Tackling the academic air travel dependency. An analysis of the (in)consistency between academics’ travel behaviour and their attitudes

Current trends in air transport are inconsistent with international climate goals. Without substantial changes from business-as-usual travel demand, neither new technologies nor alternative fuels will reduce emissions at the required rate. Air transport demand is highly skewed towards a small share of frequent flyers in all aviation users. While the unsustainability of aviation is well-recognised in academia, academics themselves are often frequent flyers – generating the emissions many of them also problematise. To investigate this contradiction, we survey 1,116 staff members from University College London (UK). We cluster academics based on their opinions of academic travel and international conference organisation, and examine how these groups participate in, and travel to, academic activities. Five clusters are identified: 1) Conservative frequent flyers, 2) Progressive infrequent flyers, 3) In-person conference avoiders, 4) Involuntary flyers, and 5) Traditional conference lovers. Despite some levels of similarity between academic travel attitudes and behaviour, results show that certain types of academics seem forced to regularly fly to distant conferences. In fact, members of our largest cluster (Involuntary flyers) have negative attitudes towards flying, yet have the plane as dominant travel mode. To reduce academic air travel (dependency), we provide tailored policy instruments for each cluster, aimed at reducing the need to travel to lowering the impact of travel.