You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
The world has seen an enormous increase in flights for leisure, business and commercial purposes around the world over recent years. What do you think are the main advantages and disadvantages of such flights? Do you think flights should be taxed more?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
You should write at least 250 words.
Sample Answer 1:
Due to globalisation, a paradigm shift of people’s lifestyle and expansion of tourism and international commerce, cheap and frequent flights all around the world is quite common nowadays which offers both advantages and disadvantages. In this essay, I shall examine both positive and negative aspects of such flights before drawing a reasonable conclusion.
With regards to advantages, frequent flights have made the air travel affordable for many and as a consequence, more people can enjoy the fast and flexible journey. Increasing flights also expand the tourism and business opportunities and thus indirectly creates more job opportunities. Moreover, people have more places to visit, venture in new business opportunities, avail advanced medical facilities in developed countries and learn more by travelling. The frequent travels, in a way, reduce the cultural gaps among people of different countries and bring nations together. Last but not least, many multinational companies can run their operations smoothly across cities due to easily-available air travel and this has a direct impact on creating more employment scopes.
On the other hand, detrimental effects of the rapid increase in air travel cannot be ignored. The amount of air pollution it causes is quite alarming. A single flight emits a huge amount of carbon dioxide to the air contributing to the greenhouse effect. Furthermore, airports in cities hamper the peace of local people and increase the possibility of terrorist attacks.
Many experts suggest that one way to check the negative consequences of increasing air travel is to impose more tax. Though this might seem a reasonable solution, I, however, disagree. More effective solutions like introducing eco-friendly jet fuel and tight security should be in place rather than increasing the tax which would only burden mass people to pay more for their travel.
To conclude, ever-increasing air travel has some negative outcomes like air and sound pollution and threat to the national security. However, imposing a heavy tax is not a viable solution to this and cheap and frequent flights have facilitated people in many ways which are a timely demand of modern people.
Sample Answer 2:
People these days travel around the world for numerous purposes, and hence the number of flights is on the rise. But having the flights have both advantages and disadvantages as well. I will discuss the issue briefly in the following paragraphs and show my opinion whether imposing more taxes should be implemented or not.
First of all, people take flights for some of the specific reasons. Speed is the key advantage here. It is only the air travel which provides the maximum speed and thus the travellers can save their valuable times. Besides, Comfort is another aspect of flights. When you will be on board on an aeroplane, you will feel comfortable like your own home. Further, when someone is on air, they are able to enjoy the attractive view of the ground which is a completely different experience.
In opposite, there are some disadvantages have been found for the flights as well. Price is an important matter to consider. Often the prices of air tickets are higher and everyone is unable to bear such expensive tickets. Besides, some of the airliners charge for the snacks and meals or waters they serve during the trip. Sometimes, the journeys are tiresome as well and people suffer from jetlag. Place crash is a shocking issue for the passengers as there are fewer chances to survive a plane crash.
Taxation on tickets is moderate now and I have experienced that recently. A couple of weeks ago, I travelled to New York from Massachusetts by a local airliner. They charged me 15% tax of the entire ticket value. So, I think this is moderate and if the tax is increased, it would be difficult for ordinary people like us to have the air travels in our need.
To conclude, I think that the advantages of flights are more than disadvantages it owns. So, people should take the chance of air travel considering its benefits.