The European Commission has approved a scaled-back plan for France to ban airline flights that can be replaced with train trips of 2.5 hours or less. Three popular flights from Paris's Orly Airport to Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux will be stopped for three years and the impact assessed after that. Last April the French government approved the concept but it had to be signed off by the EC. The plan met with resistance from French airport groups.
This is an interesting move. In theory, it certainly would reduce carbon emissions.
In practice, though, I am not so certain. I wonder how much French inter-city travel is done by airplane, given the convenience and speed of train travel from centrally-located stations compared to the inconveniences of going to the outside of town airport, checking in well ahead of departure, and then traveling into the city?
I suspect that it may not have any impact on carbon emissions, or even increase some carbon emissions, as passengers planning to travel from French cities internationally will opt to route via other carriers through other European hubs to their international destinations? It is less likely that a passenger will travel via train to Paris to board their international flight, than to simply transfer via other hubs such as Munich, Zurich, Frankfurt, Rome, etc… Some of these routing may be less direct and therefore emit more carbon per pax.
I believe that to change habits that will reduce carbon emissions, more compelling reasons need to be be developed.
“Train travel virtually always comes out better than plane, often by a lot. A journey from London to Madrid would emit 43kg of CO2 per passenger by train, but 118kg by plane (or 265kg if the non-CO2 emissions are included), according to EcoPassenger.” That’s almost 3 times as much CO2 per passenger mile, even more if you consider the extra impact that plane emissions have. (Read the article.)
The difference is even more dramatic for short-haul trips, which is what all of the flights that will be canceled are.
Every government in the world imposes regulations that it deems to be in the public interest. Not all of them work, but it seems to me this one is worth trying and analyzing.
Actually from CDG there is excellent high speed rail from the international terminal to cities like Brusells and Amsterdam. I regularly fly to Paris and hop on the TFV train as it is faster than connecting to another short haul flight and drops me off in the center of Brusells rather than Zaventen the airport out in the burbs.
This is one of many interesting developments with regard to EU and travel control. The EU is also moving forward with 15 minute cities. In other words, driving will be restricted to a distance that can be traveled in 15 minutes. One political party is obsessed with trains. What they fail to recognize, or care about, is that travel by train can be amazingly unpleasant and time consuming. Not to mention trains are disease vectors. As trains have nowhere near the air quality of aircraft.
Having ridden the French hi-speed rail (TVE), I would far rather take the train than have to deal with the airports and then get put in a cramped plane seat that is more like a cattle car. I have also sampled the trains in Italy, Spain, and England. There is next to no reason not to take the train for a 2 1/2 hour ride even if you got to fly first class. It probably will not save time and the train ride is much more pleasant. If I had nothing else to do, I would rather take a 10 or 12 hour train trip than fly unless I was the pilot in my own plane.
This would never work in the US without a massive investment in rail travel, something no one especially taxpayers are willing to do. Too many remote areas out in the western US, even more so in Alaska.
The ban is has been in place in France for two years – I live under the approach to Bordeaux and I know. Number of planes down from one every 15 mins, half hour to the occasional EasyJet and Ryan Air from the UK…
Bordeaux people had got used to using air because it was cheaper – no tax on fuel, with the security and transfers it took longer than train.