Flights may soon be free, says airline chief

In the 1950s, a flight from London to Edinburgh cost a week’s wages. In the 1990s, the same ticket was ‘cheap as a pair of jeans’. In ten years, says Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, it could be free. It sounds impossible, but his plan is for airports to subsidise the flights as more passengers travel.

This is a radical idea. Air travel has already changed the world once: in the nineteenth century, it took three months for the poet John Keats to travel from England to Rome. Now the same journey would take him three hours by plane.

For this reason it became much easier for people to see the world when commercial air travel took off after the second world war. In the 1990s cheap companies like Ryanair arrived, and they made the experience affordable for almost everyone. The number of air travellers skyrocketed. Tourist destinations became even more popular.

O’Leary’s plan is not a promise, as there are lots of complications ahead. But if he can pull it off, offering free flights to millions of people would be sure to change the world again.

What a great idea! Thanks to the internet, we know about the whole world. How amazing would it be to see it all with our own eyes? Every country would get an economic boost, and tourists would be spread more evenly across destinations. Best of all, it would give equal travel opportunities to everyone —no matter who they are.

Not so fast. Free flights would cause planes to be full all the time, and airports would be chaotic. The number of flights would balloon, causing damage to the environment. People would always be abroad rather than at home with their families. And the magic of travel – the thrill of discovery, the fun of taking a break from life – would be gone.