BRUSSELS — The European Commission has approved a French move to ban short-haul domestic flights on routes where rail service is available that takes less than 2½ hours.
The move approved Friday will end flights between Paris Orly Airport and the cities of Nantes, Bordeaux, and Lyon, the Telegraph reports. That falls short of the eight routes French lawmakers had proposed, with the Commission deciding that the ban could only be enacted on routes with several direct connections in each direction each day.
Improvements in rail service could see three additional air routes eliminated: between Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport and Lyon and Rennes, and between Lyon and Marseille.
EuroNews reports that when the ban was first announced in December 2021, it was opposed by the Union of French Airports and the European branch of the Airports Council International, leading to an in-depth investigation by the European Commission.
Ultimately, the Commission approved the ban under a regulation allowing a state to “where there are serious environmental problems … limit or refuse the exercise of [air] traffic rights, in particular where other modes of transport provide a satisfactory service.”
The ban will be in effect for three years, after which it will be reassessed.
Ekonomik ve Kaliteli Kompresör
I always heard that Amtrak in the Northeast had greater market share than the commuter flights in the same region. But as much as I love trains I think the market should be allowed to decide which transportation method it chooses. The one that is most practical and economically viable will win out. Removing choices is not the direction we should go. Green Peace should not be dictating policy! I am sure the TGV has plenty of patronage and always has.
Trains pollute less than airplanes, a good idea?
CDG- Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris has a TGV station in it’s bowels that directly serves Lyon and these other cities. I’ve made the connection several times. Instead of a plane to plane connection it’s plane to train. You don’t even leave the building. ( A knock on most American ones like BWI, etc)
Etc. includes: Providence, Boston, Washington Ronald Reagan, Denver, Chicago Midway.
Lets see I can fly Nantes to London and to Orly on Ryan Air.
A lot of European airports have good public transportation service. When I’ve flown to Germany I go to either Frankfurt or Munich and can easily catch a train at the airport and go wherever I need to go.
Go to the original article and you’ll see this is also connected with reducing greenhouse emissions, of which air travel is a significant provider(i.e. planes are actually the biggest polluters out there of the transportation options available). That’s the reasoning behind the French law in the first place, and there’s equivalent rail service in the corridors proposed(at least as far as the French are concerned, apparently not the EU commision).
A follow up post. Unless you have a landing strip built behind your house or on your property, you still need some form of ground transportation to get to the airport to catch your flight. Planes can’t land in the street or in your backyard. You have to make use of either a ride share service, taxi or if you live in a city or community that has a transit link to the airport such as a bus line, a rail line or the subway line such as New York City has to JFK. Oh and may I add also once you get to airport, you can make use of a rail link inside the airport that takes you from terminal to terminal or the hotel inside the airport. So as you can see, the airplane has speed going for it and is the number 1 reason people fly to save time but you still need that train or bus to get you to your final destination or to the heart of the city center.
Joseph C. Markfelder
When mankind develops the Star Trek technology of being beamed up and over to where we wish to go or be able to move human mass through the air and space, we wont need trains, planes or ships. We will bbe able to go where and when we want to go anywhere on Earth with no timetables or schedules or restrictions.
On a more serious note, there will always be the never ending debate over travel by plane, train or private auto. Some people prefer to fly others prefer to travel by train. There will always be people who cant or wont do either or. All forms of transportation are needed in this world to move the human race from point to point
Joseph C. Markfelder
Yeah. If you can’t compete, just make it illegal.
To this I say,
HOORA-A-AY!!!
America and Canada should follow suit between their respective Eastern rail corridors: Boston – New York – Washington and Quebec City – Montreal – Ottawa – Toronto – Windsor (across from Detroit). Such proposal conceivably would be difficult to implement on this side of the Atlantic but possible.
Penelope — The government started to impove the corridor with Metrliners and Turbo Trains around 1968. Amtrak came in 1971. Corridor improvements were undertaken in the 1970’s. Electrification east of New Haven was begun in the late 1990’s.That’s a long time for people to choose the train over air travel at airports fin the northeast.
Before any step like Penelope proposes above, maybe someone should figure out why people still fly rather than choose the Acela train. There are many answers beyond the obvious speed of air travel.
Spend a few hours (as I have) at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport near Baltimore. In addition to obvious Acela- competition flights like to BOS Boston Logan, there are flights to Bradley Field Hartford-Springfield, Manchester (New Hampshire), Portland (Maine), PVD Theodore Francis Green Rhode Island State Airport, and to mega-populated Long Island.
Someone now has the idea of Amtrak service into Manhattan continuing out onto the Long Island Railroad. Great idea, but will it ever happen? Remains to be seen. Look up the poplation of Long Island – Kings, Queens, Nassau and Suffolk Counties. NEC passes through Qeens but there isn’t a single Amtrak stop anywhere on Long Island. Which has three airports with regular air service (LaGuardia, JFK, and Long Island), maybe more.
When I was a student at U-Michigan in the 1960’s, the student newspaper interviewed the Penn Central station agent at Ann Arbor. The station agent said railroads were dying because of “linear thinking”. What’s changed? To this day, I can’t buy a ticket from Amtrak Milwaukee to a destination on Chicago Metra. Linear thinking.
Oh, I took my own suggestion and looked up the population of Long Island. Almost eight million people and zero Amtrak stops. (Though NEC passes through Queens without stopping.) Can you imagine any other place in the developed world with eight million people but no intercity rail station? But Long Island has three (at least) airports with regular scheduled service.
On the Boston NYC corridor Joe Broadman proposed a new high speed line cutting across Mass RI and Conn. It would sort of replicate the Air Line Railroad of the 19th century. Between the cost MIBYs and politics it was dead. But it’s still a good idea.
Kings County, ie Brooklyn, does not have easy access to any potential Long Island RR access. It would require the rebuilding of lines across Brooklyn that had passenger service discontinued in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
Heavy rail service to Kennedy and LaGuardia is doable but would be extremely expensive and face community opposition.
In Toronto there is a reliable heavy rail link between Union Station, UP Express.
Really easy to do something in Montreal, the Dorval station is adjacent to Montreal airport, last time I was there it was taxi but that was years ago.
Why would you willingly give up your right to choose which form of transportation works best for you? That may be fine for you, but to force no choice onto others, is dictatorial.
Airports are subsidized as is the air traffic control system.
Since I never fly, why should have to subsidize someone else’s choices.
Maybe the solution to get people onto the train is from these short flights would be requiring the airlines to charge twice as much as Amtrak.
And yes, Charles, in an ideal, interconnected world arriving Amtrak passengers at Penn Station should have a cross platform transfer to a LIRR connecting train. That could be accomplished tomorrow. Getting LIRR to permit Amtrak to establish a Long Island corridor with a stop in Queens will sadly take ten years.
Oh yes, please, MORE government interference in a free market. That *always* works out for the better.
Makes sense but ignores one factor in the overall equation. Some passengers on those short-haul flights (to be banned) are connecting to other flights. Which means they want to be at the airport, not a train station. A few of those surviving rail corridors might service a major airport but I assume most don’t.
If they do the CDG short haul ban, there is a nice TGV train station in the airport.