The new law is two years in the making.
There is a new decree in France that bans certain domestic flights if a high-speed train alternative exists. The law is likely to set a precedent in Europe with more countries following suit–but as far as this summer is concerned, you won’t have to change any of your plans.
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What’s Happening?
In 2021, the French government voted to scrap domestic flights where a direct train journey of less than two-and-a-half hours existed. The move is part of a larger climate law that restricts polluting vehicles, encourages vegetarian meals in schools, and mandates environmental labeling to inform customers of the carbon footprint of their purchases.
A 150-person panel convened by French President Emmanuel Macron gave recommendations for this law; it took months to negotiate the terms. Initially, the climate commission had proposed banning flights where a train alternative of fewer than four hours of travel existed, but this was met with strong opposition and had to be changed to placate affected airlines and regions.
French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir urged the lawmakers to keep the four-hour limit, saying, “On average, the plane emits 77 times more CO2 per passenger than the train on these routes, even though the train is cheaper and the time lost is limited to 40 minutes.”
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The European Union also added stipulations that reduced the impact of the law, and ultimately gave its thumbs up last year. Airlines and airports were protesting it as recently as January because they believed it obstructed their freedom of movement in Europe. However, the watered-down law finally went into effect last week.
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Not Much Changed
It is being hailed as an ambitious climate plan, but if you ask critics, it is a hollow action.
There are tons of exceptions to this law. For one, it applies to only Paris-Orly Airport; the country’s busiest airport, Charles de Gaulle, is exempted. Second, for a flight to be cut, there needs to be enough early morning and late night trains on the schedule, allowing people to spend a minimum of eight hours at the destination. The conditions also require direct train routes between cities to kill the flight. Private jets aren’t included and connecting flights are also untouched.
So, flights from Paris-Orly to Bordeaux, Lyon, and Nantes are the only ones that have been scrapped—three in total. But here’s another twist: these routes were already canceled in 2020 when the government bailed out Air France. Essentially, this decree will make sure that no other airline operates these routes.
No Significant Impact
France has nearly 200,000 domestic flights per year according to Euronews and this law will cut only 5,000 flights annually. This is a reduction of a mere 2.5%. As per emissions, the ban will reduce 55,000 tonnes annually, less than 3% of France’s emissions from domestic flights per year.
Airline lobbying group Airlines for Europe criticized the ban and asked governments to work on tangible goals. Laurent Donceel, the acting managing director, said, “Instead of pursuing tokenistic bans, governments need to throw their efforts into advancing these real, meaningful solutions.”
Transport Minister Clement Beaune described this as an essential step and wrote on Twitter that more flights may get cut in the future. “The decree is valid for three years so we can be more ambitious as we go further, by increasing the time of travel from 2.5 hours to at least three hours in the future.”
On the plus side, the move might encourage other countries to take similar climate action and disincentivize short air travel. Germany and Austria have already added taxes to short-haul air travel, while the Netherlands has been trying to adopt a similar law to ban domestic flights since 2013. Spain, too, is planning to cut flights where train journeys of 2.5 hours exist by 2050.
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Seriously? The planet is burning and this is a positive step when tourism is a negative step to carbon decrease. I say it's a triumph and not a detriment, unless of course your short flight is more important than the current and future life on earth.
To the caption question, NO. To the critics, how about you wait and see? Are there unintended consequences? What expansions might be reasonable? Environmentalists do the cause no favors by flouting good sense.
PS - France is not the US. The transportation system is entirely different.