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French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

reuters.com

141–150 of 361 posts

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's far from just the infrastructure, if you're looking at HSR; Bordeaux to Lyon as an aviation route is mostly served by E190's, each seating 100 people, whereas a TGV Réseau seats 377 (which I believe is the lowest capacity of any current TGV). Clearly the train can have the advantage of intermediate stops, but you're starting off with much higher capacity to fill. And sure, you could build a very short train, but…

I'm surprised they're running jets instead of turboprops, but maybe fuel efficiency is too high in my mind. Only Chalair runs a small handful of ATRs.

Air France Hop and easyJet, the two operators of the route, only fly jets. In the Hop case, post-pandemic they'll be operating ERJs and E-Jets; in the easyJet case, they'll be operating A320 family aircraft.

Note that Hop did have various ATR 42/72s until 2019/20, when they got rid of their (fairly recent) ATR 72-600s. It is perhaps surprising that they now are jet-only, but at least pre-pandemic the plan was for them to long-term be operating only CRJ1000 and E-190s, both of which are notably larger than the largest turboprops on the market. I don't know what their average sector length is, but it's certainly not implausible that the fuel efficiency per passenger isn't that much worse (and easyJet's A320s almost certainly beat any turboprop on a per passenger basis given their average loadings).

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#143
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those living in the rich nations can hardly blame the people in emerging economies for trying to achieve a similar standard of living (well, not without being huge hypocrites). And yes, large countries like China will have a large impact. But that is going to happen regardless of whether the rich nations make a change or not. So why wouldn't we try to reduce our own impact? What alternative do you suggest? Do nothing…

Dont try to force altruism on me.I'd rather retain my standards of living.

>Dont try to force altruism on me.

Don't try to force your pollution on me...

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to regularly travel from Edmonton to Calgary for work. When you add up the extra time required for flying, it's about a three hour trip (45 minutes in the air, the rest is getting to the airport, checking in, etc). Coincidentally, it's also about a three hour drive. My reasons for driving vs flying were usually to do with how long I'd be there. If I was going for one day then flying was preferable since fallin…

In general though flying is much safer than highway driving. If one wanted to minimize risk, one would always fly.

Flying is actually much more dangerous than driving. The risk is to destroy the environment that sustains life on earth. This does not even compare with the risk of a car or plane accident.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#145
EDIT: Thanks to commenters below, looks like my concerns aren't valid after all -- CDG has a train station and airlines there sell air tickets with a train connection. I didn't know about either of those -- seems like France has this figured out in a way other places haven't.

(original comment below)

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I can appreciate the logic behind a ban on this for single-hop trips.

But if you're flying into a hub and want to connect to a smaller city -- e.g. Paris to Lyon -- switching to a train is massively inconvenient. You've got to travel into Paris (an hour?) and then take another 2-hour train, after you're already tired from your transcontinental flight.

So... do I have this right that I won't be able to fly from New York to Lyon, it just won't exist even though they both have airports? I'll have to fly into Paris and add 3 hours to my already-long trip and make a totally separate train booking, and worry about if lose the train ticket if the flight is delayed?

Or because Paris as a hub is out of the picture, will I just book a flight via Brussels (New York -> Brussels -> Lyon) because that will still be fine...

...and burn a ton more CO2 because I'm forced to take a longer flight because France banned shorter ones?

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general though flying is much safer than highway driving. If one wanted to minimize risk, one would always fly.

Flying is actually much more dangerous than driving. The risk is to destroy the environment that sustains life on earth. This does not even compare with the risk of a car or plane accident.

I believe it might be better for the environnement to share a full plane than be alone in your car, for equal distances.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#147
post #104

While the reason is honorable, I can't help but think this is an attack on poor/middle class people. Traveling by train in France is quite expensive, and very annoying some times (I live in a lost country-side, and if I want to travel to my parents, it's a three to four train ride, taking about 8 to 10 hours). Ok, plane wouldn't help in most cases either, but the train offering got a lot gutted over the years and it'…

I never really bought this argument. Poor people aren't taking regular flights or driving SUV's. Climate change is a problem caused by the consumption habits of the wealthy, not the poor.

Banning domestic flights won’t stop the habits of the wealthy; they fly private personal planes. What the ban likely will cause is an increase in the cost of travel, which hurts middle class people.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#148

I'm not an economist, but wouldn't it have been better to tax the carbon emissions? If you could offset the carbon emissions for 10 EUR, maybe add 12 EUR to the price of a ticket and use that money to buy carbon offsets? That way those who still want it can still fly, and we're at net negative emissions.

>I'm not an economist

The last thing we need is the insights of an economist when it comes to solutions to climate change. It's thanks to economists that we're still dealing with the problem in the first place!

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying is actually much more dangerous than driving. The risk is to destroy the environment that sustains life on earth. This does not even compare with the risk of a car or plane accident.

I believe it might be better for the environnement to share a full plane than be alone in your car, for equal distances.

Quotation needed. All studies show the impact of flying as being much higher than driving, even when shared.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a carbon tax on gas that was going to affect the lower classes disproportionately. I don't think we'd see an uprising for a carbon tax on intra-national flights, which are much more of a business travel mode

People choose to fly rather than take the train because flying is usually cheaper . This ban also impacts poor people more than rich people.

Poor people don't fly that often
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