France Has Banned Short Domestic Flights To Cut Emissions
The new law, enacted last month, bans domestic short-haul flights that can be replaced by train rides that are less than 2.5 hours long.
France has banned short domestic flights to cut emissions but will it make a difference?
The new law, enacted last month, bans domestic short-haul flights that can be replaced by train rides that are less than two and a half hours long; However, the law comes with a lot of expectations.
First, it doesn’t apply to connecting flights and any flight to and from the Paris Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Then, there must be a direct train service running between the two cities “several times a day”, even though much of the country’s train traffic passes through Paris.
Also, there should be enough early and late trains so people can spend at least eight hours at their destination.
In reality, only three routes have been discontinued due to the new ban — the ones connecting Paris-Orly airport to Bordeaux, Nantes, and Lyon. The three routes account for only around 5,000 flights per year, which is less than 3% of the annual number of French domestic flights, according to The New York Times.
The initial proposal had been to ban flights that could be replaced by train journeys under four hours, but this was later reduced to 2.5 after some regions and airlines had filed complaints with the European Commission.
As such, many have called the ban purely symbolic, saying that it took “all that fuss, for not that much.”
Domestic flights accounted for only 4% of the French transportation industry’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2019, according to official statistics.
However, activists say the ban could have an educational impact by encouraging people to look into other alternatives to flying.
The ban will be in place for three years before authorities take any new steps after analyzing its impact.
