We have /c/fuckcars but no /c/fuckplanes. Yet a lot of the same arguments apply. They cause air pollution (roughly double the amount per km traveled), noise pollution and they (airports) take up a lot of space near dense living areas. Sure, some places can practically only be visited by plane, just like some places can practically only be visited by car. But people don’t consider not having your holiday that far away or giving pushback on a busines trip that should have been an online meeting. Besides work-from-home being encouraged, work-from-home-country should be too.
Cars need to be discouraged in favor of busses, trams and trains. Planes nees to be discouraged in favor of high-speed trains, staycations and hopefully new alternatives like modern sailboats or electric planes.
While some of those 13% are hedonistic overindulgers, I’m guessing that a significant portion of them are people who have to travel frequently for work.
Of those who have to travel for work, some of them could probably reduce that air travel significantly if they used remote work instead, or conducted meetings by phone instead of in person, etc.
But there will be some remaining portion of people who travel for work who actually need to travel for work. Usually people who are highly specialized in something. Inspectors, investigators, researchers, technicians, scientists, musicians on tour, sports teams traveling to away games, aid workers traveling to impoverished countries, etc, etc, etc. People whose work needs to be done in person, at specific locations across a wide area, and can’t be easily replaced by local labor.
No idea at all what the actual percentage breakdown would be between those, but my point is not all of those 13% are doing it for selfish, wasteful reasons.