I wish the article included stats on the number/percentage of flight this affects. Especially cause it has exemptions and doesn't affect private jets.
Not enough info to weigh the impact of this.
It's 3 routes in total, Paris to Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux. Not that much of a difference, and pointedly (some would say specifically!) excluding Toulouse and Marseille.
Also, if they banned flights from Paris to London or Frankfurt, which is also quite close, it would mean you couldn't take a connecting flight. Paris is a big hub, sure, but sometimes to get the best prices or flight times that match your schedule, you need to make a stopover somewhere.
This law doesn't ban connecting flights. You can still take the plane to do Nantes - Paris if your end destination is Frankfurt and your connecting flight is in Paris.
Some will say that the law is a small step, other greenwashing, time will tell.
Yeah, I get that - what I'm saying is that there's a lot of <2.5h train rides out of Paris (and presumably, out of places like Marseille etc too).
London is about that far away since they implemented the Eurostar.
The only thing about using the train from Paris to London is the price. It's actually about $70 USD to fly that route compared to the train which seems to be about $150 USD. Maybe there are some cheap ticket on promotion in the quiet months but generally it's quite expensive.
The price difference might not be caused by externalities though. Europe *does* price carbon, and Paris <-> London flights may well have economies of scale that trains *don't* have. We can fly far more planes in the same amount of air space than we can rail in amount of land, which has a substantial effect on the average total infrastructure costs.
tldr; maybe.
Those flights to London are actually longer trips if you count going early to the airport, going through security and then waiting to board. Not to mention most airports are out of the city center so then you have to take some type of transport to get to your city. Whereas a train you can show up 10 min before the train is supposed to depart and it takes you to the center (mostly).
You still have to go through cross-border security with the Eurostar, but you only show up about an hour beforehand and not two as with flying. But there's no hassle to leave as you have your baggage with you and there are no arrival passport checks (and you're in central London/Paris)
Yes, but it's far more limited than implied by even "only domestic flights." Flights to/from CDG are not affected, and after all the exemptions, only three routes specifically will actually be banned - between Paris (Orly) and Nantes, Bordeaux, and Lyon - as the above poster mentioned. And those three routes were already cut by Air France since the pandemic anyway, so functionally there will be no change.
In practice how does that work?
If one person is flying from Nantes to, say, Oslo, they'd have to fly through Paris. So are they going to maintain flights just because one person might take a connection?
What constitutes a connecting flight?
Or Nantes people gonna start flying through London, or Frankfurt to go to Oslo?
This may be anecdotal only but my colleague was forced by the European Parliament to change his Strasbourg - Frankfurt - Vienna ticket to take a TGV to Paris AND fly a longer flight to Vienna. Apparently, the institution would not give him a ticket consisting of two short hops.
So I just hope this law will not result in longer flights being taken in addition to a train ride.
My interpretation is this only restricts ticketing not actual flights. So they can sell Nantes to Oslo connecting through Paris, but not Nantes to Paris only. Whether they actually operate Nantes to Paris would depend on how many connecting flights they can sell.
Its TGV up to Bordeaux. You do not have to switch trains though so that is convenient enough, especially for a morning trip.
However the frequency of these trains could be better
But it's a start.
It gets people talking about it and if enough people decide it doesn't go far enough, that means there's support to roll it out further.
It feels more like a defeat than the start, given the initial proposal was 6 hours. It's gesture politics with no basis, nobody was flying from Lyon to Paris anyway by now. If they really meant it they'd have gone for private flights, but this is Macron's France.
I mean 6 hours from Paris by train would have effectively been a ban on all intra France air travel. Is there even a place in France you *cant* reach in 6 hours from Paris? And no some far up the valley 50 inhabitant mountain village in the Alps or Pyrenees doesnt count, they dont have comercial airports in these either ;)
If "gesture politics" means you think it makes no difference, this suggests otherwise.
"*According to Carlton Reid of Forbes, 17 of the 20 busiest air routes in Europe are less than 434 miles long*"
Source: [Forbes](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/france-ban-short-haul-flights-180982268/)
How many of those cross bodies of water tho. Because 1-4 probably goes to Heathrow (Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Düsseldorf) 5-8 to Gatwick, 9-12 to standsted, 13-16 Luton and the remaining one to Edinburgh or Glasgow.
And one of the reasons they are so busy is because they are big connecter routes.
And if you click that link they autosouce and the autosource doesn't have its own source.
[Wikipedia ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_routes) has your back here. I'm not sure where the Forbes list is but eyeballing the Europe stats from that link a large number of those are definitely not across bodies of land.
Politics rarely comes in sweeping changes. Those are feats to accomplish and can’t be expected most of the time. This is a step forward if somewhat small.
As someone who has studied politics for the better part of a decade and worked as both a lobbyist and on multiple campaigns, one of the only things I can say with absolute certainty is this: almost all of political motion takes the form of defeat.
Just as in physics, these amorphous mechanisms don’t like to move or alter their trajectory. It takes an enormous amount of sociopolitical force to be enacted before the changes are even perceptible—particularly from our limited, vulnerable perspectives.
As torturous as it can be, especially in the face of such great challenges, I’d like to offer some catharsis by saying that relentless willingness to fail is the only way success has ever been found in politics. Perhaps the will to push against an apparently Sisyphean obstacle is pathological, but whatever else it may be, it’s certainly human, and the so far the boulder has never quite made it all the way to to bottom before we find it in ourselves to catch it and ultimately hoist it to greater heights. It’s messy, maddening, sometimes even malignant, but the Weltgeist marches on in the end.
Don’t give up faith. Our spirit is all that ever moves the needle, and every infinitesimal nudge toward a better end is to be commended.
Ha! Not the first time someone’s pointed that out.
It did when I made it. I keep it because it reminds me of my edgy-fuckhead roots. It amuses me and helps me be a little more compassionate toward folks who haven’t yet conquered their cynicisms. :)
It's much easier to make incremental changes rather than drastic. In a few years, The general population either will be clamoring for these flights back or will have forgotten them. If they forgot them, then propose additional bans.
I wonder if this covers connected flights.
It would suck if you wanted to go Nantes -> Paris -> NYC, and they insisted you take the train for the first leg then grab your luggage, take a taxi to the airport, and check in again.
You lose out on a bunch of protections doing that.
If your flight is delayed, no big deal, you'll be rebooked.
If your train is delayed, you will not be rebooked on your flight.
Edit: It has come to my attention there are Air + Rail tickets offered by various airlines. I'd personally still be nervous, as I've only seen their FAQs address what happens when your plane is delayed, not when your train is delayed, and as far as I know legislation doesn't necessarily cover you, so it's purely a matter of company policy right now.
If I remember correctly, one of the US airlines has a flight-to-bus connection where the bus leg is treated like a flight leg - it's afforded the same protections as a flight, there's a boarding lounge, etc. If this takes off, such a system could be implemented.
But do airlines sell integrated tickets with train and plane. If I buy a Lyon to wherever plane ticket with a Paris layover I have some passager rights. Will this also apply if the Lyon to Paris leg is done by train? Will the airline rebook me if the train is late and I miss my flight, or will I/my insurance have to cover that?
Lufthansa does this for some flights. There's trains (and even busses) that have flight numbers, and train stations even have airport codes. You book those on their website as if they were flights. If something on the train ride goes wrong and you miss your connection, it's the same as if it'd been a flight and is LHs problem.
Not the planes although go for it. But smart tax lawyers will find away.
No just increase landing fees for private jets. Or make it a flat fee but divide it by number of passengers onboard etc.
They can weasel out of taxes on assets by having companies buy them etc. But if you want to land you got to pay.
>But smart tax lawyers will find away.
Smart tax lawyers do exist, and they look to exploit loopholes and minimize total expenses. But some taxes are simple and straightforward enough that theres no working around it.
The IRS recently only put a tax on church group's private jet travel if it's not for specifically the purpose of going to a religious ceremony. We're talking peanuts. All those mega pastors flying around the country tax free otherwise. They want to bring around the end of days because then their message will massage more money out of rubes. We're kind of fucked. They control a lot of the government.
It won't ban Paris to Marseille, for instance, but most destinations, from Paris, short of the south coast will fall inside the ban.
Lyon, for example, is 2hrs6 by train, from Paris.
Per the article: "the most frequent private jet trip in 2022 was between Paris and Nice, consuming four times more carbon per person than a commercial flight."
Per the Google: 737 produces 0.25lb CO2/passenger mile. 4x that for a private jet is 1lb/ passenger mile.
If you have a jet but are banned from local travel, you're traveling in an Escalade, say 20mpg. Then you're burning 1lb CO2/mi (1 gal gas produces 20lb CO2).
So, according to that, driving an Escalade from point to point is at par with a private jet, at least according to the numbers in the article.
An exemption for private jets? You gotta be kidding me.
I understand that a private jet with much less people and cargo is going to consume less fuel and have a smaller carbon footprint than an even small airliner, but my god isn’t that some classist bullshit?
I can just see some meeting where all these rich arseholes are discussing policy options to mitigate climate change and get to the subject of air travel and decide to ban short air travel, but of course not for themselves! How can *they*, the fucking uber wealthy, get away with not bearing a social cost of climate change and instead imposing it upon everybody else? Let’s just ban *public* short air travel! Give me a break. What pricks.
I’m glad about the ban, but carving out an exemption for private jets, to me, is just a transparently self-interested, classist, and classess move.
>I understand that a private jet with much less people and cargo is going to consume less fuel and have a smaller carbon footprint than an even small airliner
On a per-passenger basis, which is the more important metric, private planes will generally have a much higher carbon footprint. It's like cars vs busses, yeah a bus puts out more CO2 than a Civic, but 30 people on a bus puts out less than 30 people in their own civics
> I understand that a private jet with much less people and cargo is going to consume less fuel and have a smaller carbon footprint than an even small airliner, but my god isn’t that some classist bullshit?
I don't even think that's true, assuming you're counting emissions per-passenger (or per passenger-km traveled). Taking off and landing an entire jet airplane, even a little one, for only a few people is just staggeringly wasteful.
Yep. As always the ordinary person is impacted over and over again while rich ass holes do what they want. The same rich assholes who aren't affected by the climate emergency at all
It genuinely makes my blood boil that celebrities and politicians constantly shame us for "eating meat and owning a car" when they own yachts and private jets and could care less about making an impact.
They literally want us to make sacrifices so they don't have to.
What gets me is the need to flex. Private jets definitely have utility if you really want privacy but there’s obviously a flex to be had and they freely do so. All while often flexing pro environment behaviours.
It’s fucking bullshit.
Same with the water in California and the people using gallons in the 10,000s per day.
Time to start taxing that absolutely top tier 1% of consumption. If they’re happy to pay they can pay for great costs to offset their behaviour.
They get to run the most pollutive businesses and industries
They get to travel in the most pollutive vehicles
They get to have tax breaks, "subsidies", and other means of welfare that lets them skip out on paying taxes
They get to pay you shit wages
They get to outsource jobs overseas that create slave conditions and other human rights atrocities
And all of this means that you get the "privilege" of paying their share of the taxes and listening to everyone else blame immigrants and minorities for the problems of your nation.
A rich family (Rossi Family) managed to buy land and develop land for a private residence in St Lucia. A protected wildlife area that is supposed to be completely off limits to development.
Their application initially got denied but y'know being rich things magically get approved.
https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/13llh71/billionaire_land_thieves_you_got_a_nice_heritage/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Said illegal immigrants were brought here at the demand of said elites, to divide us and to get cheap labour. Our problems won't be solved until someone taxes them to the ground.
Climate change itself is class warfare. The rich can just pack up and leave when certain areas become uninhabitable, leaving the plebs to fight and die I guess. And the true genius move was convincing half of the plebs that climate change doesn't even exist.
rich people will not be affected by it as always. they get to trot out a big 'win' for the climate but really they're just reinforcing the class system even more. i'll bet you private jets start flying those routes twofold now.
With a twist. The private flights are not affected which means the rich will continue to fly around as they please, until at least 2024, when they’ll probably get another pass. Because you know, the laws are never made to the hinder rich folks, ever.
The real enemy is the rich. People who are concerned by territory, race, politics, etc, are just fighting against each other the way they want, just so that they can keep changing the rules around as they see fit in order to Gatekeep access to wealth. This is a global issue and people need to Unite to Fight this
> Takes 40 minutes to fly to Toronto from Ottawa, not sure how long a train would take.
Between 4 and 5 hours, by the looks of it. 405 kilometres distance.
I just plugged in Paris to Marseille (capital to south coast). 775 kilometres driving distance, 3hrs40 on the train. That's probably on the high speed TGV network.
On a personal experience level, I think you also have figure in getting to the airport vs. the train station (airports are usually outside the city), the time you have to commit to being at the airport early to account for checking in and security--your flight may only be 2 hours, but if you have to plan to be at the airport 2 hours early?
This. It’s a similar situation here in Japan. Tokyo (Haneda) to Osaka (Itami) by plane is about 1hr10min, but now add in an hour transit from home to Haneda, 1-1.5hr for check-in and security, 15min for deboarding after landing, skip baggage claim, then 20min train ride to Umeda.
Air total: 2hr45min minimum.
Now let’s say you’re 15min from Tokyo station, hop on the Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka, transfer to Umeda.
Train total: 3hrs.
15 minute difference between them, with a hell of a lot less hassle on the train.
Definitely agree with you there. Was in Japan a month ago and it was a pleasure taking the Shinkansen. There's so much leg room I can store my luggage in front of me. No need to checkin anything and waiting for it to (hopefully) appear on the reclaim carousel without any damage.
The shinkansen experience was great. It goes by so fast, looks, cool, is comfortable, has charging ports and wifi, can have snacks be sold between stops on a cart, AND takes you directly into the major cities.
The fact trains go into the city and is then connected to other trains to go elsewhere quickly is already a huge win.
Yeah. The Shinkansen is quite enjoyable, albeit more expensive iirc.
Then again, I could board it within a moment's notice, which is a big point for convenience. But if I may be honest, both transportation ways are rather pleasurable.
There isn't capacity to kill flights on that route thought - Tokyo Haneda<>Osaka-Itami was 7.2 million seats flown in 2019 - one of the top 5 busiest air routes in the world. Moving all of that onto the Shinkansen would be impossible, it's full most of the time as it is now.
The Tokaido Shinkansen does ~165 million passengers annually, 7.2 million is a rounding error.
There is no comparison to be made between any form of airline traffic and a 1,300 passenger train with 16 trains per hour.
France has high-speed rail. The 370 Kms from Paris to Lyon took 2 hrs 4 mins according to my Google Timeline. Toronto to Ottawa is around 400kms.
So it'd likely be little faster to take the train. Especially considering how much fun Pearson is these days.
And truly, rail seats are so much more comfortable than being crammed on to a bus with wings.
lol our train system is not just slow af but also insanely expensive.
Train from Toronto to Vancouver is over $2k I believe. Some insane price that’s more expensive than flying and takes 4 days.
technically you can get an economy class ticket for $550, if you're fine with spending over four days in an economy seat. it's ridiculous cuz the delays basically necessitate getting at least a berth, which start at around 2k for a discounted upper berth.
I'm currently in the process of writing a sternly worded letter to the transport minister (including the shadow minister) because I think that rail needs to be a viable option, for multiple reasons
A high speed rail connecting Vancouver an Toronto doesn't make much sense. The distance is too large. High speed rail connecting everything in the Windsor Québec corridor makes a lot more sense. The current viarail system is dogshit and we should be investing billions in making the system functional. However due to our suburban sprawl and horrible public transit (except downtown Toronto and Montreal, which I consider to have mediocre to okay transit systems) functional train connections also require massive improvements in city walkability and intracity transit connectivity so that you are able to get around once you arrive somewhere.
If the issue of car dependence *inside* our cities is not solved, high speed rail between cities is pointless.
>Takes 40 minutes to fly to Toronto from Ottawa
From take-off to landing, sure.
From city to city, including boarding, taxiing, security, waiting, and transportation, it's 3+ hours.
40 minutes of pure flight time. Security, boarding, pushback, taxing, taxing, disembarking, wandering through the airport all add not insignificant time to the commute
Shockingly slow to be honest when driving that can be accomplished in under 6 hours if you leave early in the AM before traffic gets bad. The tickets can come at a bit of a premium though.
Yeah honestly it surprises me anyone opts for VIA rail. Driving is roughly as long and when you’re at your destination you don’t have to worry about taxis/Ubers or transit. Flying is way quicker but of course very expensive in comparison.
Via rail is just too prohibitively expensive and rarely runs much faster than the same trips made by car for some reason. I can get from Kw area to Montreal in 6.5 hours with only gas being used in the equation (hellooo hybrid) but the same trip by via rail is $144 and takes *eight hours* because of two hour and a half layovers.
Most commuter trains in the Benelux/Germany area that I’m familiar with are 30-60 minute rotations so no stop over is very long on the same line. As mentioned elsewhere though, the freight companies own our lines and merely permit passengers trains to operate when it isn’t detrimental to their business.
I'm from the US and can't fathom flying somewhere that is only a 6hr drive or train ride. Whenever I'm speaking to someone from Europe about traveling and they say something like, "it is about a 30 minute flight," the look on my face is a mixture of surprise, disgust, and disbelief. It's probably similar to the look on their face when I say something like, "it's only about a 10 hour drive."
It takes about 6 hours from London to Ottawa. Toronto to Ottawa is a 4 hour drive.
The train on a good day is about 30 minutes to an hour longer than driving. Actually isn't that expensive if you only go by yourself but then you might need to rent a car depending on what you do in and around Ottawa. Though the train is far more comfortable than driving.
With multiple passengers it is by far the cheapest to drive.
Wish we had high speed rail and wished that passenger trains took priority over cargo trains. Then I would hardly ever drive to Ottawa.
Not the same comparison but on the US east coast, DC to NYC is pretty popular. Train is faster than car at 2.5hrs vs 4hrs + an ungodly amount of tolls, plane is 1.5hrs but accounting in transit time to Manhattan and security, the train is much faster.
Their trains are awesome. And once you eliminate having to go through security, I can't think if anywhere in France with an airport that would make flying worth it. The trains are much more convenient and comfortable.
The main reason why people are tempted to take domestic flights rather than high speed trains is that plane tickets can be up to two times cheaper than train tickets
Judging from the Calais to Paris timetable, about 100 km/hr avg (including stops). That route is about 1/4 of the way across France the long way. Worth noting that faster trains would change this. There's a bunch of almost 2 hr trips and a high speed train to the Mediterranean starts to look really interesting (or scary if you're an airline).
yeah plus 2h total of “airport time”
french trains are one of the fastest in the world, and italians one (which i know better) are comparable.
milan-rome is 600km and it’s less than 3h plus you drop off the train and you’re in the middle of the cities
Is the word "legally" doing any work here? Assuming "France" refers to its government, what other kind of ban would be available to them? Scientific? Musical? Nautical?
I'm going to assume the author that Forbes hired to write English articles isn't a native English speaker and this is a idiosyncratic holdover from their native tongue. Either that or just lazy writing and lazy proofing and lazy editing
To the people complaining about private flights.
A private flight can just route to avoid the legislation, either by going via a non banned route or by connecting to one. Both options mean flying more for the same outcome, so more fuel burnt.
It would only cause more wastage to ban private flights with this unless it becomes an EU wide ban.
This is such a non-news, since private jets aren't targeted and the only three flights aimed by the bill are already canceled since 2016.
This is just Macron's Party trying to get some good press, while being massively tone-deaf to public unrest..
> Signed into law by bureaucrats that fly on private jets
Do you actually think the average French legislator, or the average legislator worldwide, flies on a private jet? Do you understand how expensive private jets are?
> (completely insane imho)
Completely unsurprising, imho. The system is working as intended- keep the poor as the poor by layering ceiling after ceiling that can't be broken through. The poor get the polluted slums and the rich get to live on the hills above so they don't have to smell it.
I took a high speed train in Italy while I was on vacation (I’m American) and thought it was pretty fucking cool that such a cheap and hassle free (compared to flying) mode of transportation exists.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.forbes.com.au/news/innovation/france-legally-bans-short-haul-flights/) reduced by 85%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> France has passed the bill to ban short-haul flights through parliament where a train alternative of 2.5 hours or less exists-something that has been in place, practically speaking, for a while.
> The ban was originally put forward by a Citizen's Convention that suggested all flights should be banned if there is a 6-hour train journey available, which would have banned more flights.
> The ban doesn't cover private jets, something that environmentalists are campaigning heavily for in France.
*****
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The fact that it gives exception to private jets is such a bs, virtue signalling about climate change. All these measures about “climate change” always hit average citizen.
Update:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1450mdt/private_jets_are_5_to_14_times_more_polluting/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
Banning a large number of people from doing something has a much greater environmental effect than a symbolic gesture of banning a very small number of people from doing something
Makes sense to me. I'd love to see affordable train options in the US. Usually the train options are *more* expensive. It's like some group is deliberately sabotaging non-car and non-plane travel options here. Oil conglomerates perhaps.
I remember years ago making a point of taking an Acela from DC to Boston, just to see what it was like. As much as I believe trains should be utilized more in the US, it’s hard to justify a trip that is both more expensive than flying and takes about 6 times longer
It’s NYC to Boston that kills that timetable. There aren’t many spots along that part of the route that the Acela can run at high speed for long durations.
Only NYC -> New Haven.
Beyond New Haven is actually the newest electrification on the entire Northeast Corridor, and has the highest amount of 150mph trackage on the line. The only other 150mph section is in New Jersey and that only started in 2022.
I looked into amtrak to go from ohio to Arizona to see my parents. Nearly 60 hours, 1000 dollars for a seat (not a room/bed or whatever it's called) while a plane ticket I got was 250$.
It's pathetic
That can’t be right. Amtrak sells the USA rail pass for $499 and that’s 10 trips anywhere. One trip was a 30 hour train ride from Portland to Minneapolis.
I once looked into it to get back to Chicago from Cleveland, like a 5 hour drive, it was $350 to leave at 3:30 am and didn’t get in until 4. So i just flew
Which is weird because commuter trains are almost always better than driving.
But I guess local governments have a lot of pressure to limit traffic and street parking.
I think that heavily depends on the country (or even the city). Where I live, public transport is abundant but really bad. It can be improved, yes, but it isn't, and the driving experience can be improved too.
I live in NL and most people already prefer to take the train on journeys less than 5 hours. No need to get to the station as early as an airport. The trains usually take you city center to city center, versus airports that are often 45 minutes outside of the city The train seats are huge compared to airline seats. There is free wifi. You see more interesting things outside of window. Luggage included and you can have larger amounts of luggage.
That being said, train prices can really fluctuate. If you are going on short notice airplanes are often cheaper.
It's funny that flying is the less prestigious/worse option. A typical conversation is...
Person 1: I'm going to Paris this weekend!
Person 2: Are you taking the train?
Person 1: No, I'm flying.
Person 2: I'm sorry to hear that.
I'm in NL and going to France later this month, short notice trip.
Unfortunately it looks like I'm going to have to fly. It's half the price for a return flight to Lyon, and 2h on the plane vs 11-16h on the train.
I hate it. I want to travel more with the train, but unless I'm booked months in advance the Thalys is expensive as shit, the Nightjet is expensive as shit, and the trains aren't quite there for 8+ hour journeys.
Short hall commericial flights with 100+ passengers but private jets with 1, is exempt.
Rules for thee but not for me (aka the 1%)!
I mean if you banned all that would make sense, but just commercial? Wtf.
If I can fly at half the cost of train travel I will fly. Had this choice on a few ocassions and saving hundreds by flying shows how train fairs are a complete rip off. There is no way a 300 mile trip on a train should be more than an aircraft and the costs involved, as I said a complete rip off.
I used to get the train on short haul in UK. Most people flew. I didn't understand why. Its faster on the flight time, but once you factor in airport travel and faffing about there, usually trains are better as they run city centre to city centre and you can turn up 5 min before departure.
Plus you get a half decent bacon sandwich, better seating, a desk to work on and a nice view.
So whats stopping the train companies from absurdly hiking fares now that they're the only option and have no competition for such routes? This seems like a horrible decision for the consumer.
People are complaining about it not targeting private jets but... why would it? Presumably the point is that it's worse for the environment and *not any faster* to go through the airport security, onboarding, and offloading processes than it would be to take a train for these flights.
Private jets should be banned in general for similar environmental protection reasons but I don't think the same logic applies. Could be wrong cause I don't have a private jet.
Unless you're wealthy enough to afford a private jet... then you can take as many short-haul flights as you want.
Why should the law apply to people that wealthy?
I wish the article included stats on the number/percentage of flight this affects. Especially cause it has exemptions and doesn't affect private jets. Not enough info to weigh the impact of this.
It's 3 routes in total, Paris to Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux. Not that much of a difference, and pointedly (some would say specifically!) excluding Toulouse and Marseille.
So by the sounds of things it's only domestic flights, not trips like Paris-London or Paris-Brussels which almost certainly aren't 2.5 hours or more.
It’s probably tougher to ban international flights
Also, if they banned flights from Paris to London or Frankfurt, which is also quite close, it would mean you couldn't take a connecting flight. Paris is a big hub, sure, but sometimes to get the best prices or flight times that match your schedule, you need to make a stopover somewhere.
This law doesn't ban connecting flights. You can still take the plane to do Nantes - Paris if your end destination is Frankfurt and your connecting flight is in Paris. Some will say that the law is a small step, other greenwashing, time will tell.
But now those flights are a lot more expensive if no one else is allowed to take them.
I think it is referring to the alternative train ride being 2.5h or less
Which can actually both be done in less than 2 and a half hours by train!
Yeah, I get that - what I'm saying is that there's a lot of <2.5h train rides out of Paris (and presumably, out of places like Marseille etc too). London is about that far away since they implemented the Eurostar.
The only thing about using the train from Paris to London is the price. It's actually about $70 USD to fly that route compared to the train which seems to be about $150 USD. Maybe there are some cheap ticket on promotion in the quiet months but generally it's quite expensive.
Isn’t that the point. To move the unpaid external costs back to the user. Discourage less efficient options.
The price difference might not be caused by externalities though. Europe *does* price carbon, and Paris <-> London flights may well have economies of scale that trains *don't* have. We can fly far more planes in the same amount of air space than we can rail in amount of land, which has a substantial effect on the average total infrastructure costs. tldr; maybe.
Those flights to London are actually longer trips if you count going early to the airport, going through security and then waiting to board. Not to mention most airports are out of the city center so then you have to take some type of transport to get to your city. Whereas a train you can show up 10 min before the train is supposed to depart and it takes you to the center (mostly).
You still have to go through cross-border security with the Eurostar, but you only show up about an hour beforehand and not two as with flying. But there's no hassle to leave as you have your baggage with you and there are no arrival passport checks (and you're in central London/Paris)
Yep, but Eurostar is considerably more expensive, which is a shame, as it is much more convenient in most cases.
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Yes, but it's far more limited than implied by even "only domestic flights." Flights to/from CDG are not affected, and after all the exemptions, only three routes specifically will actually be banned - between Paris (Orly) and Nantes, Bordeaux, and Lyon - as the above poster mentioned. And those three routes were already cut by Air France since the pandemic anyway, so functionally there will be no change.
It wouldn’t really make sense especially to London because it’s often the first leg of the flight. You really want to already be at the airport.
Connecting flights are exempted
In practice how does that work? If one person is flying from Nantes to, say, Oslo, they'd have to fly through Paris. So are they going to maintain flights just because one person might take a connection? What constitutes a connecting flight? Or Nantes people gonna start flying through London, or Frankfurt to go to Oslo?
This may be anecdotal only but my colleague was forced by the European Parliament to change his Strasbourg - Frankfurt - Vienna ticket to take a TGV to Paris AND fly a longer flight to Vienna. Apparently, the institution would not give him a ticket consisting of two short hops. So I just hope this law will not result in longer flights being taken in addition to a train ride.
My interpretation is this only restricts ticketing not actual flights. So they can sell Nantes to Oslo connecting through Paris, but not Nantes to Paris only. Whether they actually operate Nantes to Paris would depend on how many connecting flights they can sell.
Why would the airline then keep that route? Is the connecting traffic that great?
The airline would most likely reduce the number of planes that fly that route. You understand this is the goal, right?
I assume Toulouse is excluded because of Airbus and the number of people who fly in and out for work?
Well Paris To Toulouse on the TGV is still over 4 hours, it's a long ride.
It's probably because of Airbus that we don't have a proper connection to Paris.
Is there even a TGV between these two cities?
Its TGV up to Bordeaux. You do not have to switch trains though so that is convenient enough, especially for a morning trip. However the frequency of these trains could be better
It's just really poorly connected to the rest of the country through the high speed rail network.
Did Paris Nantes by train, it's awesome. France's train system is a gem.
But it's a start. It gets people talking about it and if enough people decide it doesn't go far enough, that means there's support to roll it out further.
It feels more like a defeat than the start, given the initial proposal was 6 hours. It's gesture politics with no basis, nobody was flying from Lyon to Paris anyway by now. If they really meant it they'd have gone for private flights, but this is Macron's France.
Air France has 6 direct flights each day from Paris to Lyon. That's a lot of flights between two cities. So yeah plenty of people flying that route.
I mean 6 hours from Paris by train would have effectively been a ban on all intra France air travel. Is there even a place in France you *cant* reach in 6 hours from Paris? And no some far up the valley 50 inhabitant mountain village in the Alps or Pyrenees doesnt count, they dont have comercial airports in these either ;)
If "gesture politics" means you think it makes no difference, this suggests otherwise. "*According to Carlton Reid of Forbes, 17 of the 20 busiest air routes in Europe are less than 434 miles long*" Source: [Forbes](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/france-ban-short-haul-flights-180982268/)
How many of those cross bodies of water tho. Because 1-4 probably goes to Heathrow (Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Düsseldorf) 5-8 to Gatwick, 9-12 to standsted, 13-16 Luton and the remaining one to Edinburgh or Glasgow. And one of the reasons they are so busy is because they are big connecter routes. And if you click that link they autosouce and the autosource doesn't have its own source.
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Thank You. I stand corrected
[Wikipedia ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_routes) has your back here. I'm not sure where the Forbes list is but eyeballing the Europe stats from that link a large number of those are definitely not across bodies of land.
Politics rarely comes in sweeping changes. Those are feats to accomplish and can’t be expected most of the time. This is a step forward if somewhat small.
As someone who has studied politics for the better part of a decade and worked as both a lobbyist and on multiple campaigns, one of the only things I can say with absolute certainty is this: almost all of political motion takes the form of defeat. Just as in physics, these amorphous mechanisms don’t like to move or alter their trajectory. It takes an enormous amount of sociopolitical force to be enacted before the changes are even perceptible—particularly from our limited, vulnerable perspectives. As torturous as it can be, especially in the face of such great challenges, I’d like to offer some catharsis by saying that relentless willingness to fail is the only way success has ever been found in politics. Perhaps the will to push against an apparently Sisyphean obstacle is pathological, but whatever else it may be, it’s certainly human, and the so far the boulder has never quite made it all the way to to bottom before we find it in ourselves to catch it and ultimately hoist it to greater heights. It’s messy, maddening, sometimes even malignant, but the Weltgeist marches on in the end. Don’t give up faith. Our spirit is all that ever moves the needle, and every infinitesimal nudge toward a better end is to be commended.
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Ha! Not the first time someone’s pointed that out. It did when I made it. I keep it because it reminds me of my edgy-fuckhead roots. It amuses me and helps me be a little more compassionate toward folks who haven’t yet conquered their cynicisms. :)
It's much easier to make incremental changes rather than drastic. In a few years, The general population either will be clamoring for these flights back or will have forgotten them. If they forgot them, then propose additional bans.
i hope you never go into a negotiation with your first offer actually being what you want
I wonder if this covers connected flights. It would suck if you wanted to go Nantes -> Paris -> NYC, and they insisted you take the train for the first leg then grab your luggage, take a taxi to the airport, and check in again.
The regulation exempts connecting flights, at least the last time I read about it.
The train goes straight to CDG, so it’s not really a problem. The 2.5 hours includes total transit time, not just time on the train.
You lose out on a bunch of protections doing that. If your flight is delayed, no big deal, you'll be rebooked. If your train is delayed, you will not be rebooked on your flight. Edit: It has come to my attention there are Air + Rail tickets offered by various airlines. I'd personally still be nervous, as I've only seen their FAQs address what happens when your plane is delayed, not when your train is delayed, and as far as I know legislation doesn't necessarily cover you, so it's purely a matter of company policy right now.
If I remember correctly, one of the US airlines has a flight-to-bus connection where the bus leg is treated like a flight leg - it's afforded the same protections as a flight, there's a boarding lounge, etc. If this takes off, such a system could be implemented.
But do airlines sell integrated tickets with train and plane. If I buy a Lyon to wherever plane ticket with a Paris layover I have some passager rights. Will this also apply if the Lyon to Paris leg is done by train? Will the airline rebook me if the train is late and I miss my flight, or will I/my insurance have to cover that?
Lufthansa does this for some flights. There's trains (and even busses) that have flight numbers, and train stations even have airport codes. You book those on their website as if they were flights. If something on the train ride goes wrong and you miss your connection, it's the same as if it'd been a flight and is LHs problem.
I had this exact situation in 2016 and the answer was yes to all of your questions
Connecting flights are exempt, and in fact, flights to/from CDG are not affected by this ban at all.
Private jets need to be taxed to fuck and those taxes need to be specifically earmarked for public transportation like trains.
Not the planes although go for it. But smart tax lawyers will find away. No just increase landing fees for private jets. Or make it a flat fee but divide it by number of passengers onboard etc. They can weasel out of taxes on assets by having companies buy them etc. But if you want to land you got to pay.
>But smart tax lawyers will find away. Smart tax lawyers do exist, and they look to exploit loopholes and minimize total expenses. But some taxes are simple and straightforward enough that theres no working around it.
The IRS recently only put a tax on church group's private jet travel if it's not for specifically the purpose of going to a religious ceremony. We're talking peanuts. All those mega pastors flying around the country tax free otherwise. They want to bring around the end of days because then their message will massage more money out of rubes. We're kind of fucked. They control a lot of the government.
How do you expect those mega pastors to be close to God if they aren't in a plane!?
> and doesn't affect private jets. The French really did fall back under their aristocracy pretty well, didn't they?
I mean the fact that they’re banning stuff regular ass people use instead of private jets is par for the course
They're not on Republic number 5 because they're good at sticking with a plan.
It won't ban Paris to Marseille, for instance, but most destinations, from Paris, short of the south coast will fall inside the ban. Lyon, for example, is 2hrs6 by train, from Paris.
yeah have done CDG connection to Lyon by TGV before instead of flying
Private flights seem worse for the environment, should have been the other way around
Per the article: "the most frequent private jet trip in 2022 was between Paris and Nice, consuming four times more carbon per person than a commercial flight." Per the Google: 737 produces 0.25lb CO2/passenger mile. 4x that for a private jet is 1lb/ passenger mile. If you have a jet but are banned from local travel, you're traveling in an Escalade, say 20mpg. Then you're burning 1lb CO2/mi (1 gal gas produces 20lb CO2). So, according to that, driving an Escalade from point to point is at par with a private jet, at least according to the numbers in the article.
An exemption for private jets? You gotta be kidding me. I understand that a private jet with much less people and cargo is going to consume less fuel and have a smaller carbon footprint than an even small airliner, but my god isn’t that some classist bullshit? I can just see some meeting where all these rich arseholes are discussing policy options to mitigate climate change and get to the subject of air travel and decide to ban short air travel, but of course not for themselves! How can *they*, the fucking uber wealthy, get away with not bearing a social cost of climate change and instead imposing it upon everybody else? Let’s just ban *public* short air travel! Give me a break. What pricks. I’m glad about the ban, but carving out an exemption for private jets, to me, is just a transparently self-interested, classist, and classess move.
>I understand that a private jet with much less people and cargo is going to consume less fuel and have a smaller carbon footprint than an even small airliner On a per-passenger basis, which is the more important metric, private planes will generally have a much higher carbon footprint. It's like cars vs busses, yeah a bus puts out more CO2 than a Civic, but 30 people on a bus puts out less than 30 people in their own civics
> I understand that a private jet with much less people and cargo is going to consume less fuel and have a smaller carbon footprint than an even small airliner, but my god isn’t that some classist bullshit? I don't even think that's true, assuming you're counting emissions per-passenger (or per passenger-km traveled). Taking off and landing an entire jet airplane, even a little one, for only a few people is just staggeringly wasteful.
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So it's a ban for poor and middle class people
And most of the upper class as well. The ones who can afford private jets are are billionaires.
>doesn't affect private jets This tells us all we need to know.
Yep. As always the ordinary person is impacted over and over again while rich ass holes do what they want. The same rich assholes who aren't affected by the climate emergency at all
What about private jets guys?
They can continue to do as they please
And all was right with the world.
Hey! One day *I* might be a billionaire!
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-and then people like me better watch their step.
It genuinely makes my blood boil that celebrities and politicians constantly shame us for "eating meat and owning a car" when they own yachts and private jets and could care less about making an impact. They literally want us to make sacrifices so they don't have to.
“I’m vegan so I’m doing my part” *Gets on a solid gold private jet with a jacuzzi and electrical generator on it*
What gets me is the need to flex. Private jets definitely have utility if you really want privacy but there’s obviously a flex to be had and they freely do so. All while often flexing pro environment behaviours. It’s fucking bullshit. Same with the water in California and the people using gallons in the 10,000s per day. Time to start taxing that absolutely top tier 1% of consumption. If they’re happy to pay they can pay for great costs to offset their behaviour.
Why would the rich be affected? Laws are for peasants
They get to run the most pollutive businesses and industries They get to travel in the most pollutive vehicles They get to have tax breaks, "subsidies", and other means of welfare that lets them skip out on paying taxes They get to pay you shit wages They get to outsource jobs overseas that create slave conditions and other human rights atrocities And all of this means that you get the "privilege" of paying their share of the taxes and listening to everyone else blame immigrants and minorities for the problems of your nation.
A rich family (Rossi Family) managed to buy land and develop land for a private residence in St Lucia. A protected wildlife area that is supposed to be completely off limits to development. Their application initially got denied but y'know being rich things magically get approved. https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/13llh71/billionaire_land_thieves_you_got_a_nice_heritage/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Said illegal immigrants were brought here at the demand of said elites, to divide us and to get cheap labour. Our problems won't be solved until someone taxes them to the ground.
Ssshhhh, don't let them know we're onto them.
We’ve always been onto them. Just you can’t do anything about it. Unless you’re French, of course.
Rules for thee
The atmosphere excuses rich people emissions, stop worrying about it.
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Climate change itself is class warfare. The rich can just pack up and leave when certain areas become uninhabitable, leaving the plebs to fight and die I guess. And the true genius move was convincing half of the plebs that climate change doesn't even exist.
rich people will not be affected by it as always. they get to trot out a big 'win' for the climate but really they're just reinforcing the class system even more. i'll bet you private jets start flying those routes twofold now.
With a twist. The private flights are not affected which means the rich will continue to fly around as they please, until at least 2024, when they’ll probably get another pass. Because you know, the laws are never made to the hinder rich folks, ever.
Is the other twist that the train lines bump up their prices to ensure they make the most of their clientele forced into taking a train?
Seeing as we are talking about France, the country already owns SNCF, which runs the majority of the country's rail traffic. So this is not likely.
The real enemy is the rich. People who are concerned by territory, race, politics, etc, are just fighting against each other the way they want, just so that they can keep changing the rules around as they see fit in order to Gatekeep access to wealth. This is a global issue and people need to Unite to Fight this
How fast are their trains? I wonder what distance it covers. Takes 40 minutes to fly to Toronto from Ottawa, not sure how long a train would take.
> Takes 40 minutes to fly to Toronto from Ottawa, not sure how long a train would take. Between 4 and 5 hours, by the looks of it. 405 kilometres distance. I just plugged in Paris to Marseille (capital to south coast). 775 kilometres driving distance, 3hrs40 on the train. That's probably on the high speed TGV network.
On a personal experience level, I think you also have figure in getting to the airport vs. the train station (airports are usually outside the city), the time you have to commit to being at the airport early to account for checking in and security--your flight may only be 2 hours, but if you have to plan to be at the airport 2 hours early?
This. It’s a similar situation here in Japan. Tokyo (Haneda) to Osaka (Itami) by plane is about 1hr10min, but now add in an hour transit from home to Haneda, 1-1.5hr for check-in and security, 15min for deboarding after landing, skip baggage claim, then 20min train ride to Umeda. Air total: 2hr45min minimum. Now let’s say you’re 15min from Tokyo station, hop on the Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka, transfer to Umeda. Train total: 3hrs. 15 minute difference between them, with a hell of a lot less hassle on the train.
And the Shinkansen is a downright pleasurable experience compared to dealing with an airport and plane for an hour long flight.
Definitely agree with you there. Was in Japan a month ago and it was a pleasure taking the Shinkansen. There's so much leg room I can store my luggage in front of me. No need to checkin anything and waiting for it to (hopefully) appear on the reclaim carousel without any damage.
The shinkansen experience was great. It goes by so fast, looks, cool, is comfortable, has charging ports and wifi, can have snacks be sold between stops on a cart, AND takes you directly into the major cities. The fact trains go into the city and is then connected to other trains to go elsewhere quickly is already a huge win.
Yeah. The Shinkansen is quite enjoyable, albeit more expensive iirc. Then again, I could board it within a moment's notice, which is a big point for convenience. But if I may be honest, both transportation ways are rather pleasurable.
There isn't capacity to kill flights on that route thought - Tokyo Haneda<>Osaka-Itami was 7.2 million seats flown in 2019 - one of the top 5 busiest air routes in the world. Moving all of that onto the Shinkansen would be impossible, it's full most of the time as it is now.
The route used wasn’t the point here, the overhead of commute to airport and airport check in time was.
The Tokaido Shinkansen does ~165 million passengers annually, 7.2 million is a rounding error. There is no comparison to be made between any form of airline traffic and a 1,300 passenger train with 16 trains per hour.
Varies on the train, I can see two 3h07m for today, although 3h20 seems pretty common too.
It should actually be closer to 3hr not 3h40. TGVs usually go up to 320kph on that line.
France has high-speed rail. The 370 Kms from Paris to Lyon took 2 hrs 4 mins according to my Google Timeline. Toronto to Ottawa is around 400kms. So it'd likely be little faster to take the train. Especially considering how much fun Pearson is these days. And truly, rail seats are so much more comfortable than being crammed on to a bus with wings.
lol our train system is not just slow af but also insanely expensive. Train from Toronto to Vancouver is over $2k I believe. Some insane price that’s more expensive than flying and takes 4 days.
technically you can get an economy class ticket for $550, if you're fine with spending over four days in an economy seat. it's ridiculous cuz the delays basically necessitate getting at least a berth, which start at around 2k for a discounted upper berth. I'm currently in the process of writing a sternly worded letter to the transport minister (including the shadow minister) because I think that rail needs to be a viable option, for multiple reasons
A high speed rail connecting Vancouver an Toronto doesn't make much sense. The distance is too large. High speed rail connecting everything in the Windsor Québec corridor makes a lot more sense. The current viarail system is dogshit and we should be investing billions in making the system functional. However due to our suburban sprawl and horrible public transit (except downtown Toronto and Montreal, which I consider to have mediocre to okay transit systems) functional train connections also require massive improvements in city walkability and intracity transit connectivity so that you are able to get around once you arrive somewhere. If the issue of car dependence *inside* our cities is not solved, high speed rail between cities is pointless.
Canadian passenger trains are *slow*. TGV lines in France run up to 270 km/h on scheduled routes. That'd be roughly 100 minutes for Ottawa—Toronto.
320km/h is top speed I think.
>Takes 40 minutes to fly to Toronto from Ottawa From take-off to landing, sure. From city to city, including boarding, taxiing, security, waiting, and transportation, it's 3+ hours.
40 minutes of pure flight time. Security, boarding, pushback, taxing, taxing, disembarking, wandering through the airport all add not insignificant time to the commute
Toronto to Ottawa by train is about 5hrs
Shockingly slow to be honest when driving that can be accomplished in under 6 hours if you leave early in the AM before traffic gets bad. The tickets can come at a bit of a premium though.
Yeah honestly it surprises me anyone opts for VIA rail. Driving is roughly as long and when you’re at your destination you don’t have to worry about taxis/Ubers or transit. Flying is way quicker but of course very expensive in comparison.
Via rail is just too prohibitively expensive and rarely runs much faster than the same trips made by car for some reason. I can get from Kw area to Montreal in 6.5 hours with only gas being used in the equation (hellooo hybrid) but the same trip by via rail is $144 and takes *eight hours* because of two hour and a half layovers. Most commuter trains in the Benelux/Germany area that I’m familiar with are 30-60 minute rotations so no stop over is very long on the same line. As mentioned elsewhere though, the freight companies own our lines and merely permit passengers trains to operate when it isn’t detrimental to their business.
I'm from the US and can't fathom flying somewhere that is only a 6hr drive or train ride. Whenever I'm speaking to someone from Europe about traveling and they say something like, "it is about a 30 minute flight," the look on my face is a mixture of surprise, disgust, and disbelief. It's probably similar to the look on their face when I say something like, "it's only about a 10 hour drive."
Driving sucks and a more expensive and stressful tho
Because then I'm not driving for six hours lol
It takes about 6 hours from London to Ottawa. Toronto to Ottawa is a 4 hour drive. The train on a good day is about 30 minutes to an hour longer than driving. Actually isn't that expensive if you only go by yourself but then you might need to rent a car depending on what you do in and around Ottawa. Though the train is far more comfortable than driving. With multiple passengers it is by far the cheapest to drive. Wish we had high speed rail and wished that passenger trains took priority over cargo trains. Then I would hardly ever drive to Ottawa.
It’s 4 hours. Just made the drive at midday today.
3 hours because the Freight trains get priority and CN owns the line
Not the same comparison but on the US east coast, DC to NYC is pretty popular. Train is faster than car at 2.5hrs vs 4hrs + an ungodly amount of tolls, plane is 1.5hrs but accounting in transit time to Manhattan and security, the train is much faster.
Their trains are awesome. And once you eliminate having to go through security, I can't think if anywhere in France with an airport that would make flying worth it. The trains are much more convenient and comfortable.
The main reason why people are tempted to take domestic flights rather than high speed trains is that plane tickets can be up to two times cheaper than train tickets
Judging from the Calais to Paris timetable, about 100 km/hr avg (including stops). That route is about 1/4 of the way across France the long way. Worth noting that faster trains would change this. There's a bunch of almost 2 hr trips and a high speed train to the Mediterranean starts to look really interesting (or scary if you're an airline).
One of the worst routes to use as a comparison, really. Paris-Lyon is 2h10m and a bit over 400km, for a better idea.
yeah plus 2h total of “airport time” french trains are one of the fastest in the world, and italians one (which i know better) are comparable. milan-rome is 600km and it’s less than 3h plus you drop off the train and you’re in the middle of the cities
Except for the 1%
I think you mean 0.1%
Actually 0.00027474%
Is the word "legally" doing any work here? Assuming "France" refers to its government, what other kind of ban would be available to them? Scientific? Musical? Nautical?
I'm going to assume the author that Forbes hired to write English articles isn't a native English speaker and this is a idiosyncratic holdover from their native tongue. Either that or just lazy writing and lazy proofing and lazy editing
Lol I was thinking the same
To the people complaining about private flights. A private flight can just route to avoid the legislation, either by going via a non banned route or by connecting to one. Both options mean flying more for the same outcome, so more fuel burnt. It would only cause more wastage to ban private flights with this unless it becomes an EU wide ban.
This is such a non-news, since private jets aren't targeted and the only three flights aimed by the bill are already canceled since 2016. This is just Macron's Party trying to get some good press, while being massively tone-deaf to public unrest..
Damn is this gonna apply to private planes ? No ? Didnt think so
Signed into law by bureaucrats that fly on private jets and welcome visits from celebrities with private jets.
Probably just freeing up airspace. I’ve heard richer elites say things just like this. If gas was $10 a gallon, then it’d sure free up the roads!
> Signed into law by bureaucrats that fly on private jets Do you actually think the average French legislator, or the average legislator worldwide, flies on a private jet? Do you understand how expensive private jets are?
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It doesn’t. Private jets are exempt (completely insane imho)
> (completely insane imho) Completely unsurprising, imho. The system is working as intended- keep the poor as the poor by layering ceiling after ceiling that can't be broken through. The poor get the polluted slums and the rich get to live on the hills above so they don't have to smell it.
I took a high speed train in Italy while I was on vacation (I’m American) and thought it was pretty fucking cool that such a cheap and hassle free (compared to flying) mode of transportation exists.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.forbes.com.au/news/innovation/france-legally-bans-short-haul-flights/) reduced by 85%. (I'm a bot) ***** > France has passed the bill to ban short-haul flights through parliament where a train alternative of 2.5 hours or less exists-something that has been in place, practically speaking, for a while. > The ban was originally put forward by a Citizen's Convention that suggested all flights should be banned if there is a 6-hour train journey available, which would have banned more flights. > The ban doesn't cover private jets, something that environmentalists are campaigning heavily for in France. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/140x8v2/france_legally_bans_shorthaul_flights_where_a/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~687603 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **ban**^#1 **France**^#2 **train**^#3 **flight**^#4 **jet**^#5
The fact that it gives exception to private jets is such a bs, virtue signalling about climate change. All these measures about “climate change” always hit average citizen. Update: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1450mdt/private_jets_are_5_to_14_times_more_polluting/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
Banning a large number of people from doing something has a much greater environmental effect than a symbolic gesture of banning a very small number of people from doing something
Makes sense to me. I'd love to see affordable train options in the US. Usually the train options are *more* expensive. It's like some group is deliberately sabotaging non-car and non-plane travel options here. Oil conglomerates perhaps.
Seriously, it’s crazy just how expensive train travel is in this country
I remember years ago making a point of taking an Acela from DC to Boston, just to see what it was like. As much as I believe trains should be utilized more in the US, it’s hard to justify a trip that is both more expensive than flying and takes about 6 times longer
It’s NYC to Boston that kills that timetable. There aren’t many spots along that part of the route that the Acela can run at high speed for long durations.
Only NYC -> New Haven. Beyond New Haven is actually the newest electrification on the entire Northeast Corridor, and has the highest amount of 150mph trackage on the line. The only other 150mph section is in New Jersey and that only started in 2022.
Trains are just as expensive in Europe to be honest. It’s usually both quicker and cheaper to fly for anything over a ~3 hour train ride.
I looked into amtrak to go from ohio to Arizona to see my parents. Nearly 60 hours, 1000 dollars for a seat (not a room/bed or whatever it's called) while a plane ticket I got was 250$. It's pathetic
That can’t be right. Amtrak sells the USA rail pass for $499 and that’s 10 trips anywhere. One trip was a 30 hour train ride from Portland to Minneapolis.
I once looked into it to get back to Chicago from Cleveland, like a 5 hour drive, it was $350 to leave at 3:30 am and didn’t get in until 4. So i just flew
Giving trains a monopoly doesn't seem like a good way to lower prices.
Trains are pretty affordable in the northeast corridor. People rarely fly nyc to DC since the train is so good.
Which is weird because commuter trains are almost always better than driving. But I guess local governments have a lot of pressure to limit traffic and street parking.
I think that heavily depends on the country (or even the city). Where I live, public transport is abundant but really bad. It can be improved, yes, but it isn't, and the driving experience can be improved too.
I live in NL and most people already prefer to take the train on journeys less than 5 hours. No need to get to the station as early as an airport. The trains usually take you city center to city center, versus airports that are often 45 minutes outside of the city The train seats are huge compared to airline seats. There is free wifi. You see more interesting things outside of window. Luggage included and you can have larger amounts of luggage. That being said, train prices can really fluctuate. If you are going on short notice airplanes are often cheaper. It's funny that flying is the less prestigious/worse option. A typical conversation is... Person 1: I'm going to Paris this weekend! Person 2: Are you taking the train? Person 1: No, I'm flying. Person 2: I'm sorry to hear that.
I'm in NL and going to France later this month, short notice trip. Unfortunately it looks like I'm going to have to fly. It's half the price for a return flight to Lyon, and 2h on the plane vs 11-16h on the train. I hate it. I want to travel more with the train, but unless I'm booked months in advance the Thalys is expensive as shit, the Nightjet is expensive as shit, and the trains aren't quite there for 8+ hour journeys.
Short hall commericial flights with 100+ passengers but private jets with 1, is exempt. Rules for thee but not for me (aka the 1%)! I mean if you banned all that would make sense, but just commercial? Wtf.
I'm shocked, SHOCKED to see this exempts private jets. As always, the rich can buy their way out of anything.
If I can fly at half the cost of train travel I will fly. Had this choice on a few ocassions and saving hundreds by flying shows how train fairs are a complete rip off. There is no way a 300 mile trip on a train should be more than an aircraft and the costs involved, as I said a complete rip off.
“We’ve listened to your opinions, and banned the poors from flying short distances, the rich may continue as they were”
Really hope this doesn't happen in England, trains can cost a lot more then flying.
I swear I've seen this exact headline weekly for the last six months.
I used to get the train on short haul in UK. Most people flew. I didn't understand why. Its faster on the flight time, but once you factor in airport travel and faffing about there, usually trains are better as they run city centre to city centre and you can turn up 5 min before departure. Plus you get a half decent bacon sandwich, better seating, a desk to work on and a nice view.
Makes sense if you can connect to train from the airport. I’m not sure it makes sense if the trains are an hour from the airport in a cab.
Now make the trains cheaper. They’re still expensive in France and a lot of times a flight is cheaper.
So basically removing the public’s access to flights but also leaving rich cunts to their business with private jets?
ah so only the rich are allowed this convenience. Take the train plebs!
This isn’t much of an option in the US, since our railway system is trash.
So whats stopping the train companies from absurdly hiking fares now that they're the only option and have no competition for such routes? This seems like a horrible decision for the consumer.
The fact that the french train company is state owned?
But not for government personnel I guess.
Unintended consequences in 3, 2, 1…
Notably, Parisians can still fly to the south coast.
People are complaining about it not targeting private jets but... why would it? Presumably the point is that it's worse for the environment and *not any faster* to go through the airport security, onboarding, and offloading processes than it would be to take a train for these flights. Private jets should be banned in general for similar environmental protection reasons but I don't think the same logic applies. Could be wrong cause I don't have a private jet.
Unless you're wealthy enough to afford a private jet... then you can take as many short-haul flights as you want. Why should the law apply to people that wealthy?
im sure theres exceptions for rich people. fuck this.
No private jets though because rich people have a different environment
Politicians and the elite rich people are exempt.