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The debate over aviation’s contribution to climate change and other environmental problems was well under way when I started Flightmapping.com almost 5 years ago. I’ve never been one to pretend that this isn’t a serious issue, but it does appear that most industry bigwigs are finally waking up to this.

Earlier this month, Leo Van Wijk, who is vice-chairman of Air France-KLM, the world’s biggest airline by turnover, lashed out at the annual IATA conference, claiming that the industry was doing too little, too late.

I have always felt that the cost of flights should cover the so-called “externalities” of pollution, and that this can still be done whilst making sure that aviation also make a reasonable contribution to the exchequer. Prior to December’s doubling in Air Passenger Duty, I would have argued that there was still room for these costs to be accounted for, and that they should be done in a manner which was proportional to the pollution caused, or at least to the cost of the ticket.

Then Gordon Brown decides to not only double APD overnight, but to apply the increase to tickets which had already been purchased. So where was the public outcry over this extremely vindictive move? There wasn’t any - all we got was the green lobby telling us that this increase wasn’t enough. Judging by the carbon offset costs produced by DEFRA, and endorsed by websites like Climate Care, which puts the climate cost of a domestic flight at less than £1, this increase was more than enough, even if the government itself has already admitted that APD is a very “blunt instrument”.

My biggest gripe with the £10 APD is that it is levied in both directions on domestic sectors. Try telling a family of four living in Belfast that they should take a weekend break in (already expensive) London (£80 goes to Gordon), when they could drive down to tax-free Dublin, and fly three times further to Malaga, paying a mere €5.78 each for the return journey.

Unlike many within the aviation industry, I don’t think that global warming is a hoax, but I do like to try and understand as many angles to the argument as possible. One thing I am sure of is that there are more effective ways of reducing CO2 output than going after aviation.

We might be an easy target, but how many politicians realise that they can only ever exercise limited control over an industry that is inherently international. Perhaps that’s why we’ve suffered here in Coventry, but that’s for another debate.

If even a fraction of the extra billions raised from APD was diverted towards investing in better facilities for walking and cycling - including safe routes to school, then we’d all be better off. For all the unproven talk about radiative forcing at higher altitudes, vehicle emmissions at ground level are indisputable, and one way to limit these is to make the walking environment as safe and attractive as possible.

That’s what the Dutch and Swiss do, and it is no wonder that their levels of obesity are a fraction of ours. Unfortunately, both countries tend to operate under a much gentler form of democracy, whereas we have to sex everything up to keep the tabloids busy.

Sex up self powered transport anyone? Somehow the walk-a-mile-a-day club is never going to be as salacious as bashing the mile high club.

If there’s three things that I hate, then Multimap has just scored a hat-trick:

1. Pointless website revisions, for no good reason.
2. Pop-up surveys asking what I think.
3. Pop-unders (but I might just forgive that if that is really needed for commercial survival).

Well, I’m not going to waste my time being another statistic. Far easier to say it here, where it might just get one or two people reading it. So, I used to love Multimap - no surprise here, it was simple, easy to use, and I loved the ability to zoom in to the 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey maps.

Move on to June 2007, and what have they done? If the new version wasn’t fiddly enough, they then want to test my patience with a survey asking me what I think. Let me tell you - Multimap to me was an excellent supplement to Ordnance Survey printed maps, and saved me having a vast library of sheets I wouldn’t use very often.

All I wanted to do on this particular visit was check a village name for a caption I wanted to put on a photo. Sure, that won’t earn Multimap any money, but nor would most of my visits. I would assume their revenue model works by having enough visitors that they can earn revenue from banner adverts. Capturing data about their users can help boost revenue, but all they needed to do was ask me to log in, and they could have add all the info about me that they wanted. Instead, I’ll be off to find another website. I could just go back to the old version, but I’m sufficiently annoyed by the (constant) popping up of surveys and other junk that I think I’ll do some hunting around first.

In the meantime, I simply want to acquire some ordnance, and explode it in their survey maker’s office.

I really hope we never make the same mistake here at Flightmapping!

JA, Coventry

Ex Multimap user.

I will be speaking at the Eye For Travel summit in London tomorrow. Below is my reply to some questions sent by the conference organisers. 

1.    What in your opinion have been the latest trends when it comes to affiliate marketers using search in an optimal manner?

I suppose the one basic trend is that affiliate marketers are often much better at SEO than merchants!  This might sound arrogant, but it is simply a question of resource allocation. Most travel companies are in business to put bums on seats - but actually providing these services, or even providing booking technology, is not the same thing as creating relevant content and playing the never ending Google game.

With the constant cat and mouse race between white hat and black hat (ethical and allegedly unethical) SEO techniques, it is always going to be far easier for affiliates to take risks, than it is for large-scale corporate merchants. Ultimately, there will always be some merchants out there who view affiliate marketing as an unnecessary cost, but I certainly think that affiliates are a very good value proposition, and an excellent return on investment, compared to outsourcing search engine marketing activities, which can often be extremely risky.

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