Spendthrift Shoestring

FT on Green Travel

It's amusing, and also heartening, to see the hippieish line "The world in our hands" on the front page of yesterday's Responsible Traveller Financial Times special report. It does feel as if we've moved into a different place as far as green concerns go, with ever-smaller circles offering recalcitrance to an increasing sense of environmental urgency.

My favorite parts of the special report were Rohit Jaggi's piece on aviation industry movements toward greater environmental responsibility and Robert Wright's article on increased interest in train travel, which quotes Mark Smith, a.k.a. The Man in Seat Sixty-One. The report also has an article on cruise ship industry efforts to go greener, as well as a longish list of eco-friendly hideaways in India, the Gulf, Greece, and Latin America. Very good stuff. It's wonderful to see it in the FT.

Flash: Eurostar Passenger Numbers Surge

Eurostar reports a 21 percent rise in passenger numbers over the first quarter of 2008—in comparison to the first quarter of 2007—to 2.17 million passengers. Eurostar, which has made all of its journeys carbon-neutral, is clearly benefiting not just from the move to St. Pancras in London, but also an increasing green-mindedness on the part of travelers. Exciting stuff.

Monday List: Porter, Skybus, Cheap Trains

1. According to Amy Verner in the Globe and Mail, flying Porter between Toronto City Centre and Newark really is far superior to flying from Pearson or Buffalo to NYC. No surprise there. It's just that C$361.41 (US$357.34 as of this moment) seems like a lot of money to me for a short jaunt. I know that Porter isn't a low-cost carrier, but I can fly on JetBlue to Chicago roundtrip for about half that amount. Am I being unreasonable? Shoestring allegiances aside, Verner's article did nothing to quell my personal Portermania.

2. Another note on Skybus. When the airline got compared to Ryanair, I would find myself feeing itchy.  Ryanair exploits secondary airports near big, highly-trafficked cities as their bases. Yes, there's often a hassle involved with getting between these airports and the cities they represent, but for the most part the distances are reasonable. London Stansted, for example, is a doable 45 minutes from London by train. Skybus chose Columbus, not New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles as its base. I wonder how things would have played out if their primary base had been Islip or the Sonoma County Airport or Long Beach. Possibly not that much better; after all, this is a tough time to launch an airline.

3. Mark Smith, also known as the Man in Seat Sixty-One, has put together a truly fab list of reasonable rail alternatives to luxury train itineraries for the Guardian.