In a way, you could understand it.  His formative years were during the Great Depression when scrimping and saving was not a sign of anal-retentive miserliness but an essential strategy for survival.  But years later, when my father had prospered as far as a Morris Minor, his driving habits reflected his upbringing.
 
As soon as he saw a stop sign, red light or anything else that would require braking, he would dip the clutch, knock it out of gear, and cruise to a halt.  If the delay looked like lasting more than a minute or two, he would even turn off the ignition, displaying an over-optimistic faith in the Minor’s ability to re-start on demand.
 
‘Saves fuel,’ he would say.  
 
You could point out that it went against the highway code, that he didn’t have proper control of the vehicle, and that, when he graduated to later model cars, the engineering automatically dropped the engine to idling speed even if you kept it in gear.  But you couldn’t stop him.  
 
‘Saves fuel.’
 
Airlines are now acting like my father.  Rather than descend from cruising altitude in a series of steps, each requiring thrust when the plane has to level out, air traffic control computers now look at the type of plane, its payload, wind speed and direction, and the position of the other aircraft up there, and calculate the exact spot in the sky where the pilot can switch the engines to idle and glide down to the runway.  
 
Known as ‘continuous descent’ or ‘tailored arrivals’ (there are slight technical differences between the two), this wheeze has got the airlines’ accountants rubbing their hands over the savings in fuel and money.
 
At the same time their PR departments have taken the opportunity to gush over the reduction in emissions. This, we are told, demonstrates the aviation industry’s deep commitment to going green and saving the planet from climate change.
 
Thai Airways is even trying to obliterate the tired (and woefully ungrammatical) joke about TG meaning ‘Tomorrow Go’. It now means ‘Travel Green’.  They boast of aviation biofuels (which still produce emissions and right now are too expensive to use on anything but publicity flights), lightweight cargo containers (but not lightweight cargo) and biodegradable cups (just how fast do you have to drink?)
 
All signs that the nation’s flag carrier is doing its bit to prevent the disaster of global warming.
 
Do not believe them.  It is an attempt to dash your balder, rot your tommy and cock your poppy.
 
No sooner has TG stopped spouting to the environmental reporters the latest statistics on tons of CO2 emissions saved, than they turn round and give the business pages their rosy projections for increased numbers of passengers and flights. And, inevitably, emissions.
 
Reducing the climatic effect per flight, by whatever fraction, is commendable.  But in terms of saving the human race from an early overheated extinction, it is immediately made meaningless if the total number of flights inexorably rises, due in part to the strenuous efforts of the airlines to force the numbers up.  
 
Mother Nature doesn’t give a damn about the averages.  It’s the aggregate that will decide if she lives or dies.
 
The aviation industry’s attitude is akin to switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs and then deciding, because they’re so cheap to run, you can leave them on all night.  Oh, come on, you say, who’s that stupid?  Well, as I slave over this piece by my flickering midnight oil-lamp, I glance out of the window and see that every last high-rise is exactly that stupid.  Even the one that’s still being built and has no one living in it.  
 
Let’s get this straight.  In the consensus of the vast majority of climate change scientists (those who publish peer-reviewed papers and are not paid by the energy industry), new light bulbs and cleverly controlled falls of the sky are nowhere near enough to prevent the coming changes.  
 
Now if the suits at TG and other parts of the aviation industry have a genuine concern about climate change, which I am perfectly willing to concede, why do they persist in fooling themselves and us that for all their clever wheezes, they are not going to achieve a significant reduction in aggregate emissions without some drastic restructuring of air travel?  Like reducing it.  Severely.
 
The simple answer is that neither the airlines, nor the plane manufacturers, nor the air traffic controllers, nor anyone else in the business is mandated to do anything about climate change.
 
But they due have a legal and fiduciary responsibility to make money.  And the more business you do, the more chance you have of making money.  It is clearly in the best interests of all these players, and their shareholders, to increase air travel.  The rest is window dressing.
 
Not just the aviation industry of course.  The free-market, neoliberal capitalist system works that way everywhere and will continue to do so until either we kill the system off, or the system kills us off.