Post Craiova – Flight Shame

For decades, I have lived and worked in both Romania and the Netherlands. Over the years, both countries have become intertwined with my entire life: family, work, and friends. To commute between my two home countries, I use the airplane on a weekly basis. You could definitely call myself an extreme frequent flyer. To what extent can this be justified in these times of climate crisis? Although this question increasingly arises, I hold a less common opinion on it. I see many good reasons why we should not or cannot stop flying.

These reasons are not only about me personally. The ability to fly is indispensable for the economic development of many areas on the periphery of Europe and for the people living there. Craiova is not exactly at the heart of Europe, and NetRom would not function without the airport that provides an influx of employees and business visitors. But there are more sectors that benefit, even if this is not visible to everyone. A good example is dentists. Some time ago, I met a lady from the Netherlands on a plane who combined a 7-day trip to Craiova with several dental treatments. Many other businesses in the region depend on proper accessibility and reachability.

Flying increases equal opportunities. If you live in a remote area, this may be the only chance to develop economically. It is almost unimaginable for affluent Western Europeans what this means for families in Romania. Not just internationally, but also within the country. Emerging budget airlines provide a solution for Romanian youths who come from far and wide to work in sectors where they can earn a salary by Western European standards, while also being able to visit their parents and family a few times a year.

With increasing prosperity, there is also a desire to explore the world. More and more of our younger employees are taking flights for city trips to other cities in Europe. Should this curiosity about the world still be seen as a sufficient reason to get on a plane? The answer may be more nuanced than you are used to from me. Just 25 years ago, as a Romanian, you needed a visa to leave the country and nobody had money for vacations. During the same period, prosperity in Western Europe increased rapidly, along with the number of (distant) flights. For decades, Western countries have benefited from growth in prosperity with hardly any awareness of the consequences for the environment and a tremendous waste of cheap fossil energy. And we still do. Therefore, I have great difficulty applying the same standards to less central regions in Europe that we now – recently – use for ourselves.

Although flying from an economic and social perspective is very defensible in my eyes, reducing my CO2 emissions indeed occupies me. I mainly compensate by investing in green energy, both at home and at work. We already have solar panels at home, and they are also being installed for our campus in Craiova. CO2 reduction is very important, and I am willing to spend time, energy, and money on it. But stopping flying is, in my opinion, not a workable solution.

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