burn for electricity.

This “shame, shame” garbage that people did never worked.

by melling

7/28/2026 at 10:45:42 PM

Hard to tell what you're specifically bothered by - is it a focus on emissions that aren't specifically fossil fuels burned for electricity, or "shame, shame garbage", as you put it?

In either case, I think we can be expected to walk and chew gum; to see every source of emissions as its own individual problem (scaled to proportion, ofc) AND recognize that they inevitably feed into each other. To do less is counterproductive, IMO.

by greggoB

7/29/2026 at 10:10:52 AM

> subsidizing renewables

Except this isn't happening. Oil is subsidised (and not just by the constant action for the last 50 years to keep oil flowing from the middle east), and has been for decades. Even coal is subsidised in the US

Renewables are increasingly banned in the US.

I agree the nonsense about the tree botherers saying "we need to be vegetarian and use no more than 1kWh a day of energy" are twats that do more harm than good, but the US specifically has an agenda against renewable energy, presumably because it's not the subscription model that the US loves. You buy your solar panel and it works for decades. You buy a gallon of gas and you're back the next day to buy it again.

by iso1631

7/29/2026 at 6:43:10 PM

> we need to be vegetarian

In my experience it's been vegan even :P And yes, agreed, this is indeed counterproductive virtue signalling.

by greggoB

7/29/2026 at 10:07:46 AM

The people driving it tend not to be flying 300 miles on a public 767, even at the front.

by iso1631

7/28/2026 at 2:30:09 PM

Here is a good list of 'fuel per seat (in mpg)' numbers for various airplane configurations and flight durations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Examp...

The total average across the industry in 2018 was between 67 and 81 mpg. Modern planes are in the 100-120mpg range.

by ortusdux

7/28/2026 at 2:33:51 PM

The issue is that we are enabling people to travel long distances too cheaply.

by elil17

7/28/2026 at 7:42:07 PM

And above all too quickly. Per kilometer, flying is roughly as polluting as driving, but nobody would think to drive across a continent to go to the beach.

by bluebarbet

7/29/2026 at 11:33:40 AM

Yes they would. That's why we get massive queues for alpine crossings during European holidays – German and Dutch tourists trying to get to the beaches in Italy.

by brainwad

7/28/2026 at 2:46:10 PM

What about short distances? Why is it cheaper to fly Berlin-Stuttgart than to take a train? it makes absoutely no sense.

by dudefeliciano

7/29/2026 at 11:49:03 AM

The costs are pretty evenly split between: 1) Maintaining track 2) Buying/leasing/maintaining trains 3) Staff

The single best thing you can do to drive down train cost is to put more people on each train.

Based on these sources: https://www.statista.com/chart/20169/gb-rail-fare-spending-b...

https://transport.ec.europa.eu/document/download/f5c82d86-23...

by elil17

7/29/2026 at 6:44:06 PM

I understand where the costs come from, but how trains are more expensive to operate than airplanes is still baffling to me.

by dudefeliciano

7/28/2026 at 8:02:30 PM

Trains are expensive because the track is 99.9% empty.

If you could fill a train track as much as a road is filled, it would be very cheap

by londons_explore

7/29/2026 at 3:38:29 AM

Track utilisation is limited by a number of factors, including headways, much of which is governed by stopping distance.

I believe a general minimum practical headway allows about 10--12 trainsets per hour on a given track. At 400 passengers/trainset, that's roughly 4,000 to 4,800 passengers/hour, per track.

That compares with about 1,500 vehicles/hour per highway lane, or about 2,550 passengers/hour at the U.S. average of 1.7 passengers/vehicle.

I've seen some suggestion that headways could be reduced to 3--4 minutes, or 15--20 trainsets/hour. I know that some urban rapid transit systems (e.g., BART in San Francisco) achieve this, but only on a small section of the system (Colma to Oakland, transiting downtown SF, IIRC). Train speeds there peak at 70 MPH, and I believe are much slower for most of this portion of track.

by dredmorbius

7/29/2026 at 8:41:53 AM

Some urban subways have 30 second headways.

by londons_explore

7/29/2026 at 4:58:39 PM

And, I suspect, low speeds, as braking distance increases with the square of speed.

The New York subway has a top speed of 55 mph (88 kmh), but an average speed of 17.8 mph (28 kmh). I'm not sure what downtown intra-station peaks are, but suspect they're low on shorter sections. The London Underground is similar, with an average of 33 kmh (20 mph), max ~100 kmh (60 mph). This varies considerably by lines, the Bakerloo stock peaks at 45 mph; the Circle line averages just 24 kmh (15 mph). Chicago's 'L' is similar to NYC: max 55 mph, average ~20--25 mph.[3]

Note that averages include acceleration, deceleration, and dwell times (standing still at stations). But central portions of subways probably achieve low headways with relatively low peak speeds for congested track segments.

Notes:

________________________________

1. <https://parkingday.org/how-fast-do-new-york-subway-trains-tr...>

2. <https://tubenotifications.co.uk/insights/how-fast-is-the-tub...>

3. <https://parkingday.org/how-fast-does-the-subway-go-in-chicag...>

by dredmorbius

7/28/2026 at 2:37:43 PM

Yes, let's make things more expensive, cause we experts know best. That poor guy that needs to attend a family funeral, he's a loser that should stay home. Inflation for the Win!

by 9cb14c1ec0

7/29/2026 at 11:04:46 AM

Ideally making polluting activities more expensive would go hand in hand with reducing inequality - so people could still afford needs like going to a funeral. A great example of this is Canada's Carbon Fee & Dividend system.

by elil17

7/29/2026 at 6:34:16 AM

Does he really "need" it though ? For thousands of years people didn't travel shi fast to attend funerals (they only did it locally), where they less happy about it ?

by bestouff

7/28/2026 at 2:45:19 PM

and according to the article the last record was 200k planes per day on june 29 2025, while july 23rd had more than 280k - so while efficiency may be going up (how many of those 280k planes are in the modern 100-120mpg range?) total flights are as well. Result: total emissions are steadily increasing.

by dudefeliciano

7/28/2026 at 2:37:19 PM

I think the way airline tickets are priced is a big factor, and needs to change.

It is often cheaper to take a connecting flight to an airport and flying from there than to start from that airport. That disincentivises taking a low-carbon-emission train to the airport and experiencing more of (and spending more in) the city near the airport than just its airport.

Often, for longer flights, the more stops, the cheaper the total ticket gets. Planes consume more fuel at take-off and landing, making the the carbon footprint increase with these cheaper tickets. And the more you fly, the more points you get that could pay for more flights.

It should be the other way around: air-travel carbon tax should be progressive. You should pay more each time if you fly more often. That would reduce the number of flights in total while still allowing everyone to take that "trip of a life-time".

by Findecanor

7/28/2026 at 9:39:48 PM

But the bureaucrats and NGO employees who tell the rest of how to live will still be able to take unlimited flights to climate change conferences, right?

by nradov

7/28/2026 at 3:29:53 PM

Even hot air balloons burn fuel....How do you propose we cross great distances: horse, sailboat, or walk?

by sleepyguy

7/28/2026 at 7:50:59 PM

I guess the suggestion is to not travel at all. How much of all air travel is for fun and leisure?

by trallnag

7/28/2026 at 9:41:06 PM

Right, people should just sit at home and be miserable. Fun is sinful.

by nradov

7/29/2026 at 6:40:14 AM

Can't you have fun in your life without taking a plane ? So weird.

by bestouff

7/29/2026 at 12:46:25 AM

I see you’ve met my mother!

by doubled112

7/28/2026 at 1:54:11 PM

We're screwed and powerless so activate ostrich mode is one way to deal with things, at least on a personal level. Probably better for your health

by iso1631

7/28/2026 at 2:19:51 PM

I guess if you are really serious about saving the planet from airplanes, you could start a network of similar-feeling folks and begin randomly bombing enough flights to terrify the world into not flying.

Give yourself an edgy name, like the Children of Kali, to make it stick.

Honestly, if you think the stakes are that high then you implicate yourself with anything but fully committed action. Anything less, and you just seem preachy and screechy.

PS: It's a book called The Ministry of the Future. Try reading once in a while. Whoosh.

by buellerbueller

7/28/2026 at 2:33:41 PM

I recently read Days of Rage about the various groups committing political violence during the 60s and 70s. Weatherman, Black Panthers, Black Liberation Army, etc.

I don't know if there was really a 'message' more than just reporting what 'happened'. But, I have to say I came away with the idea that that kind of political violence is futile. Non-violent political action seemed to have MUCH more beneficial action than any bomb. (of course it wasn't as clear-cut between non-violent groups and revolutionary groups at the time)

Maybe thats only because I just read the ONE book.

by fusslo

7/28/2026 at 7:32:57 PM

A famous paper argued that, from 1960 to 2006, nonviolent resistance was twice as likely as violent resistance to achieve its goal: it's a paper that most activists I've ever met had heard of. The reasons are largely the perception of violent resistance by the bystanders, meaning the population.

However, there have been a number of criticisms to the paper about data coding, methodology, and interpretation/motivated reasoning. Recently, the author has also acknowledged that governments have adapted since 2006: her data says nonviolent resistance is still more effective, but that the success rate has cratered.

I tried to find some of the criticisms, but it's recent, so all AI generated, so I won't link before reading, but the criticisms I'm aware of I think are robust. All this to say, the idea that nonviolent resistance is more effective is comfortable and feels better, and there is a paper that says so, but your examples and those of a child comment are not about resistance to armed colonial oppression and it's not enough to form a blanket opinion about violent resistance.

by constantius

7/28/2026 at 2:39:05 PM

The general impression from talking to people who live then (I was a baby in the 1970s so I knew/know a fair number). The violent groups were looked on as weird or kids who needed to grow up - they were ignored for the most part other than cheering on what the police did.

There is a reason Rosa Parks was chosen to start the bus boycott - she comes off as "just like me" to the average person. Thus when she couldn't take it anymore the rest of America didn't write her off.

by bluGill

7/29/2026 at 3:54:52 AM

Different periods have seen different modes of action.

There was a tremendous amount of violence in the labour movement from the late 18th through mid-20th centuries, including numerous armed conflicts. This was perpetrated by both sides, though my sense is that capital was somewhat more prone to exacting violence on labour than vice versa.

The ANTIFA movement of the 1930s--1940s was a worldwide violent struggle, which ultimately proved effective. Nonviolent movements (say, the White Rose resistance in Germany) proved utterly ineffectual. It's useful to remember Gandhi's observation that ahimsa is predicated on an opponent with a conscience which can be shamed. That wasn't the case against Nazi Germany.

Civil rights, across multiple jurisdictions, has seen both violent and non-violent movements. The US civil rights movement of the 1960s is often seen as offering White America a choice between MLK's non-violent movement and the far more radical path pursued by the Nation of Islam, Black Panthers, and others.

The story is ... complex.

by dredmorbius

7/28/2026 at 2:24:49 PM

That is a terrible way to get the necessary support for climate action and would be actively harmful to the cause.

This argument has been made so often and in so much detail that I’m surprised to still see people suggest climate terrorism in, presumably, good faith.

by adrianN

7/29/2026 at 1:27:07 PM

For what it is worth: in the novel, the point of bombing planes is not to get popular support for climate action, but to make it risky enough that people just stop taking planes.

by buellerbueller

7/28/2026 at 2:39:29 PM

Modern aviation is an amazing engineering feat (all the environmental issues aside). With such numbers it means that "one in a million" failure occurs roughly evey week, but the fact that we have so little major incidents demonstrates how well aicrafts are engineered.

by kbart

7/28/2026 at 10:41:13 PM

I’m worried that we will spend precious resources like oil on useless transport. I strongly believe that all of us who care deeply about the future of our civilization’s technological progress need to push for stronger limits on short fistance and low occupancy travel for air, land and sea.

Even if you are not alarmed about the environmental impact of flights as a share of global emissions, it’s no reason to spend our global oil reserves for useless travel. Airlines already optimize flights and routes, but the gap can be closed even further if we simply let go of the immediate convenience of booking flights.

by originalvichy

7/28/2026 at 1:46:39 PM

With numbers like that I guess they have no reason to make flights more comfortable or convenient. I just did a cross country flight and back 2 weeks ago and I'm still recovering from it. I really hate flying now.

by datakan

7/28/2026 at 2:10:35 PM

The real cost of air travel continues to go down as customers really only discriminate on price. Airlines have tried before to compete on other facets but everything failed.

The best you can do is look at specific carriers, and more importantly specifically what aircraft you'll be flying on.

A cross country flight in economy is going to be more comfortable in a Delta A220 than a United 737 Max. However, because of hubs and lack of competition many non-mega metros don't really have a large amount of choice.

by richwater

7/28/2026 at 9:29:10 PM

Im not sure airline history agrees with you. My cursory knowledge from prior posts on HN like this had mentioned regulation/deregulation played a huge part in shaping the ways that airlines competed. I've heard that airlines don't compete on price/feature as much anymore because they don't have to, and kickbacks from all the credit card offerings/deals. Anecdotally I've noticed this year major airlines pulling out of certain hubs (southwest) so there is even less competition, but prices still seemed to go down among the remaining options!

Im not sure how accurate this is, so willing to be shown differently!

by Sleaker

7/28/2026 at 2:34:11 PM

Maybe, I don't know. Sprit Airlines closing up abruptly like it did may refute your premise. They were the cheapest of the cheap, people hated them and now they are gone.

by datakan

7/28/2026 at 2:43:38 PM

As the country exited COVID, mainline carriers began to really push their basic and barebones fares which directly took away business from ULCCs like Spirit. Spirit never really leveraged their credit cards effectively to help subsidize the cost of seats.

ULCCs thrive when they can maximize their time in the sky across as many different flights as possible. Filling up the day with many different flights allows them to rake in checked-baggage fees, reserved seat fees etc more often than longer mainline carrier flights. All of this went out the window when a large portion of their A320 fleet was grounded because of the P&W engine issues. This absolutely killed their utilization percentage.

Spirit died way more because of business management than it did because customers didn't choose on price.

by richwater

7/28/2026 at 9:45:35 PM

That's not completely true. Delta Airlines became the most profitable of the four major US carriers specifically by focusing on an improved customer experience. This allowed them to charge slightly higher ticket prices, and led to increased usage of their branded credit card. United Airlines is now trying to mimic that model. Of course we've all had some bad experiences on Delta but the statistics show that on average their performance and customer satisfaction is higher.

by nradov

7/28/2026 at 1:56:16 PM

> With numbers like that I guess they have no reason to make flights more comfortable or convenient. I just did a cross country flight and back 2 weeks ago and I'm still recovering from it. I really hate flying now.

My expectations are low and yet airlines somehow manage to fail. I made the mistake of booking a flight with frontier and they "delayed" the flight several times before eventually canceling the whole flight.

by collabs

7/28/2026 at 3:39:20 PM

All airlines do this. It’s frustrating, and it has to do with playing the game with the DOT. They are punished for cancelling flights, but not delaying them, so the game is to delay rather than cancel until there is truly no option but to cancel. It’s an area of regulation that needs more work.

I am a current airline pilot, and I end up flying on all of them in order to get to and from work. Trust me, they all do this. The impact to you may be less if it’s an airline with more flights, because that airline has more options to recover and fix your experience, but they all do it.

by histriosum

7/28/2026 at 2:40:42 PM

I was up in the air flying that day.

It didn't seem busy at all. Everything was on time, quick, and smooth on both sides. My partner and I commented on how smooth everything went.

by kilroy123

7/28/2026 at 2:05:01 PM

The new Airbus Project Sunrise aircraft also set the record for longest passenger aircraft flight

by richwater

7/28/2026 at 2:27:01 PM

Just looked that up. Good lord, they need to amend the universal declaration of human rights to include flying people 24 hours straight in coach as a violation.

by RankingMember

7/29/2026 at 11:58:07 AM

I would pay a premium for it. The direct flight is still better than being interrupted halfway through your "night", and then having to trudge through a huge transfer airport just to get on another plane for another 8-14h. Also, the direct flight will be able to set the cabin lights and meal schedule optimally for you, unlike the stopover flights. And it's several hours quicker.

The downside is that it doesn't scale beyond the biggest city pairs: you'd need N^2 direct flights vs 2N flights via a hub.

by brainwad

7/28/2026 at 2:46:16 PM

It will surely be a tough sell. It will be very expensive (comparatively), and most travelers won't even want to do it. There's a reason Ethiad is so successful on these kinds of flights because their hub creates a natural stopping point halfway.

by richwater

7/28/2026 at 2:11:06 PM

This seems like madness to me. A fully loaded 747 has around 140,000 litres of energy-dense jet fuel containing between 2.2 and 2.9 GWh worth of energy - or around two hours output of a typical power station.

This level of profligacy is simply not sustainable.

by Wildgoose

7/28/2026 at 2:57:03 PM

Optimization for this problem looks like making it so people and items do not need fast transportation, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

by nancyminusone

7/28/2026 at 2:30:09 PM

Parkinson's Law needs a moderator in the form of agreed-upon limits. How we get there, I have no idea, but it's well-overdue.

by RankingMember

7/28/2026 at 2:29:31 PM

Yes, we need to shut down the power plants. People lived without electricity for millions of years, they can always get back to it. /s

by noosphr

7/28/2026 at 2:59:06 PM

To summarize, this is the equivalent of someone putting their fingers in their ear and going, "lalalalalala I'm not listening" while someone tells them to stop being a consumption monster.

by chneu

7/28/2026 at 8:50:55 PM

Yes, please turn off your computer and stop killing the planet.

by noosphr

7/28/2026 at 5:22:56 PM

[dead]

by jmye

7/28/2026 at 2:31:29 PM

To me, the parent's statement was a comment on the enormity of aircraft fuel used.

by RankingMember

7/28/2026 at 2:31:34 PM

not really the same thing

by twister2920