Balpa not in the real world
Balpa, trade union for airline pilots, appears to be in a different reality to everyone else.
Government, more importantly taxpayers, do not exist to bailout airlines. For far too long airlines have had an easy ride. Trash the planet, lax tax regime that does not begin to cover their externalities, spread covid-19 around the world, reneged on refunds for cancelled flights, now whining about quarantine that should have been brought in weeks ago.
Money spent on creating cycle routes, pedestrianising city centres, is money well spent.
How many will wish to fly?
CEO Logan Air pointed out a few days ago, social distancing on a plane meaningless when all breathing in the same recycled air.
EasyJet Airbus A320 one person in row of three, no one in row in front or behind, no one in row across the aisle, would not be 2 metres apart, breathing in the same air for several hours, passing through busy airports.
Covid-19 has jolted us into another now.
There can be no return to normal as normal was not normal.
We are are now used to hearing birdsong, our streets are traffic free, cities pollution free.
We were told impossible to reduce pollution, carbon emissions, not feasible, not practical, certainly not within the timescales required and by the depth required.
We have see massive reductions almost overnight, not enough, we must cut deeper, but a step in the right direction, there is no going back, not if we are to achieve zero carbon by 2035.
Airlines are not scared cows. There are many small businesses need help restarting, they are far more important for regenerating the economy, we need to fund a Green New Deal.
We cannot must not use public money to bail out dirty, dinosaur industries.
The plea of dirty polluting industries is let us pollute some more, we will then have enough money to clean up our mess. They of course never do.
With airlines they do no even offer, at best they offer to plant a few trees.
Economies that are dependent on tourism must have a rethink. They cannot go back to businesses as usual which benefits foreign tour companies, where they are reduced to sharecroppers.
If Cyprus is typical and sadly it probably is, instead of use the lack of tourists to pause and reflect, how we do it better, different, it is how can we return as quickly as possible to the dustbin for the dregs of the tourist industry.
They must move away from dependency on mass tourism, end all-inclusive hotels, develop tourism that is distributive, regeneration, that benefits all of society, that does not bastardise their culture for drunks on a wedding outing, attract fewer tourists, longer stay tourists, direct bookings, diversify away from the bucket and spade brigade and gangs of drunks.
Tourism has to be sustainable, benefit all of society.
Doughnut Economics. Amsterdam with the help of Kate Raworth has developed a post-pandemic recovery programme, Doughnut Economics Amsterdam. A draft proposal has been drawn up for Cyprus focusing on the tourist sector, Doughnut Economics Cyprus.
Any recovery programme has to be distributive and regenerative.
We are passing through a portal from one world to another. There is a strict baggage allowance. There can be no carrying of baggage from the old world to the new.
