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French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

reuters.com

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Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#161

Post by colinmhayes »

ddevault wrote: post #148
underdeserver wrote: post #12

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!

Human greed isn't a result of economics, it's just what economists study. Carbon taxes and carbon capture are absolutely the best solutions to climate change.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#162

Post by option »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #82
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #4

There is no reason to fly short distance if you want to go from city center to city center. However, if you're already arriving or leaving on a long distance flight, the whole overhead of getting to/from/through the airport disappears and those 1.5 hours start making a difference. I think forcing companies to advertise more honest flight durations and prices could make a huge difference. If the airline tells you that…

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…

there are no good reasons why we spend so much time on the airports on funny useless procedures.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#163

Post by robocat »

sys_64738 wrote: post #54

What's the point of trimming the edges when the real culprits get off lightly? No airlines in this league table of culprits. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/companies-carbon-emissions/

“each company on this chart deals in fossil fuels”. Their contribution “is mostly from the combustion of their products”.

So you want to blame supply, and not demand (airlines in your example). How pointless.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#165

Post by Befterriager »

tom_mellior wrote: post #153
crazygringo wrote: post #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) --- 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…

> massively inconvenient Combating climate change will cause massive inconvenience. > 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? This is FUD. If you s…

> If you search airfrance.com for flights from New York to Lyon, the fastest connection you get is indeed two flights connecting at CDG (11 hours total time).

And if you search an aggregator, chances are that Brussels Airlines (via Brussels, obviously) is faster. And more convenient since you can drop your luggage at your starting point.

At that point, one criteria that comes into play is if you are living closer to the Lyon train station or to the Lyon airport.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#166

Post by pyrale »

ajross wrote: post #42
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #4

There is no reason to fly short distance if you want to go from city center to city center. However, if you're already arriving or leaving on a long distance flight, the whole overhead of getting to/from/through the airport disappears and those 1.5 hours start making a difference. I think forcing companies to advertise more honest flight durations and prices could make a huge difference. If the airline tells you that…

> There is no reason to fly short distance if you want to go from city center to city center. In France. In nations like the US (outside the DC-to-Boston corridor anyway) without a well-designed and -maintained rail infastructure, 1-2 hour flights are routine and not really replaceable with other options. Infrastructure investment pays off for decades and decades, and Europe has done really well here. > However, if y…

> That's an infrastructure problem too, though! There's no reason rail service directly to and from airports can't be integrated with the system. It's true in many places already, though I know nothing about France.

That's an infrastructure feature. Trains are designed to serve city centers, and they do it well. Moving high speed train infrastructure to airports just for the sake of fliers would kill train experience for everyone else. Moving airports to city center is an obvious no-go. Duplicating train infrastructure for the few connecting trips is probably economically unviable.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#167

Post by Befterriager »

dagenleg wrote: post #150
saddlerustle wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because their train travels are heavily subsidized. And more recently, it became easier to carpool easily for long distance trips in France with Blablacar (before the pandemy).

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#168

Post by plantain »

Sharlin wrote: post #17
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #4

There is no reason to fly short distance if you want to go from city center to city center. However, if you're already arriving or leaving on a long distance flight, the whole overhead of getting to/from/through the airport disappears and those 1.5 hours start making a difference. I think forcing companies to advertise more honest flight durations and prices could make a huge difference. If the airline tells you that…

And flights costing 29 EUR are simply a market (and policy) failure. In no reasonable sustainably operating economy would we ever have gotten into a situation of flights being cheaper than train trips.

Flights don't pay VAT, for some unfathomably baffling reason. Train tickets do.

It's not just a market failure, it's been engineered this way.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#169

Post by ArkanExplorer »

ipqk wrote: post #58
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #4

There is no reason to fly short distance if you want to go from city center to city center. However, if you're already arriving or leaving on a long distance flight, the whole overhead of getting to/from/through the airport disappears and those 1.5 hours start making a difference. I think forcing companies to advertise more honest flight durations and prices could make a huge difference. If the airline tells you that…

Just put a large tax if the short, domestic flight isn't a connecting flight. Short, domestic flight by itself: 100€ Short, domestic flight part of an international itinerary: +30€ It'll mostly work itself out.

Just tax CO2 emissions to a sufficient level and let the market sort itself out.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#170

Post by Befterriager »

jcranmer wrote: post #108
thiht wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rennes-Toulouse is 10 hours by train, because it transits through Paris. It's 2 hours by plane. If you're in Paris, you can go anywhere easily. If you're not in Paris, some cities are hard to reach by train.

Looking at timetables, it's actually 7h30 or 6h30 by train (I'm seeing two different itineraries, and I'm not sure where the hour difference comes from). Even then, the Bordeaux-Toulouse link is not full HSR speed, and adds an extra ~2h of travel time because of it. When LGV Bordeaux-Toulouse is built, that should cut off another 2h to a 4h30 trip. You might theoretically cut off another 1h if there were a more direc…

> When LGV Bordeaux-Toulouse is built

For context for US readers, the California High-Speed Rail will probably be completed before the end of the debate on the construction of the LGV Bordeaux-Toulouse.

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