Cheap holidays at risk as expert predicts soaring flight prices due to fuel costs
The warnings are from climate expert and engineer, Professor Jerry Murphy, who has claimed that rising fuel costs won’t end air travel entirely – but warned flights from Ireland to Dublin will cost several hundred Euro and trans-Atlantic flights will
An aviation expert has warned that fuel cost pressures will make flying so expensive that popular travel will be restricted to boats, trains, and automobiles. He claimed that this means holidays are going to be longer as we squeeze travel into one trip a year, rather than a few short breaks.
The industry specialist also claimed that even trips to short-haul European destinations could take up to two days just to reach – plus the same return leg. Worldwide food transport will take longer due to environmental sustainability concerns and, overall, life will slow down across the globe.
The warnings are from climate expert and engineer, Professor Jerry Murphy, who is the director of the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine (MaREI) at University College Cork (UCC). Murphy claimed that rising fuel costs won’t end air travel entirely – but warned flights from Ireland to Dublin will cost several hundred Euro and trans-Atlantic flights will cost thousands within the next 15 years.
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Prof Murphy warned: “Air fares used to be one-fiftieth of a person’s salary in the 1980s. At the moment, we can pop off to Seville for the weekend for €25. That will be gone. The cost of flying is going to be very very high compared to now and probably at a level like in the 1970s. The number of people flying will reduce.”
He added: “I don’t think we will be travelling by plane as much. The idea of popping off to Europe will not be there by 2040. I think we will take a train to a ferry, get the ferry to France, a train then to the south of France. We will have slower holidays. Travel by air will go down as the cost goes up. I think it will be a very different world.
“Flying will be more expensive, so there will be less flying, and less fuel used, so aviation will reduce. Aviation is international, so there is a need for this to have an international consensus.”
He continued: “We are trying to reduce a huge problem on a worldwide basis. In the 1980s, I flew once a year, maybe to England and back. Our young generation at the moment can’t afford to buy houses, but they can fly to Seville and Barcelona and Rome.
“But in 10 to 15 years’ time, the cost of flying will be at such a level that they will not be able to afford those trips. They will fly less because they won’t be able to afford it.”
Prof Murphy said on RTE Radio 1: “I see the future of travel being electric trains. Our holidays will be longer, they will be slower. We’ll take two days to get to the south of France, another two days to get back.
"It’ll be by train and by ferry. That will be the most sustainable way to travel. It will be very time consuming. Life will be slower. We’ll have slow food movement, slow travel, we’ll do things more sustainably.”
He added: “Aviation is a heavily carbonised sector. There are so many planes in the sky at any one time. In terms of carbon dioxide, the end product of combustion, aviation is responsible for 2% on a worldwide basis.
“That’s a massive quantity of fuel. It’s not just the fuel. Because we burn the fuel at 32,000 feet, there are other elements that are causing climate warming. Such as the contrails, water vapour, particulate matter, and a gas called NOx [nitrogen oxide]. These contribute to half of the climate warming because we are burning the fuel at such high altitudes.”
Prof Murphy, who represents Ireland at the International Energy Agency (IEA) Bioenergy, added that the aviation industry’s figure of 2% towards global warming is “not an accurate figure”.
He said: “It’s not accurate in terms of the warming impact of aviation. This is a concern. Sustainable aviation fuel [SAF] is a very complex and expensive fuel, so it is very challenging. They are looking at ways of mass producing that fuel. We cannot afford to run aviation on biomass.”
The aviation industry fears spiralling fuel costs and how these will negatively impact affordable prices – meaning costly air travel will wipe out the skies.
To prevent this happening, manufacturers are examining SAF and to produce this in massive volume over the next three decades. The EU has a target to cut SAF to 70% by 2050, which means airlines will still be using 30% jet fuel. The industry has set its own target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
But Murphy claimed that even if every aircraft in the world is using SAF within the next 26 years, this will only reduce industry climate warming by half.
He said Ireland has a target of producing seven gigawatts of offshore wind by 2032 and claimed this would require 567 structures the same size as the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
He said: “One Eiffel Tower in the ocean is challenging enough.”
He added: “There is also a lot of interest in battery technology and electrification. But a battery is big and heavy. It is fine for cars and trucks going 300kms. But if you wanted to put a battery on a plane, the battery would be bigger than the plane. The next area of interest is sustainable aviation fuel made from electricity (eSAF), which is a large resource.
“Across the planet, we can over-produce renewable electricity and the reason why we can over-produce is that we can use electricity to make hydrogen. We need hydrogen for fuels and we can get it from offshore winds. We can use it to make eSAF, but it is also very expensive.”
He added: “Mathematical net zero [of carbon dioxide emissions] won’t happen in aviation. There will have to be negative emission technology for direct air carbon capture to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and putting it under ground, but this is very expensive.”
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