Top Fun: Plane Stupid Sued by RyanAir for millions

If i were 25 years old, hanging out with a bunch of folks fed up with the juxtaposition of climate scientists’ data - let’s call them the ‘facts’ - against announcements about airport expansions, locking down on a local runway would seem like an obvious way to vent. The UK group, Plane Stupid, did exactly that last month at Stansted Airport, one of London's three international air hubs. Reported thus by The Independent: "Sixty militant environmentalists staged a dramatic protest on a taxi runway at Stansted yesterday morning, forcing the cancellation of dozens of flights and prompting a review of airport security." Militants? Please, spare us the bogus terrorist-leaning spin. When militants close down airports, we get something more like this (definitely check out the link, the arabic means DANGER). A bunch of early 20s climate catastrophe obsessives weighted down with fence cutters and carabiners hardly matches the level of danger posed by RPG-carrying renegades patrolling an airport in looted Ethiopian jeeps. Nevertheless, people who depend on functioning airports are right to be concerned: these floating direct action cells do have the potential of making shutdowns on behalf of the atmosphere look like irresistible, guilt-allaying fun. They may not be militant, but they definitely heightened the tension.

Last week, 49 of the 57 arrestees were sentenced to 50-90 hours of community service and must pay various costs arising from damage to airport fencing and legal prosecution. Not a huge amount, but more than any of these people probably have in a bank account. On the heels of these punitive measures from the state, Ryan Air has filed a £2 m (€2.5m) suit against them for financial losses incurred due to 57 flights being grounded and ‘reputational damages’. These latter are claimed to be €500,000, rather remarkable given that the company is also reporting an 11% increase in passengers for the month of December 2008. If the airline thinks it can subsidize rising jet fuel costs this way, all i can suggest to them is be cautious when talking with shareholders.

Plane Stupid has received both kudos and criticism for their action, and it would have been great to email them some questions for this piece (Have you devised a way to get onto tarmacs without damaging fences? Have you considered interfering with military flights?) However, checking their website for contact info, this is what we now find: ‘The Plane Stupid website is currently down for legal reasons.’ Oh well. Among their detractors, there’s this report on a very misguided blockade of EasyGroup – mistaken for the parent company of EasyJet – and a post on Jawa Report that one of their financial backers is the owner of Lush Cosmetics, which has airport shops all over Europe… or so the writer claims (couldn’t find any airport locations in the countries i checked). While i can agree that shutting down a Stansted runway is hardly in the political punch league of Gandhi’s salt march, trashing these folks for engaging in non-violent direct action to make a very important point doesn’t cut it, either. The way things are going with a proposed expansion at Heathrow, we may see MPs, the Mayor of London, and some EU emissions regulators following their lead. It’s simply impossible for the UK to meet its air pollution reduction requirements if it continues to fill the friendly skies with more and more planes.

Air travel in Europe has risen to new heights in part because train travel is now more expensive than flying, thanks to the plethora of budget airlines that have been popping up over the past 10 years. The one exception to this is Spain, where planners continue to excel in creating the most livable country of the 21^st century. Otherwise, there’s been something of a positive feedback system in motion: as more people fly within the EU, train travel goes up to counter the reduction in ticket sales; higher train prices drive more people onto budget flights…. duh. A NY Times story published last summer cites these figures from the European Low Fares Airline Association: “…the growth in passengers on European low-cost airlines has been phenomenal, almost doubling to 120 million per year in 2007 from about 60 million per year in 2005.” They further point out that the doubling of ticket sales includes workers from the newest and poorer EU members to Western European countries happy (or at least willing) to obtain cheaper labor. Mediterranean, Black Sea and similar “we’re only going there because it’s cheap” vacation sites have benefitted to the extreme from companies like Ryan Air connecting them to northwestern population centers. The feedback system is here also operative in encouraging air travel: the cost and time needed to reach places like Varna, Bulgaria or Almeria, Spain by land are prohibitive for most of the tourists traveling to them for a mere 3 days of escapism, and the destinations are investing more money in promoting themselves as ideal cheapo vacation spots. Forget about ecotourism with these crowds: we’re talking suburbanites frying themselves on ‘hotel guests only’ beach chairs and then feasting on cheap paella or whatever. Nobody seems to really care where they are, it’s all about faux jetset vacationing in which one isn’t supposed to be thinking about climate change, Gaza, or whatever else ails the real world.

Just today, british news agencies have been reporting on a grab bag of celebrities and Greenpeace purchasing 1 acre plots of land located precisely where Heathrow’s expansion is to be sited. A great idea, and one which supports in principle the message from Plane Stupid: do whatever you can to keep greenhouse gas reductions on track. More airports are definitely not the answer. Here’s a wild thought: instead of rewarding people for racking up frequent flier miles, start setting limits on air mileage for non-essential purposes. We all get to go once around the earth, and after than you start paying fines – or simply aren’t allowed on a plane without a specific waiver for family emergency, business, etc. Granted, this is not an idea that RyanAir and its peers are likely embrace, but with all that lawsuit money, at least their owners would still be able to fly off into the sunset.