Nowadays, air travel is an activity that is creating a lot of pollution in our environment. Numerous people claim that the costs of airplane tickets should be raised to diminish air traffic. I strongly disagree with the idea of increasing airplane tickets since there are other measures that can mitigate this.
On the one hand, raising the cost of airplane tickets tends to reduce unnecessary travel. This is because cheap flights encourage people to travel for non-essential reasons. For example, if higher prices are established, individuals will think twice before travelling. Moreover, aviation is one of the fastest-growing sources of emissions. This is due to the production of a huge amount of CO₂ by airplanes. For instance, scientists say that every single individual should plant two trees if they want to offset their devastating impact on our environment.
On the other hand, an increase in prices can be unfair for ordinary people. This is because higher prices mainly affect students and low-income families; however, wealthy people will still fly. That means pollution will not be reduced significantly. For instance, if the cost of airplane tickets continues increasing, numerous students would no longer be able to afford studying abroad or visiting their families, while wealthy individuals would continue to travel frequently without being affected by higher costs. As a result, this law would mainly disadvantage lower-income groups while having little impact on air traffic and pollution levels. Additionally, the importance of airplanes is still necessary. This means we will still have demand for it in emergency situations, such as business trips, family emergencies, and education abroad. For example, if a person needs an operation in another country and there is no cure for his or her illness in that person’s country, air travel is needed quickly at these kinds of times.
In conclusion, although air travel contributes to pollution, increasing ticket prices is neither fair nor the most effective solution. From my perspective, instead, further measures, such as planting new trees and improving fuel efficiency, tend to make sense.