Changing attitudes to flying

Abstract

Increasing emissions from aviation combined with the intensifying climate change, highlight the need for a sustainable change in the aviation sector. Since innovations making flying in itself more sustainable are taking long to implement, a behavioural change (flying less or not at all) is
necessary.

Recent societal developments show how people’s attitudes to flying might play a role in flying behaviour change, and how attitudes might be changing. Earlier research has established a link between people’s behaviour and attitudes. However, studies addressing changes in air travel attitudes and what causes those changes are not in abundance. Hence, this thesis empirically explores whether and how people
have changed their attitudes towards air travel and to identify what factors contribute to a change in attitude.

This was investigated by applying a dynamic approach to the Q methodology. Three viewpoints on air travel were identified. Consequently, changes in attitudes and contributing factors to attitude change were identified.

This research finds that people in The Netherlands have changed their attitudes in the recent years. The attitude changes
were synthesised into three main directions, namely; people expressing a more environmentally-aware view on air travel, people expressing a more independent view on air travel, and people expressing a less self-evident view on air travel. The factors contributing to the identified changes can be summarised by people knowing more, having different emotions and engaging in certain behaviour.

Finally, this study has made three scientific contributions. The first is an empirical contribution, as it has added to the currently scarce knowledge base on changing air travel attitudes through conducting a first exploratory and empirical study into how attitudes to flying are changing among a group of Dutch people. The second is a theoretical contribution, as this study successfully applied and therewith partly validated the model on attitude change of Van Wee et al. (2019). Third, this study has made a methodological contribution, as it incorporated a dynamic approach in the Q methodology and thereby addressed its suitability for studying attitude change. Regarding the societal relevance, this research resulted in suggestions for policies that aim at creating attitude change on a larger scale in society, which in turn could stimulate the necessary behavioural changes, i.e. people flying less.