I haven't been in a plane for a decade. Even when I've gone to CA from NYC. I took the train. It was more expensive but airports stress me out so much. All the security and tension I just feel like it's going to prison.

Which makes me biased in these debates since I know other people have different needs.

I just don't think flying is worth it even when it costs less and saves time.

(Plus it makes it a good bit easier to track the probable whereabouts of certain fuckheads...)

We just went for a holiday in Malaga, in Spain, which would be a 22-23 hour drive, just over a day by train or 2-3 hours flight. We, of course, took a few days to get down

taxes on a thing just make it so only the rich can afford that thing. jet owners are already rich. tax them a hundred percent, a thousand percent annually of the jet's value and they'll just shrug and pay it. tax it ten thousand percent and they'll pay lawmakers to kill the bill instead.

tax the rich for existing, not for the things they do.

Why don’t we tax the shit out of all aviation and then provide breaks that are designed to make commercial aviation more efficient?

The only solution is a total ban on all planes below a certain size (probably what we call mid-size today) w/ occupancy requirements for them to take flight (100+ people)

The smaller commuter jets used in short flights could easily be replaced by high-speed rail, and should be.

And if we have to endure some WFH years while that rail is being built, well, cry me a rive lol lmao

As many of us as possible should be WFH as much as possible for the rest of time.

Every private jet will have 1 coach seat in the back to qualify as a commercial passenger jet.

'But first class just happens to be really big.'

Spirit has already canceled all flights to/from Puerto Rico. What happens when everybody else does, too?

Taxes would be irrelevant, because we're talking about a level of fuck you money that literally they'd just do some contortion or bribe a few hundred politicians and *boom* they're polluting and shutting down train projects all over again.

Restrictions, similarly, would just be either violated (who in our government will enforce them? Democrats?) or loopholed on purpose by owned and operated politicians...

Yeah the dissonance of guilting ordinary people while the private jet thing exists is huge.

It’s like guilting people who cram themselves into a bus for an intercity trip instead of paying attention to the rest of the highway crowded with private luxury vehicles.

There was something like a "private yacht tax" in France, but the way it worked, hardly anybody had to pay it.

The danger is to announce a "private jet tax" and claim it as a victory for environment, though hardly anybody pays it because it can be worked around.

So it has to be well-designed.

E.g.: As far as I understand, most "private jets" do not belong to a private individual, they belong to companies and can be chartered for flights. If one taxes air travel that happens without a ticket being delivered, they will simply ticket the passengers.

It probably has to be something about "very few passengers compared to airplane size". And it has to allow cargo planes, but not as an excuse.

OK but we understand what we want to do. It should be much more expensive and rare for people to ride in private jets.

Just ride with everyone else for crying out loud instead of farting carbon all over the entire sky.

Yes, the people who like this kind of travel will wriggle and act persecuted and cry but I think "private jets" just sound deeply gross to most people at this moment.

It’s one reason I stopped feeling guilty about flying internationally or across country to visit family.

Like I know it’s bad for the environment, and I do what I can eg not driving as much as possible, living a low consumption lifestyle, but I just can’t justify not seeing family when we have so little time with them, when richy rich is jetting around for no reason.

The biggest issue is getting it precise enough to actually catch all the private jets while excluding other "general aviation" things, because you know the rich fuckers would have their underlings looking for loopholes the moment it was even proposed.