> It seems that the real purpose of the verification process is to prevent online travel agencies from setting up accounts to buy and subsequently re-sell Ryanair flights on their websites.
You'd think a lighter touch verification would also serve this purpose?
A face scan provides all sorts of other information that they might find valuable to have on their clients.
You need the full name & passport to be able to book a flight though. I'm not sure how the agencies can re-sell the flights later on?
I'm assuming agencies do that to lock the prices early on for the flights that they know will be fully booked. If airlines didn't do the nasty tricks with the prices changing every minute, this approach wouldn't work, though.
I get that this is about preventing ticket reselling, but I have a different question: Can someone explain the controversy around face scans for air travel? Governments have clearly laid out that flying affords zero expectation of privacy, and the airlines won't let you buy a plane ticket without knowing your name (as opposed to bus or subway tickets). If the airline knows your name, and their attendants see and verify your face when boarding anyway, then are we losing anything through the use of face scans?
Domestic flights in the US make extensive use of facial scanning, and both US and EU border agencies digitally scan your face to identify you (Global Entry in the US even means you theoretically don't need your passport to enter the country).
So why should we pretend like face scanning isn't happening? I can understand the idea that at some point, I won't need a boarding pass nor identification to get onto a plane, and at this point, it appears to not cost me any privacy that I've already lost over the last 25 years.
If the argument is "they're already doing this, so what's the issue?" then I have to ask: if they're already doing this, then what's the value-add? Face scanning seems like quite a large complex system to deploy compared to the tried-and-true method of paper ticketing and identification. The push for this technology is suspicious to me as a Westerner because the benefits to me are unclear, while the risks (e.g., China-like ubiquitous surveillance and repression, and corporate access controls like those attorneys who were barred from a Madison Square Garden show) are a little more established.
> If the airline knows your name, and their attendants see and verify your face when boarding anyway, then are we losing anything through the use of face scans?
I've recently flown with FinnAir and they never asked for my ID. All times I went with them. I just scan my boarding pass and done. The only day they asked me for my name is when I was the last person to board the plane because I was late for my flight.
> If the airline knows your name, and their attendants see and verify your face when boarding anyway, then are we losing anything through the use of face scans?
Your face scan is now online waiting for the next data breach.
I have seen neobanks requiring such 3D face scans but not Ryanair yet.
> Your face scan is now online waiting for the next data breach
Completely understood, but the point is that it's at CBP or UK Border Force or Bundespolizei, and it's in the security camera system at the airport, too.
If you've been a visitor to Australia recently, you'll be all too familiar with the process of using your phone to scan your face plus passport data.
When you enter the airport, you walk past signs notifying you of extensive surveillance camera use.
lol. people pay $100 for the benefit of signing away all and every privacy just so they keep their shoes. not a single people who signed up for this things realize for much privacy rights they signed away to the government.
What is wrong with Ryanair exactly? Do they have too many customers and want to trim some out? All of these are just barriers to bookings and reasons to prefer other airlines.
It's true that they don't have competitors on certain routes, but they certainly do a large number of them.
They have always treated their customers like crap and in the past it hasn’t hurt their sales. Though recently they have had to sell tickets lower than they would have liked to boost sales. They would like to give the impression that they are always the cheapest option but it’s not always the case and customers are too lazy to shop around. Other airlines have copied their tactics so the alternative isn’t always that much better.
What you gonna do, hire private jet? Fly with Lufthansa or Air France for EUR 500 and look at those VIPs shuttled with black Mercedes'es? Precariat should stay low, near the ground even while flying.
everyone today is rolling out face scans as authentication hacks.
third world banks have palm readers on ATMs for two decades now. amz is trying this on whole foods checkout
most government apps use face scan now, because google and apple limited access to fingerprints on the OS.
they will relearn all lesson learned by govts using numbers at random for people for benefits auth (like ssn) by using biometrics, which is the same thing.
I had to do this recently, actually it was not possible to book the flight without doing it. I already have my passport attached to the accounting and this just felt incredibly invasive. But I still don't buy any of the reasons for it.
The whole budget airline market is a pile of scams.
Try booking on one of RA's cheapest flight offers, and you'll find that there are things you can't not book, like a seat on the actual flight(s)!, for which there is no zero cost option. There are zero-cost options for those things on the other price-points, but they remove this to try make the cheapest options look cheaper than the competition even thought they actually aren't.
(I assume other airlines use similar scummy tricks, I mention RA as they are the subject of this article and I recently looked into travel options for a future trip including them as an option).
People may be thinking "what's wrong with that?" but two things to remember: Ryanair will split up people on the same booking if legally allowed to, and some seats are pretty horrible, and some Ryanair flights are 5-6 hours.
(I swear some people would argue that if there was a 200% charge for booking 2 flights together that the other person should just go on holiday alone a week later...)
They always do this with my bookings. They say "booking appears to have been made through a third-party travel agent". All the bookings were made from the same account for the same person, yet I'm always forced to do additional verification. Tried creating a new account - same thing. Their support keep saying how sorry they are and that it's a mistake because it shouldn't happen when you book on their website, but it's just BS. But unfortunately, sometimes there are no options other than Ryanair.
Surely the conspiracy theories were wrong - it can't be we are stumbling into technocratic feudalism, with biometric ID and health checks required to leave you house? This isn't China, right?
"Biometric identifications using the fingerprint and the anal creases (the distinctive features of anoderm, or analprint)"
As far as I know, one can use the sphincter's unique pattern to identify people to some degree. Exactly the same way we can do so with iris patterns, fingerprints and even ear patterns.
It certainly fails minimization criteria. To deliver the passenger to the destination an account is nice to have but not necessary.
An airline only needs to identify the passenger, to make sure person on the ticket is the person on board. Verification of identity can be done in a non-persistent way, billing details may be left to the payment provider etc.
No, that’s the second choice that noyb mentioned last year when announcing their complaint about the then-current version of Ryanair’s policy. In the new article which triggered this HN post, discussing Ryanair’s updated policy, the second option is sending Ryanair a handwritten signature and a copy of a government ID.
The idea is to abide by the letter of the law, while making it far too inconvenient for anyone to actually do it. A bit like Apple and their iPhone battery replacement kits.
Could you elaborate on why that seems reasonable to you? The airline will already have my passport and credit card details, home address and mobile number. In my opinion, it should be the user's choice whether they create an account or not.
To me it seems reasonable because I’m already providing a lot of information to the airline, name, ID card, maybe even passport. If accounts are optional, this data is still being stored, probably against some kind of “shadow user” account, which ironically is more difficult to reason about or remember if you wanted to exercise your rights under the DPA.
User account is an interface between a User and a system one interacts with. If you book a flight, a user is created - no way around that. So, what you essentially demand is to NOT provide you with a user interface to interact with the system. Instead, you would resort to interface through online/offline/phone support.
Your demand boils down to having less options to do actions with the business. Options that already exist and come out of the box.
Having an account is not as scary once you realize what it is and what it represents.
> So, what you essentially demand is to NOT provide you with a user interface to interact with the system.
No, I’m requesting, or demanding if you prefer, the choice. An account is a user convenience, not a business necessity. I’m asking why it is reasonable to force customers to create an account to book a flight?
No. Most airlines allow you to manage your booking with your last name and PNR. Which is perfectly fine. You would usually only need an account for two things: the loyalty/miles program, and having your details autofilled next time you book.
I remember the good old day when you could just walk up and buy a paper ticket, and that was all you needed to board the plane. They'd ask for your name, but you could give them any name, they didn't care. I realize that we're a long way from that world now, and we could never go back to it, but it sure was nice.
That's how train tickets still work in Europe, I was kinda surprised and impressed. They don't check IDs at all, you just show a QR code.
In Russia where I'm from you need to show an ID to buy a long-distance train ticket and then again when you board the train. I was told that scalping was rampant before this was introduced which is totally believable. Which begs the question, how do European railway operators prevent it without requiring IDs?
I personally witnessed in Deutsche Bahn that passenger ticket was invalidated because he failed to show physical payment card he used to purchase the ticket online. That's why I started to buy physical tickets at the counter which is another kind of horror story.
Interesting. The only time I traveled on a Deutsche Bahn train, it was delayed 20 minutes, and they scanned my ticket off my laptop screen while I was already on the train, without saying a word :D
Why? Thank God in Germany it is forbidden to requiring an account for online purchases and you can buy anything online without needing to register for an account first.
Most merchants and service providers keep your shadow account after purchase anyway. If you are lawyery kind of person you can request deleting the shadow account by contacting them and giving away even more of your personal details.
Exactly, an account has been created for you anyway and the merchant holds pretty much the same amount of data on you, so I think requiring an account is a good thing as then at least you know that a company holds all these records about you.
To be clear for online purchases I think it's a nice convenience to be able to buy without requiring an account, but for flights it's an entirely different game, you often need to provide a lot more PII.
That is not the point. Of course they have data about me. That requirement is dictated by tax law. I really don't care if the seller creates a shadow account or not, that's his problem.
The point is that I'm not forced to create and manage an account and I can do a second purchase without having to remember or reset a password to an account that was forced upon me.
This is a good thing. Let them put those facial scans on a wall of shame. Generating CO2 should be as awkward and uncomfortable as possible. I'm waiting for airlines to remove all passenger seats.
It will only be awkward and uncomfortable for those who can’t afford business class and not flying in low cost airlines.
So basically, it’s the same way it has always been, since we’re in the climate change situation because of rich countries, and I don’t think a lot of us in poor countries care to stop producing CO2, it’s our turn now.
“Everything is gonna burn, we’ll all take turns, I’ll get mine too”
> I don’t think a lot of us in poor countries care to stop producing CO2
I’m not sure about the situation everywhere but China gouvernement seems to care more than most other countries, rich or not. They flew a commercial plane with SAF in September. I personally think SAF is a terrible idea but give them credits for willingness.
You are correct in part but I think not in whole, since I said "a lot of us" and I'm pretty sure people in China would continue driving ICE and flying if it was up to them, the changes are just imposed top-down.
I'm glad when an authoritarian regime does something that ends up being good but 1) I still dislike the regime, and 2) I don't think that's something you can rely on.
Plus I'm pretty sure (just like everyone else) they're doing this not to avoid climate change but because they have a huge opportunity coming out ahead as providers of cleaner means of transportation (IMHO they already kick ass in EVs and will be the dominant player in this market).
But your point stands and has a lot of merit. What remains of my point is that I suspect most people in China wouldn't care about CO2 if up to them, and most of the rest of the poor/undeveloped countries will continue to not care.
> Plus I'm pretty sure (just like everyone else) they're doing this not to avoid climate change but because they have a huge opportunity coming out ahead as providers of cleaner means of transportation
I detest the authoritarian government but in this case it’s hard to feel bad if it actually works. Our strategy of letting hordes of MBAs optimize for the quarterly report is racking up future costs and unfortunately I don’t think we have the luxury of being picky about who’s going in the right direction here.
Curious: Why is SAF a terrible idea? I don't think we're going to be able to electrify long-distance flights any time soon, and SAF seems like the most sensible solution that's actually available.
SAF production is in direct competition against food production for water and space. They also generate a lot of CO2e because moving stuff long distance and/or via air require a lot of energy. SAF didn’t change anything here. I’m sure the claimed 85% CO2 reduction can be "proved" by analyzing choosen aspect while ignoring others. I really trust the willingness of the executives at work but understand they’re biased to continue A.business B.lifestyle. Most executives are over optimistic of what they’re doing because that’s a good think for their business. I don’t blame.
Well, point is that as long as there's enough demand from people who can afford to fly, this won't mean less flying, or at least not significantly less flying, but it will mean even more inequality.
I just don't think this is an easy thing to resolve.
I'm all for making travel more expensive. Mostly to remove the trashy and rude people from the equation. I don't care about C02 but I do enjoy seeing megalomaniacs like John Kerry and Taylor Swift lecture us plebs on climate/social justice, but fly private jets everywhere.
You're absolutely right, but the problem is the intersection set of rich people and powerful people is quite large (they're almost, but not quite, the same set) and why would they ration themselves?
If air travel rationing would ever be implemented, instead of travel becoming a rich person's hobby (which it already is, for a very loose definition of rich, a definition loose enough that it also counts people with in-house bathrooms with running water and waste disposal systems as rich) it would become a powerful person's hobby.
Not that different IMHO.
But, just to be clear, I'm totally with you. It's just that I'm terribly pessimistic.
What kind of gives me little moments of joy is thinking of what the 3000 version of "Fall of civilizations" podcast will have to say about what is happening now.
Its already a rich persons hobby. So rationing would suggest subsidizing travel domestically by the rich, for the less rich, but still globally, very well off.
> It is estimated that around 95% of the world’s population has never experienced air travel firsthand.
Regarding jets vs mass transport, I think it is misleading to oppose them. Remove all the jets on the planet and we’ll have exactly the same sustainability trouble.
My old dad points the fault of rich people taking jets to go everywhere, and also the fault of "billion of Chineses starting to take more and more flight". His bi-monthly usage of plane for Holliday isn't worth considering through because he "has no choice, people have right to takes Holliday and we-the-world-middle-class are not the problem"
I'm not arguing that. I was arguing against "RyanAir is the problem". When jets are contributing way more to climate change than mass transport, why argue against the most efficient of all air transport and not the biggest CO2 producers? Doesn't make any sense to me.
I agree with you on a philosophical view to maximise equality while minimizing climate change, which is very noble. I still think Kate’s RyanAir is a very important problem to address in parallel than worse problem like jets.
Domestic flight 246 g
Diesel car 171 g
Petrol car 170 g
Short-haul flight 151 g
Long-haul flight 148 g
Motorbike 114 g
Bus (average) 97 g
Bus (local London) 79 g
Plug-in hybrid 68 g
Electric car 47 g
National rail 35 g
Tram 29 g
London Underground 28 g
Coach (bus) 27 g
Ferry (foot passenger) 19 g
Eurostar (to Paris) 4 g
So the only way that could be true would be if the bus was significantly emptier than the plane so the same emissions were amortized over an order of magnitude fewer passengers.
Moreover, this ignores the future: there’s a straightforward path to electrifying a bus which has been deployed in production for years but no proven alternative for planes.
If the airplanes are completely full (which, despite all attempts by Ryanair to scare away their customers, they apparently still are). But this fails to account for "induced demand": if flights would be more expensive or less convenient, people wouldn't fly on weekend trips/holidays, visiting relatives in faraway countries etc. as frequently as they do now.
I don’t regularly take buses to the other side of Europe to eat some gelato and gawk at cathedrals for a weekend. A lot of people use cheap airlines as cheap entertainment.
Definitely - and it’s nowhere near the carbon emissions so I think what happened is that they saw someone else’s data (hopefully inadvertently) comparing a mostly full long haul flight (148gm CO2/passenger/kilometer) to a city bus (97g) rather than the long-distance buses you mentioned which are far more efficient since they don’t stop frequently (27g).
> Generating CO2 should be as awkward and uncomfortable as possible.
Since essentially every activity generates CO2, what you are essentially saying is that life should be made as awkward and uncomfortable as possible.
And this certainly feels like the approach many eco-activists are taking, triggering well-deserved backlash. The Green party in Germany, for example, does extremely sensible politics in most areas, but mixes it with performative policies that are more about visibility (through causing inconvenience) than actually meaningful impact. So every time your drink tastes like cardboard as your straw is dissolving, you're reminded to vote for anything else. And "anything else" will most likely not enact the policies that might actually make sense (e.g. stricter carbon taxation).
> life should be made as awkward and uncomfortable as possible.
I have a hard time seeing good faith here but let say you really didn’t got it:
What he is saying is that CO2-problematic activities should be made more awkward and unconfortable than those that don’t. A cousin view would be to make substainable options easier and cheaper that others. You know like various incentives measures used everywhere in the economy to serve other goals we set earlier, like keep some domestic agriculture or tax more the cigarettes.
“Generating” is definitely the wrong term: burning fossil fuels puts sequestered carbon back into the atmosphere so we’d want to distinguish that from recirculating carbon as you would by, say, riding a bicycle where all of the carbon was recirculated.
I completely agree with your second point: the low-benefit performative stunts are so foolish that you’d be forgiven for thinking they were the work of undercover saboteurs.
> It seems that the real purpose of the verification process is to prevent online travel agencies from setting up accounts to buy and subsequently re-sell Ryanair flights on their websites.
You'd think a lighter touch verification would also serve this purpose?
A face scan provides all sorts of other information that they might find valuable to have on their clients.
You need the full name & passport to be able to book a flight though. I'm not sure how the agencies can re-sell the flights later on?
I'm assuming agencies do that to lock the prices early on for the flights that they know will be fully booked. If airlines didn't do the nasty tricks with the prices changing every minute, this approach wouldn't work, though.
They can ask that in their UI and skip Ryanair upsell process for you.
That sounds like an excuse and not a reason.
Name changes in a ticket are very expensive in low-cost airlines, unless it's like a typo.
It costs £115 to change the name on the ticket so not sure how it makes any economic sense.
I get that this is about preventing ticket reselling, but I have a different question: Can someone explain the controversy around face scans for air travel? Governments have clearly laid out that flying affords zero expectation of privacy, and the airlines won't let you buy a plane ticket without knowing your name (as opposed to bus or subway tickets). If the airline knows your name, and their attendants see and verify your face when boarding anyway, then are we losing anything through the use of face scans?
Domestic flights in the US make extensive use of facial scanning, and both US and EU border agencies digitally scan your face to identify you (Global Entry in the US even means you theoretically don't need your passport to enter the country).
So why should we pretend like face scanning isn't happening? I can understand the idea that at some point, I won't need a boarding pass nor identification to get onto a plane, and at this point, it appears to not cost me any privacy that I've already lost over the last 25 years.
If the argument is "they're already doing this, so what's the issue?" then I have to ask: if they're already doing this, then what's the value-add? Face scanning seems like quite a large complex system to deploy compared to the tried-and-true method of paper ticketing and identification. The push for this technology is suspicious to me as a Westerner because the benefits to me are unclear, while the risks (e.g., China-like ubiquitous surveillance and repression, and corporate access controls like those attorneys who were barred from a Madison Square Garden show) are a little more established.
> If the airline knows your name, and their attendants see and verify your face when boarding anyway, then are we losing anything through the use of face scans?
I've recently flown with FinnAir and they never asked for my ID. All times I went with them. I just scan my boarding pass and done. The only day they asked me for my name is when I was the last person to board the plane because I was late for my flight.
> If the airline knows your name, and their attendants see and verify your face when boarding anyway, then are we losing anything through the use of face scans?
Your face scan is now online waiting for the next data breach.
I have seen neobanks requiring such 3D face scans but not Ryanair yet.
> Your face scan is now online waiting for the next data breach
Completely understood, but the point is that it's at CBP or UK Border Force or Bundespolizei, and it's in the security camera system at the airport, too.
If you've been a visitor to Australia recently, you'll be all too familiar with the process of using your phone to scan your face plus passport data.
When you enter the airport, you walk past signs notifying you of extensive surveillance camera use.
We overlook the moment when airlines started requiring a smartphone to book, check in, and fly. It's been downhill from there.
lol. people pay $100 for the benefit of signing away all and every privacy just so they keep their shoes. not a single people who signed up for this things realize for much privacy rights they signed away to the government.
What is wrong with Ryanair exactly? Do they have too many customers and want to trim some out? All of these are just barriers to bookings and reasons to prefer other airlines.
It's true that they don't have competitors on certain routes, but they certainly do a large number of them.
They have always treated their customers like crap and in the past it hasn’t hurt their sales. Though recently they have had to sell tickets lower than they would have liked to boost sales. They would like to give the impression that they are always the cheapest option but it’s not always the case and customers are too lazy to shop around. Other airlines have copied their tactics so the alternative isn’t always that much better.
What you gonna do, hire private jet? Fly with Lufthansa or Air France for EUR 500 and look at those VIPs shuttled with black Mercedes'es? Precariat should stay low, near the ground even while flying.
everyone today is rolling out face scans as authentication hacks.
third world banks have palm readers on ATMs for two decades now. amz is trying this on whole foods checkout
most government apps use face scan now, because google and apple limited access to fingerprints on the OS.
they will relearn all lesson learned by govts using numbers at random for people for benefits auth (like ssn) by using biometrics, which is the same thing.
I had to do this recently, actually it was not possible to book the flight without doing it. I already have my passport attached to the accounting and this just felt incredibly invasive. But I still don't buy any of the reasons for it.
The whole budget airline market is a pile of scams.
Try booking on one of RA's cheapest flight offers, and you'll find that there are things you can't not book, like a seat on the actual flight(s)!, for which there is no zero cost option. There are zero-cost options for those things on the other price-points, but they remove this to try make the cheapest options look cheaper than the competition even thought they actually aren't.
(I assume other airlines use similar scummy tricks, I mention RA as they are the subject of this article and I recently looked into travel options for a future trip including them as an option).
People may be thinking "what's wrong with that?" but two things to remember: Ryanair will split up people on the same booking if legally allowed to, and some seats are pretty horrible, and some Ryanair flights are 5-6 hours.
(I swear some people would argue that if there was a 200% charge for booking 2 flights together that the other person should just go on holiday alone a week later...)
I'm still waiting for them to charge for the clothes you wear as carry-on luggage.
Uhm, wear-on clothes?
They always do this with my bookings. They say "booking appears to have been made through a third-party travel agent". All the bookings were made from the same account for the same person, yet I'm always forced to do additional verification. Tried creating a new account - same thing. Their support keep saying how sorry they are and that it's a mistake because it shouldn't happen when you book on their website, but it's just BS. But unfortunately, sometimes there are no options other than Ryanair.
Surely the conspiracy theories were wrong - it can't be we are stumbling into technocratic feudalism, with biometric ID and health checks required to leave you house? This isn't China, right?
To RA: scan my ass
"Biometric identifications using the fingerprint and the anal creases (the distinctive features of anoderm, or analprint)"
As far as I know, one can use the sphincter's unique pattern to identify people to some degree. Exactly the same way we can do so with iris patterns, fingerprints and even ear patterns.
So be careful what you wish for!
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Biometric-identification...
Requiring an account to book a flight seems perfectly reasonable to me
It certainly fails minimization criteria. To deliver the passenger to the destination an account is nice to have but not necessary. An airline only needs to identify the passenger, to make sure person on the ticket is the person on board. Verification of identity can be done in a non-persistent way, billing details may be left to the payment provider etc.
I think the point is
> New customers must also go through a verification process which, for many people, involves invasive biometrics.
And the hard-to-select second choice is:
"or going to the check-in counter at the airport more than two hours before departure"
https://noyb.eu/en/booking-ryanair-flight-through-online-tra...
No, that’s the second choice that noyb mentioned last year when announcing their complaint about the then-current version of Ryanair’s policy. In the new article which triggered this HN post, discussing Ryanair’s updated policy, the second option is sending Ryanair a handwritten signature and a copy of a government ID.
It's an airplane ticket.
Not a house selling contract!
The idea is to abide by the letter of the law, while making it far too inconvenient for anyone to actually do it. A bit like Apple and their iPhone battery replacement kits.
What about the apple battery kits?
https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/21/23079058/apple-self-servi...
I agree it’s unjustified, yeah. I think even the old policy was inappropriate and this is far worse.
Ah, arguably worse for many situations. Last minute bookings as one example.
Going to the check-in counter at Ryanair costs "€/£55 (for flights from Spain €/£ 30)". https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/useful-info/help-centre/fees
Could you elaborate on why that seems reasonable to you? The airline will already have my passport and credit card details, home address and mobile number. In my opinion, it should be the user's choice whether they create an account or not.
To me it seems reasonable because I’m already providing a lot of information to the airline, name, ID card, maybe even passport. If accounts are optional, this data is still being stored, probably against some kind of “shadow user” account, which ironically is more difficult to reason about or remember if you wanted to exercise your rights under the DPA.
User account is an interface between a User and a system one interacts with. If you book a flight, a user is created - no way around that. So, what you essentially demand is to NOT provide you with a user interface to interact with the system. Instead, you would resort to interface through online/offline/phone support.
Your demand boils down to having less options to do actions with the business. Options that already exist and come out of the box.
Having an account is not as scary once you realize what it is and what it represents.
> So, what you essentially demand is to NOT provide you with a user interface to interact with the system.
No, I’m requesting, or demanding if you prefer, the choice. An account is a user convenience, not a business necessity. I’m asking why it is reasonable to force customers to create an account to book a flight?
No. Most airlines allow you to manage your booking with your last name and PNR. Which is perfectly fine. You would usually only need an account for two things: the loyalty/miles program, and having your details autofilled next time you book.
I remember the good old day when you could just walk up and buy a paper ticket, and that was all you needed to board the plane. They'd ask for your name, but you could give them any name, they didn't care. I realize that we're a long way from that world now, and we could never go back to it, but it sure was nice.
That's how train tickets still work in Europe, I was kinda surprised and impressed. They don't check IDs at all, you just show a QR code.
In Russia where I'm from you need to show an ID to buy a long-distance train ticket and then again when you board the train. I was told that scalping was rampant before this was introduced which is totally believable. Which begs the question, how do European railway operators prevent it without requiring IDs?
I personally witnessed in Deutsche Bahn that passenger ticket was invalidated because he failed to show physical payment card he used to purchase the ticket online. That's why I started to buy physical tickets at the counter which is another kind of horror story.
Interesting. The only time I traveled on a Deutsche Bahn train, it was delayed 20 minutes, and they scanned my ticket off my laptop screen while I was already on the train, without saying a word :D
They do in Spain, and the make you line up to scan your luggage.
People Express let you buy your ticket onboard back in the 1980s.
Why? Thank God in Germany it is forbidden to requiring an account for online purchases and you can buy anything online without needing to register for an account first.
Most merchants and service providers keep your shadow account after purchase anyway. If you are lawyery kind of person you can request deleting the shadow account by contacting them and giving away even more of your personal details.
Exactly, an account has been created for you anyway and the merchant holds pretty much the same amount of data on you, so I think requiring an account is a good thing as then at least you know that a company holds all these records about you.
To be clear for online purchases I think it's a nice convenience to be able to buy without requiring an account, but for flights it's an entirely different game, you often need to provide a lot more PII.
That is not the point. Of course they have data about me. That requirement is dictated by tax law. I really don't care if the seller creates a shadow account or not, that's his problem.
The point is that I'm not forced to create and manage an account and I can do a second purchase without having to remember or reset a password to an account that was forced upon me.
It's bad UX at the very least. And technically you shouldn't need an account to make a booking.
This is a good thing. Let them put those facial scans on a wall of shame. Generating CO2 should be as awkward and uncomfortable as possible. I'm waiting for airlines to remove all passenger seats.
It will only be awkward and uncomfortable for those who can’t afford business class and not flying in low cost airlines.
So basically, it’s the same way it has always been, since we’re in the climate change situation because of rich countries, and I don’t think a lot of us in poor countries care to stop producing CO2, it’s our turn now.
“Everything is gonna burn, we’ll all take turns, I’ll get mine too”
> I don’t think a lot of us in poor countries care to stop producing CO2
I’m not sure about the situation everywhere but China gouvernement seems to care more than most other countries, rich or not. They flew a commercial plane with SAF in September. I personally think SAF is a terrible idea but give them credits for willingness.
You are correct in part but I think not in whole, since I said "a lot of us" and I'm pretty sure people in China would continue driving ICE and flying if it was up to them, the changes are just imposed top-down.
I'm glad when an authoritarian regime does something that ends up being good but 1) I still dislike the regime, and 2) I don't think that's something you can rely on.
Plus I'm pretty sure (just like everyone else) they're doing this not to avoid climate change but because they have a huge opportunity coming out ahead as providers of cleaner means of transportation (IMHO they already kick ass in EVs and will be the dominant player in this market).
But your point stands and has a lot of merit. What remains of my point is that I suspect most people in China wouldn't care about CO2 if up to them, and most of the rest of the poor/undeveloped countries will continue to not care.
> Plus I'm pretty sure (just like everyone else) they're doing this not to avoid climate change but because they have a huge opportunity coming out ahead as providers of cleaner means of transportation
I detest the authoritarian government but in this case it’s hard to feel bad if it actually works. Our strategy of letting hordes of MBAs optimize for the quarterly report is racking up future costs and unfortunately I don’t think we have the luxury of being picky about who’s going in the right direction here.
Totally agree! I’m frightened by what’s coming next.
Curious: Why is SAF a terrible idea? I don't think we're going to be able to electrify long-distance flights any time soon, and SAF seems like the most sensible solution that's actually available.
SAF production is in direct competition against food production for water and space. They also generate a lot of CO2e because moving stuff long distance and/or via air require a lot of energy. SAF didn’t change anything here. I’m sure the claimed 85% CO2 reduction can be "proved" by analyzing choosen aspect while ignoring others. I really trust the willingness of the executives at work but understand they’re biased to continue A.business B.lifestyle. Most executives are over optimistic of what they’re doing because that’s a good think for their business. I don’t blame.
I mean if all you care about is greenhouse emissions this still works - leess flying is less flying.
Well, point is that as long as there's enough demand from people who can afford to fly, this won't mean less flying, or at least not significantly less flying, but it will mean even more inequality.
I just don't think this is an easy thing to resolve.
Presumably that was sarcastic..
Why ever leave your basement when you can see the world in VR!?
I'm all for making travel more expensive. Mostly to remove the trashy and rude people from the equation. I don't care about C02 but I do enjoy seeing megalomaniacs like John Kerry and Taylor Swift lecture us plebs on climate/social justice, but fly private jets everywhere.
Now I'm trying to imagine Taylor Swift hanging out at gate B22 waiting for a flight. Pandemonium.
More expensive isn't fair because travel would become a rich person's hobby.
A better approach would be rationing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing
You're absolutely right, but the problem is the intersection set of rich people and powerful people is quite large (they're almost, but not quite, the same set) and why would they ration themselves?
If air travel rationing would ever be implemented, instead of travel becoming a rich person's hobby (which it already is, for a very loose definition of rich, a definition loose enough that it also counts people with in-house bathrooms with running water and waste disposal systems as rich) it would become a powerful person's hobby.
Not that different IMHO.
But, just to be clear, I'm totally with you. It's just that I'm terribly pessimistic.
What kind of gives me little moments of joy is thinking of what the 3000 version of "Fall of civilizations" podcast will have to say about what is happening now.
Its already a rich persons hobby. So rationing would suggest subsidizing travel domestically by the rich, for the less rich, but still globally, very well off.
> It is estimated that around 95% of the world’s population has never experienced air travel firsthand.
https://www.ncesc.com/has-only-5-of-the-worlds-population-ev...
It got a magnitude more expensive since covid. Private jets are the problem, not Kate from the UK flying to Tenerife once a year via ryan air.
A magnitude is very exaggerated. Also consider Covid won’t change the obvious trend since the 50’s: https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/32068/average-price-of-ai...
Regarding jets vs mass transport, I think it is misleading to oppose them. Remove all the jets on the planet and we’ll have exactly the same sustainability trouble.
My old dad points the fault of rich people taking jets to go everywhere, and also the fault of "billion of Chineses starting to take more and more flight". His bi-monthly usage of plane for Holliday isn't worth considering through because he "has no choice, people have right to takes Holliday and we-the-world-middle-class are not the problem"
I'm not arguing that. I was arguing against "RyanAir is the problem". When jets are contributing way more to climate change than mass transport, why argue against the most efficient of all air transport and not the biggest CO2 producers? Doesn't make any sense to me.
I agree with you on a philosophical view to maximise equality while minimizing climate change, which is very noble. I still think Kate’s RyanAir is a very important problem to address in parallel than worse problem like jets.
You think private jet flights outnumber commercial ones?
That's not the argument? The per person CO2 is way higher. Do I really have to explain basic things like that?
Modern airliner travel is about as or more co2-efficient as riding a bus.
I haven’t seen any figures supporting that - do you have a citation?
https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint has data from 2022 for passenger-kilometers in the UK:
So the only way that could be true would be if the bus was significantly emptier than the plane so the same emissions were amortized over an order of magnitude fewer passengers.Moreover, this ignores the future: there’s a straightforward path to electrifying a bus which has been deployed in production for years but no proven alternative for planes.
If the airplanes are completely full (which, despite all attempts by Ryanair to scare away their customers, they apparently still are). But this fails to account for "induced demand": if flights would be more expensive or less convenient, people wouldn't fly on weekend trips/holidays, visiting relatives in faraway countries etc. as frequently as they do now.
So you are against human flourishing. I see.
It's the first time I hear about that. Do you by any chance have more information? Or keywords where I can find more?
I don’t regularly take buses to the other side of Europe to eat some gelato and gawk at cathedrals for a weekend. A lot of people use cheap airlines as cheap entertainment.
don’t regularly take buses to the other side of Europe
They used to. When I was growing up, way before budget airlines, buses used to be the way you traveled around Europe for cheap.
Definitely - and it’s nowhere near the carbon emissions so I think what happened is that they saw someone else’s data (hopefully inadvertently) comparing a mostly full long haul flight (148gm CO2/passenger/kilometer) to a city bus (97g) rather than the long-distance buses you mentioned which are far more efficient since they don’t stop frequently (27g).
https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint
Possible, but taking the bus halfway around the world would also produce a lot of emissions.
> Generating CO2 should be as awkward and uncomfortable as possible.
Since essentially every activity generates CO2, what you are essentially saying is that life should be made as awkward and uncomfortable as possible.
And this certainly feels like the approach many eco-activists are taking, triggering well-deserved backlash. The Green party in Germany, for example, does extremely sensible politics in most areas, but mixes it with performative policies that are more about visibility (through causing inconvenience) than actually meaningful impact. So every time your drink tastes like cardboard as your straw is dissolving, you're reminded to vote for anything else. And "anything else" will most likely not enact the policies that might actually make sense (e.g. stricter carbon taxation).
I 100% agree with your second point.
> life should be made as awkward and uncomfortable as possible.
I have a hard time seeing good faith here but let say you really didn’t got it:
What he is saying is that CO2-problematic activities should be made more awkward and unconfortable than those that don’t. A cousin view would be to make substainable options easier and cheaper that others. You know like various incentives measures used everywhere in the economy to serve other goals we set earlier, like keep some domestic agriculture or tax more the cigarettes.
“Generating” is definitely the wrong term: burning fossil fuels puts sequestered carbon back into the atmosphere so we’d want to distinguish that from recirculating carbon as you would by, say, riding a bicycle where all of the carbon was recirculated.
I completely agree with your second point: the low-benefit performative stunts are so foolish that you’d be forgiven for thinking they were the work of undercover saboteurs.