Pros and Cons of Air Travel

The popularity of air travel has been increasing in the past few decades.  One can attribute a number of reasons for this increase in popularity and these are convenience and safety.  The following are some of the positive and negative factors involving air travel.

Disadvantage: Airplanes Cause Pollution.

The biggest drawback for traveling by air is the pollution.  Emission of greenhouse gases by the airplanes into our atmosphere results in things like global warming.  A lot of people are keen to minimize the effect of global warming on the planet and they find this a major setback. ) Many airlines are trying to become more environmentally conscious these days.  One of the ways in which this is achieved by many of these airlines is to retrofit winglet devices that make the aircraft fuel efficient.  In addition, many airlines have started upgrading their fleet of aero planes to modern fuel efficient aircraft by spending millions of dollars.

Disadvantage: High Cost

People refrain from traveling by air because of the high cost of air travel. It is frequently much less expensive to fuel up the car and drive to where you need to go instead of flying.  You can take advantage of discount
airline travel to obviate the high cost of travel by air. The main deciding factor for flying or driving is the type of deal you can get for airfare.

Disadvantage: Fear of Flying

Many people avoid flying for specific reasons. If anyone has travelled in a flight which has hit an air pocket you will see that they have gone through a lot of rough weather due to turbulence and this can be rather terrifying. 

Advantage: Speed of Travel

One of the greatest pros about air travel is that it provides the ability to get you where you need to go much faster than other forms of transportation.  The duration of travel by road between two different places in the United States may be a few days as compared to travel by flight which will take only a few hours. Since you are saving a number of days by flying you can enjoy longer vacations.

Advantage: Easy to Travel Long Distances

It is possible to cover long distances by flight in a reasonably short time whereas it is difficult to cover far off destinations by other modes of transportation. Air travel to practically any destination in the world is possible. In the event of your opting for other modes of transportation you will find the travel time is quite long as compared to flying between these destinations.

Advantage:  Safety

When you consider various modes of travel, you will find that travel by air is the safest. Car accidents wherein people die happen in thousands every year. On the other hand you find that the occurrence of train accidents is also quite common. This is not to say that air accidents do not take place; however frequency of such accidents is very small.  For many people safety is the prime consideration for choosing air travel as compared to other form of transportation.

Choosing air travel is a personal decision, based on the factors discussed above along with a multitude factors not discussed here.  For most travelers safety, speed of travel and cost are the over riding factors.  As long as cost remains affordable air travel will continue to grow in popularity.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , ,