When considering FFP people need to remember that USA/CAN programs are very different from programs for the rest of the developed world. Implementation points and rewards are handled very differently. I don't have knowledge on the North American systems so my comments are for non-NA programs.
From the very first line of their report. "driving not just ticket sales, but increased flight provision." there is very little evidence that this is true. the FFP are used to attempt you to remain with a particular set of airlines rather than to fly more. " most carbon-intensive seating options and encouraging additional flights." again there is clear evidence that people upgrade but nothing indicates that people fly more (as a general rule - there will always be outliers)
Page 6 "Publicly available research on who uses FFPs is relatively sparse. " their own words indicate why real world data is completely missing from their report. They use pretend individuals to work out values rather than read data representing real travel patterns.
Page 11 "There also appears to be a sub-group of frequent-flyers for whom travel, or flying itself, or even simply points-collection, is a serious hobby. " Here we go again more of the "appears" a cursory examination of the available literature suggest that though these people exist they are a tiny irrelevant minority which in the scale of thigs can be ~~assumed~~ ignored.
Business travel for work has died when the new normal arrived. FPP plans are becoming more limited and more restricted. I have taken to international trips the last 2 years I gained points which I have been unable to use for anything. (One way domestic trip is of no use to me). You used to be able to gateway your AirPoints into other reward programs this is no longer possible.
"I can attest to this; on my recent trip to the UK, I upgraded to a premium seat I never would have paid cash for." But you would still have taken the flight right, so most of your emissions would still have occurred.
"but in the global picture, very few people fly often, and they are almost all in the richest 1%."
So what? Why is this an issue. We are not equal we will never be equal your life is not my life is not the life of an Indian Peasant is not the life of a small African town trader. We can never be the same there will always be imbalances. Some people have advantages over others and always will have. You and I Lloyd were lucky to be born into a first world medical system. Do you claim that we should not use that system because most of the people in the world don't have a similar one?
"Getting rid of incentives to fly like Frequent Flyer Points plans might be a good place to start."
I think you would be very disappointed with the results - but why bother the programs are dying under their own weight. 5-10 years and they will be footnoted in history.
During my consulting career, most pre-Internet, everything was on-site which meant flying to get to the customer and back again. I did get locked in - United - and did most of my 1/2 million plus air miles with them. Having to fly that much, doing the upgrades to biz and first made life easier as Economy was really rough on my back. The upgrades also made it possible to do work as well (couldn't open a laptop in the cheap seats).
And yes - the rewards. Between the FFP, FFDriver, and FFStayer, I took my wife on a second honeymoon to Hawai'i First Class everything that I otherwise would not have been able to do. Pretty much, everything was free except food and gifts to bring back.
Later, when the kids got older, a week and a half at DisneyWorld. Air and car were free as well.
There is a cost to being away from family working that hard. In those two instances, it helped to "make it up" to them.
So there are personal upsides to it. Concentrating solely on emissions for EVERYTHING suck pretty much all joy out of Life. And that's where environmentalists lose people. Just look at the uproar that mere Biden bureaucrats are making by deciding to make ordinary people's lives more miserable. Can you guess why?
"I used to fly a lot to press gigs and Passivhaus conferences… even though I have only flown twice in three years and don’t have plans for flying much in the future". Past mistakes - flying so much in the past when, I assume, you were already well aware of the contribution of aviation greenhouse gases to the global warming crisis. Recent mistakes - still flying recently. But that's all simply water under the bridge - we all make mistakes. Tragic - lack of commitment to avoid future mistakes - lack of commitment to lead by example in the right direction and simply stop flying going forward. Stop flying, and tenaciously encourage others to stop flying.
• "Possible complains that 'point collectors often describe their activity as an addiction, an obsession or a game. Airlines have gamified high-carbon travel to support a business model predicated on social stratification.' " •
Are you going to go after the coupon clippers next? You know the ones I'm talking about, the obsessive ones who clip and save dozens of coupons and stalk grocers who offer double or triple rewards on coupons—leading these people to grossly overbuy items they likely have no need for and which affects conspicuous consumption within their ranks.
Setting aside the few—and I do mean, FEW—obsessive types who go after FFP's the same way certain people stalk coupon clipping, let's look at the broader picture. Why shouldn't a legitimate, legal form of travel be allowed to offer their customers a benefit/perk/reward for their loyalty? As you point out, it's not just for air travel that these rewards points are good for when redeemed—other options include discounted or free coffee drinks, hotel stays, rentals, food, you name it.
The take-away is that there's no monetary reward for failure to purchase (other than saving one's own money) but when you MUST spend money on things you need (because that's what CAPITALIST ECONOMIES DO) it's nice to save some of your hard-earned cash to offset the costs of things that you WANT to do (because that's the reward of BEING CAPITALIST.)
The largest issue that Pointless does not address and that shows their fixation on elites is the increase in business class travel by plebeians. The class is now misnamed. Perhaps it should be named "I_Dont_Want_To_Travel_In_Economy" IDWTTIE class. Airlines are reporting that more Business class tickets are being sold to private individuals traveling on their own account with their families than are being sold on company accounts. Hence FFP (and restrictions on them) are pointless to these people as they aren't Frequent Flyers.
Additionally, don't mention the rise of Business class only airlines and fractional Business jet ownership.
There is of course a difference between over-consuming the most carbon-intensive thing a person can do with their time, and buying an extra tin of beans.
We do restrict the promotion of other products with social costs. eg, in Scotland supermarkets have been prevented from promoting the overconsumption of alcohol, and many countries have restrictions on how tobacco is promoted and sold.
The argument is not that banning air miles in isolation is sufficient to manage aviation emissions, but that incentivising frequent flying is certainly antithetical to managing aviation emissions.
See also the article by Stay Grounded of two years ago, which goes into great depth on those and additional problems with frequent flyer programs, here: https://stay-grounded.org/frequent-flyer-programmes-incentivise-climate-destruction/
And BTW, the 2% figure misses the big climate impacts of flying. When aviation's non-co2 climate impacts are included, it is responsible for nearly 6% of annual contributions to climate imbalance (global heating): https://stay-grounded.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/SG_Factsheet_Non-CO2_2020.pdf
That’s why I wrote “the industry likes to say” because it is a lot closer to 6% as I note in my linked article.
When considering FFP people need to remember that USA/CAN programs are very different from programs for the rest of the developed world. Implementation points and rewards are handled very differently. I don't have knowledge on the North American systems so my comments are for non-NA programs.
From the very first line of their report. "driving not just ticket sales, but increased flight provision." there is very little evidence that this is true. the FFP are used to attempt you to remain with a particular set of airlines rather than to fly more. " most carbon-intensive seating options and encouraging additional flights." again there is clear evidence that people upgrade but nothing indicates that people fly more (as a general rule - there will always be outliers)
Page 6 "Publicly available research on who uses FFPs is relatively sparse. " their own words indicate why real world data is completely missing from their report. They use pretend individuals to work out values rather than read data representing real travel patterns.
Page 11 "There also appears to be a sub-group of frequent-flyers for whom travel, or flying itself, or even simply points-collection, is a serious hobby. " Here we go again more of the "appears" a cursory examination of the available literature suggest that though these people exist they are a tiny irrelevant minority which in the scale of thigs can be ~~assumed~~ ignored.
Business travel for work has died when the new normal arrived. FPP plans are becoming more limited and more restricted. I have taken to international trips the last 2 years I gained points which I have been unable to use for anything. (One way domestic trip is of no use to me). You used to be able to gateway your AirPoints into other reward programs this is no longer possible.
"I can attest to this; on my recent trip to the UK, I upgraded to a premium seat I never would have paid cash for." But you would still have taken the flight right, so most of your emissions would still have occurred.
"but in the global picture, very few people fly often, and they are almost all in the richest 1%."
So what? Why is this an issue. We are not equal we will never be equal your life is not my life is not the life of an Indian Peasant is not the life of a small African town trader. We can never be the same there will always be imbalances. Some people have advantages over others and always will have. You and I Lloyd were lucky to be born into a first world medical system. Do you claim that we should not use that system because most of the people in the world don't have a similar one?
"Getting rid of incentives to fly like Frequent Flyer Points plans might be a good place to start."
I think you would be very disappointed with the results - but why bother the programs are dying under their own weight. 5-10 years and they will be footnoted in history.
Thanks for the comment. You are correct that FFPs tend to lock you into one airline.
During my consulting career, most pre-Internet, everything was on-site which meant flying to get to the customer and back again. I did get locked in - United - and did most of my 1/2 million plus air miles with them. Having to fly that much, doing the upgrades to biz and first made life easier as Economy was really rough on my back. The upgrades also made it possible to do work as well (couldn't open a laptop in the cheap seats).
And yes - the rewards. Between the FFP, FFDriver, and FFStayer, I took my wife on a second honeymoon to Hawai'i First Class everything that I otherwise would not have been able to do. Pretty much, everything was free except food and gifts to bring back.
Later, when the kids got older, a week and a half at DisneyWorld. Air and car were free as well.
There is a cost to being away from family working that hard. In those two instances, it helped to "make it up" to them.
So there are personal upsides to it. Concentrating solely on emissions for EVERYTHING suck pretty much all joy out of Life. And that's where environmentalists lose people. Just look at the uproar that mere Biden bureaucrats are making by deciding to make ordinary people's lives more miserable. Can you guess why?
"I used to fly a lot to press gigs and Passivhaus conferences… even though I have only flown twice in three years and don’t have plans for flying much in the future". Past mistakes - flying so much in the past when, I assume, you were already well aware of the contribution of aviation greenhouse gases to the global warming crisis. Recent mistakes - still flying recently. But that's all simply water under the bridge - we all make mistakes. Tragic - lack of commitment to avoid future mistakes - lack of commitment to lead by example in the right direction and simply stop flying going forward. Stop flying, and tenaciously encourage others to stop flying.
• "Possible complains that 'point collectors often describe their activity as an addiction, an obsession or a game. Airlines have gamified high-carbon travel to support a business model predicated on social stratification.' " •
Are you going to go after the coupon clippers next? You know the ones I'm talking about, the obsessive ones who clip and save dozens of coupons and stalk grocers who offer double or triple rewards on coupons—leading these people to grossly overbuy items they likely have no need for and which affects conspicuous consumption within their ranks.
Setting aside the few—and I do mean, FEW—obsessive types who go after FFP's the same way certain people stalk coupon clipping, let's look at the broader picture. Why shouldn't a legitimate, legal form of travel be allowed to offer their customers a benefit/perk/reward for their loyalty? As you point out, it's not just for air travel that these rewards points are good for when redeemed—other options include discounted or free coffee drinks, hotel stays, rentals, food, you name it.
The take-away is that there's no monetary reward for failure to purchase (other than saving one's own money) but when you MUST spend money on things you need (because that's what CAPITALIST ECONOMIES DO) it's nice to save some of your hard-earned cash to offset the costs of things that you WANT to do (because that's the reward of BEING CAPITALIST.)
And don't forget, time is money.
The largest issue that Pointless does not address and that shows their fixation on elites is the increase in business class travel by plebeians. The class is now misnamed. Perhaps it should be named "I_Dont_Want_To_Travel_In_Economy" IDWTTIE class. Airlines are reporting that more Business class tickets are being sold to private individuals traveling on their own account with their families than are being sold on company accounts. Hence FFP (and restrictions on them) are pointless to these people as they aren't Frequent Flyers.
Additionally, don't mention the rise of Business class only airlines and fractional Business jet ownership.
There is of course a difference between over-consuming the most carbon-intensive thing a person can do with their time, and buying an extra tin of beans.
We do restrict the promotion of other products with social costs. eg, in Scotland supermarkets have been prevented from promoting the overconsumption of alcohol, and many countries have restrictions on how tobacco is promoted and sold.
The argument is not that banning air miles in isolation is sufficient to manage aviation emissions, but that incentivising frequent flying is certainly antithetical to managing aviation emissions.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-15125064