I haven’t flown for approximately fifteen years due to an increasingly uncomfortable claustrophobia on flights. This culminated in my actually getting off a flight from Malaga to London when I was faced with that mass of people all jamming stuff into overhead lockers on entry to the aircraft. I got off the aeroplane and took the train to visit my mother who was ill in Birmingham.
I live in Malaga and most of my family are UK based. Since the ‘revelation’ I’ve found great enjoyment in visiting places I’d previously only flown over, and in visiting other places across Europe and Morocco. My love of train travel has increased.
In parallel to this was the deterioration of our climate and my developing awareness of how air travel is adding to the disaster, so my feelings were fixed! Signing the flight free pledge was easy in the same way as it was easy to become vegetarian and eat an increasingly plant based diet and to stop using plastic etc. There is no one single factor that will stop climate change but every single one of us has to engage NOW!
Anne Smyth
Malaga, Spain