You're absolutely right, but the problem is the intersection set of rich people and powerful people is quite large (they're almost, but not quite, the same set) and why would they ration themselves?
If air travel rationing would ever be implemented, instead of travel becoming a rich person's hobby (which it already is, for a very loose definition of rich, a definition loose enough that it also counts people with in-house bathrooms with running water and waste disposal systems as rich) it would become a powerful person's hobby.
Not that different IMHO.
But, just to be clear, I'm totally with you. It's just that I'm terribly pessimistic.
What kind of gives me little moments of joy is thinking of what the 3000 version of "Fall of civilizations" podcast will have to say about what is happening now.
Its already a rich persons hobby. So rationing would suggest subsidizing travel domestically by the rich, for the less rich, but still globally, very well off.
> It is estimated that around 95% of the world’s population has never experienced air travel firsthand.
A better approach would be rationing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing