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P1Low-cost carriers have transformed air travel from a luxury into something millions can afford, yet this affordability comes at a heavy environmental price. In my opinion, the disadvantages of budget airlines ultimately outweigh their undoubted benefits.

P2The advantages of cheap flights are easy to see. By driving fares down, budget airlines have opened up travel to people who could never previously afford it, allowing families separated by migration to reunite, students to study abroad, and tourists to experience other cultures first-hand. This boom has also created jobs and revenue for airports, hotels, and local economies in destinations that depend heavily on visitors, spreading prosperity to regions that have little else to offer.

P3Nevertheless, the environmental costs are severe and difficult to justify. Aviation is one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse-gas emissions, and the cheaper flying becomes, the more people fly, multiplying the damage. Budget carriers actively encourage short, frequent trips, a weekend abroad for the price of a meal, that would once have been made by less polluting trains or not taken at all, while the relentless pressure to keep fares low discourages investment in cleaner aircraft. Given the scale of the climate crisis, sustaining a model that depends on ever-rising flight numbers seems dangerously short-sighted.