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French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

• bpodgursky 6y ago
  Maybe they should ask themselves _why_ someone would take a flight instead of a 2.5 hour train ride? There's really no reason a human would try to fly instead of take a train, if the trains were functioning at high efficiency. Flying sucks. And yet...
  • baud147258 6y ago
    all the domestic flights in questions have also high-speed train alternatives
  • medium_burrito 6y ago
    Because light rail/bus to airport is cheap, and $25 fares are cheap. And the trains are expensive. Now, why is flying so cheap vs a train? The whole the US government essentially gives away 737s at a loss to employ people might be one part of it? Nobody is giving away free trains that I know of.
    • xur17 6y ago
      > The whole the US government essentially gives away 737s at a loss to employ people might be one part of it? Do you have more information on this? Is the US government subsidizing aircraft manufacturing or something?
      • hadlock 6y ago
        Boeing "is the largest U.S. goods exporter" and represents, pre 737-MAX fallout, about 5% of the US GDP. This might come as a surprise to east-coasters as for most of their existence they were based out of Seattle, and only recently moved their HQ to Chicago. Boeing sells a lot of civilian airplanes, but depending on the year/conflict 35-49% of Boeing's income comes from arms sales, either jets, cruise missiles, spy satellites or what have you. Boeing's manufacturing capacity plays a significant role in US wartime capability. Between Boeing and Weyerhaeuser, those two companies (and their cottage industries) prop up the lion's share of Washington State's economy, or at least it did pre-Microsoft/Intel/Amazon
    • flavius29663 6y ago
      Trains are heavily subsidized in Europe. E.g. Germany paid 17 billions in a single year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies#Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies#Europe How many 737s would that buy, per year? around 40-50? This is Germany alone, the rest of Europe is just the same
      • allendoerfer 6y ago
        Deutsche Bahn has a (quasi) monopoly on German long-distance trains and is state owned. It has to operate some connections at a loss. It also maintains the railways. German streets a build by the state, not by Volkswagen or Mercedes Benz. Airports are owned by local governments and often a loss-leader, sometimes epic disasters (with the exception of Fraport). It is extremely hard to compare trains and argue about whether they are competitive or subsidized.
        • presentation 6y ago
          I find it silly that people think that train fares should cover a train's value. Few people are riding trains just because they really love to sit on a train. The value is in that you got from point A to point B. Unsurprising that East Japan Rail is super profitable, given that they're only partially a train company - rather they're a real-estate play that builds human conveyor belts into shopping/apartment/office complexes they control. Ordinarily I am skeptical of private enterprise to serve the common good, but in the case of the public transit system here in Japan and other Asian metros it really does seem to have produced great outcomes.
    • hourislate 6y ago
      >The whole the US government essentially gives away 737s at a loss Did you mean Boeing? I imagine flying is cheaper because the cost associated with the Rail Infrastructure is much higher than with the open sky and aircraft.
      • mkoubaa 6y ago
        It's hard to believe we are successfully giving Boeings to France when the only major competitor to Boeing is a French company (Airbus). If we actually are I am curious about the story behind it
    • ur-whale 6y ago
      > why is flying so cheap vs a train? In France, the answer is simple: the train company is basically a monopoly (owned via a very thin veil by the state). They are therefore, like all entities not subjected to competition: - expensive - unreliable - low quality of service overall (atrocious food, disgustingly dirty bathrooms, in-seat power supply almost never works, internet non-nexistant).
      • presentation 6y ago
        After living in various Asian metros it really does seem that private markets have done wonders for quality of service - I live in Japan now, but while it isn't cheaper per se, it's definitely a phenomenal quality of service, and far from the only great system I've seen in the region.
  • iwwr 6y ago
    And yet, the train could be more expensive
  • Sharlin 6y ago
    France has one of the best and fastest train systems in the world. There's really no reason for people to fly, but they still do.
    • HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
      Clearly there's a reason if they're doing it! People are asking what that reason is.
      • realusername 6y ago
        The only answer is price in France, that's it. Time-wise that's about the same, trains are very fast and planes have a longer travel from the city center so that's even it out.
        • EdwinLarkin 6y ago
          Any source on this or it's just your assumption that trains are faster and more reliable? I doubt that would be the case in France especially when it comes to trains.
          • ur-whale 6y ago
            Faster yes. Reliable certainly not. On time even worse.
          • realusername 6y ago
            If you're thinking about strikes, airplanes also have their fair share of strikes in France.
            • rlanday 6y ago
              If you’re lucky, the train conductors and the air traffic controllers won’t be on strike at the same time though!
    • cycrutchfield 6y ago
  • byroot 6y ago
    It's not always a rational choice. Among other things, there's some social status associated to flying compared to taking a train. So the professionals tend to take the plane even when it's neither cheaper, nor faster, nor more reliable.
  • guilamu 6y ago
    In France, it mostly comes down to a price issue. On one hand, flights are massively subsidized and can be extremely cheap. On the other hand, train is not subsidized at all and can be pretty pricey. Recently though, things are changing and making a Paris - Nice by train is becoming somewhat financially doable.
    • missedthecue 6y ago
      French rail receives 13 billion euros annually in subsidies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies
      • wut42 6y ago
        And yet it is very very more expensive (and unreliable) than plane.
  • simias 6y ago
    The plane industry is heavily subsidized and manages to get (IMO absurdly) low prices for some rides, and there are some situations where it's more convenient to take a plane than the train (for instance if you arrive from a long distance plane trip and are already at the airport). French trains, especially the high speed ones, are very comfortable and "high efficiency". They can be pretty expensive however.
    • missedthecue 6y ago
      European rail is also highly subsidized, on the order of tens of billions of euro annually, per country.
  • bombcar 6y ago
    The most common reason to take a short domestic flight is that you just arrived on a longer international flight - hub and spoke. Fly into LA and the fly to San Diego kinda thing. This may actually INCREASE emissions as now there will me smaller “direct” flights from out of country instead of them all going through major hubs.
    • keiferski 6y ago
      Most major airports in France have train connections built-in.
      • ur-whale 6y ago
        LOL, you clearly haven't had to travel CDG <=> center of Paris by train very often. What you say is true (there is a train), but the quality of service is so bad (strikes, trains late or overcrowded, broken ticket machines, broken escalators, PITA to go from gate to train terminal) that most people who can afford it would rather be stuck in freeway jams in a taxi than consider taking the train.
        • keiferski 6y ago
          I was replying to the above comment's reference to connections. It is fairly easy to fly into Paris and take a train to Lyon, for example, without having to go into Paris proper first.
          • deleted 6y ago
            [deleted]
  • avian 6y ago
    > There's really no reason a human would try to fly instead of take a train. My anecdote: Some time ago I did a lot of business trips around Europe. All business travel was organized by a subcontractor. They sometimes wanted to route me through a crazy amount of short airplane hops to get me to the destination. Sometimes even when a direct flight was available they couldn't put me on it because they didn't have a contract with the operator or something like that. For some reason they strongly favored air travel and fell back on other means of transport only when there was absolutely no way to get there by air. One some occassions I was supposed to do 4 or 5 500 km short hops, which would mean a whole wasted day of basically waiting at airports and boarding airplanes. In such cases I just said no, paid out of my own pocket for a train ticket or took my own car. And then spent next 3 months doing paperwork to get travel expenses reimbursed.
• valuearb 6y ago
  Is this also an attempt to shore up the train system finances, and reduce the money it’s hemorrhaging?
  • presentation 6y ago
    The value of transportation isn't ticket sales, but the economic value of the trip made possible as a whole. Just as people drive cars to go from point A to point B, few people ride trains just because they like trains so much - the value lies in the fact that you got to point B. So whether or not train companies run at a loss is largely irrelevant to their societal value.
    • valuearb 6y ago
      If it’s ethereal value can only be realized by banning competitors, what is that really worth?
• tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  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 you need to be at the airport 90 minutes before the flight, add it to the flight time. Require airlines to prominently show total time and cost from city center to city center with luggage. If you're comparing a 59 EUR, 2.5 hour train ticket with a 29 EUR, 1 hour flight, the choice seems obvious, even though the flight will likely cost you more time and money in the end. UX matters, and I believe this would be a very powerful nudge. I bet many people would take the train if the flight had to be advertised as "typically 3.5 hours, 82 EUR from city center to city center (fine print: 29 EUR flight, 29 EUR baggage fee unless you fly with hand baggage only, 12 EUR ticket to the airport, 12 EUR ticket from the airport at the destination; 1 hour flight duration, 45 minutes for getting from airport entrance to the gate, 20 minutes boarding, 30 minutes to get to the airport with an average 7 minute wait, 10 min to get out of the airport, 30 minutes to get from the airport with an average 8 minute wait)"
  • kevindong 6y ago
    If you use Google Flights, you can specify the number carry-on/checked bags you want and Google will include the pricing info in its rankings of flights which is handy. I don't agree that airlines (or really any travel provider) should be required to include travel time to/from city centers though because not everyone is going to go into city centers. However, that'd be an interesting feature to implement: a feature that lets users specify their actual destination to get a fuller picture of travel time.
    • cycomanic 6y ago
      I think including the travel time to town centre is a good idea. At least it gets rid of the shenanigans that Ryan air does, where they say Frankfurt and the airport is in the middle of nowhere (1.5h from Frankfurt). Also many travellers (except for locals) need to go to the town centre anyway if they need to access other modes of transportation. And if not, they likely would have looked up their itinerary anyway.
• baud147258 6y ago
  Is short domestic flights in France that much of a carbon producers? I mean is the measure just a fig leaf or is it a real step in the right direction? Checking French sources, the only lines are apparently between Paris and Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux.
  • JBorrow 6y ago
    A large proportion of the carbon emissions from flights come from takeoff (you have to haul the plane, full of fuel, up through the gravitational potential)
    • baud147258 6y ago
      I was more asking in the context of the French carbon production, not just the airlines
      • hadlock 6y ago
        Most of France is Nuclear powered, and they haven't outlawed breeder reactors (which recycles spent fuel) for regan-esque cold war reasons, so with electric cars on the horizon soon and electric trains now, they're well positioned to Nope right out of the global fossil fuel race/struggle.
• underdeserver 6y ago
  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.
  • Analemma_ 6y ago
    It would, but the last time France tried imposing a carbon tax there were riots in the streets. This might be the best we can hope for.
    • hackeraccount 6y ago
      As long as no one figures out what's been taken from them.
      • bertil 6y ago
        The riots were because filling a car tank would get expensive. I’m not sure people would not notice, until a majority of the population is driving electric.
    • williamdclt 6y ago
      It was a carbon tax on gas that was going to affect the lower classes disproportionately. I don't think we'd see an uprising for a carbon tax on intra-national flights, which are much more of a business travel mode
      • saddlerustle 6y ago
        People choose to fly rather than take the train because flying is usually cheaper. This ban also impacts poor people more than rich people.
        • dagenleg 6y ago
• haakonhr 6y ago
  Let's ban stuff instead of ensuring fair competition and better pricing of externalities.. Of interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerosene_tax#Criticism_of_the_kerosene_tax_exemption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerosene_tax#Criticism_of_the_...
  • ur-whale 6y ago
    Not sure which way you lean here. Are you saying you are on the side of banning stuff, or do you think it's a bad idea?
    • haakonhr 6y ago
      The ban is kind of the equivalent of a quick, hacky fix of some bug. It is better than nothing, but in general I'm against banning stuff as the problem is that the flights are too cheap, partially due to reasons like tax exemption on fuel.
      • pnt12 6y ago
        There are also two bugs related to people, and they're hard to fix: - short term costs are more noticeable than long term costs: saving money VS saving the planet - tragedies of the common are hard to fix: we all need to save the planet, but others are not minding it, so I might as well ignore it and at least save some money too
  • thitcanh 6y ago
    Indeed this change has several drawbacks: - less competition for the affected routes - harder transfers between modes of transportation (physically) - harder bookings across modes of transportation - disappearance of entire routes made possible by hubs from flight-only OTAs (the vast majority of them) I agree with the sentiment, but I suppose they should just be taxed higher and somehow forced to include a note like: “A train/bus transfer between CDG and XYZ is also available with <third party>. Wanna book just up to CDG?”
• blue_box 6y ago
  I hope they also start doing something about meat consumption. https://www.cowspiracy.com/facts https://www.cowspiracy.com/facts
  • julienreszka 6y ago
    How about no
• benja123 6y ago
  Overall I am for this, but I do wonder if most short domestic flights are business trips. I can definitely imagine a situation where if I was taking frequent day trips for work and that extra 30 minutes to an hour is the difference between me seeing me kid before they go to sleep or not choosing to take the flights.
  • multiplegeorges 6y ago
    To me, the best solution to this kind of scenario is video calling, which is currently being normalized and will be readily accepted going forward.
    • benja123 6y ago
      Same, but pre COVID at least lots of people were expected to travel even if a video chat could be equally effective.
    • ivan1783 6y ago
      You are clearly not from Europe X) Huge privacy concerns here about that kind of stuff, I've not been on one video call since the start of the rona...
• bjeds 6y ago
  I wonder what the unintended consequences are with this measure. Here are some: 1) I can imagine weird situations where a multi-leg flight could be broken up by this ban, especially if you are traveling from the middle of nowhere (connected to a smaller airport in France) and you are flying to another middle of nowhere place (connected by _another_ smaller airport in France). Instead of having one flight, you now have two flights with a train trip in the middle, which can of course be inconvenient in case the first flight is delayed and so on. 2) Say I live in one of the larger French cities, but not Paris. I want to travel to northern Japan, for example. Previously I could go to my local airport and transfer in Paris CDG. However now there are two other options viable for me because I can no longer fly to Paris: I can either take the train to Paris (Charles de Gaulle), hauling my checked luggage on the train and possible taxis (skis, travel gear, lots of duffels)... Or I can just go to my local airport, dump the luggage on that airport, and transfer in Frankfurt.
  • conradfr 6y ago
    Apparently the law has an exception for connecting flights but I'm not sure it will work in practice.
    • ivan1783 6y ago
      You have a source?
      • conradfr 6y ago
        > Une exception toutefois pour les lignes qui permettent une correspondance vers l'étranger. Même chose pour les liaisons entre les régions. https://www.lci.fr/planete/interdiction-des-vols-courts-en-france-quelles-lignes-concernees-et-pour-quelles-raisons-2157328.html https://www.lci.fr/planete/interdiction-des-vols-courts-en-f...
  • ip26 6y ago
    I found taking TGV to Paris CDG a pretty good experience.
  • 6y ago
• EdwinLarkin 6y ago
  Essentially all this is is a tax on quality of life. Quality of life will decrease for rich nations for nothing as all the environmental gains will be offset by emerging economies. China will continue to build more and its population will also continue to consume more.
  • multiplegeorges 6y ago
    You're right, we should do nothing.
  • Thiez 6y ago
    Those living in the rich nations can hardly blame the people in emerging economies for trying to achieve a similar standard of living (well, not without being huge hypocrites). And yes, large countries like China will have a large impact. But that is going to happen regardless of whether the rich nations make a change or not. So why wouldn't we try to reduce our own impact? What alternative do you suggest? Do nothing and make the problem even worse?
    • EdwinLarkin 6y ago
      Dont try to force altruism on me.I'd rather retain my standards of living.
      • Thiez 6y ago
        In the end preserving the environment helps everyone. We all have to live here on this earth, as will our descendants (for the foreseeable future at least). Perhaps you don't have many years left, and have no children? Otherwise your attitude seems rather shortsighted. It's a good thing most rich countries are democracies where the majority actually can force altruism on others, no matter how selfish they are.
      • tonyedgecombe 6y ago
        >Dont try to force altruism on me. Don't try to force your pollution on me...
• sys_64738 6y ago
  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/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/companies-carbon-emissions/
  • gsnedders 6y ago
    How many of those companies got government-backed loans from the French government in 2020?
  • robocat 6y ago
    “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.
    • sys_64738 6y ago
      Wait, what?
• roamerz 6y ago
  I wonder if this was actually the best way to accomplish this. From some of the other comments it seems like the reason the flights are less expensive is because of airline subsidies. Maybe the lawmakers didn’t have the powers to affect the subsidies but had the power to enact a law? I also wonder if this will have the side effect of clogging the trains routes with too many people. It’s been my experience that when lawmakers bend to environmentalists and special interests it always negatively affects the common folk who’s focus is providing for their families or simply surviving and don’t wield the necessary political influence to make their voices heard.
  • saddlerustle 6y ago
    In France trains are subsidised way more than flights.
• ur-whale 6y ago
  The law of unintended consequences is going to bite back so hard on this one ...
• mc32 6y ago
  The article doesn’t say but I have to think this is about commercial flights and not private aviation?
• dopidopHN 6y ago
  To be noted : we have a extensive fast train system. As a user, I prefer to take the train. It’s faster, more confortable and overall less hassle. ( you get from city center to city center, no security check; you can move around, use your mobile hotspot or the train wifi ) The one use case is going from Paris to Toulouse for instance. It’s take a day of train. But even Paris-Marseille is less than 3h at this point. Paris, Lyon, Lille; Marseille, Nantes, Strasbourg; Those are our « top » cities and they are all connected with fast trains.
  • thiht 6y ago
    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.
    • jcranmer 6y ago
      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 direct Rennes-Bordeaux line, but most of the delay over the plane isn't caused by the detour to Paris but by the quality of the current rail line to Toulouse.
      • thiht 6y ago
        Maybe it improved since the time I had to do Rennes-Toulouse, which is good (although it should be better). FWIW the SNCF website still says that the average is 10h30, 6h30 being the best.
      • Befterriager 6y ago
        > 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.
• wut42 6y ago
  While the reason is honorable, I can't help but think this is an attack on poor/middle class people. Traveling by train in France is quite expensive, and very annoying some times (I live in a lost country-side, and if I want to travel to my parents, it's a three to four train ride, taking about 8 to 10 hours). Ok, plane wouldn't help in most cases either, but the train offering got a lot gutted over the years and it's not going to improve.
  • conradfr 6y ago
    Poor people will take the Macron coaches instead of the disbanded slower trains. Great progress ...
  • tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    I never really bought this argument. Poor people aren't taking regular flights or driving SUV's. Climate change is a problem caused by the consumption habits of the wealthy, not the poor.
    • j7ake 6y ago
      Banning domestic flights won’t stop the habits of the wealthy; they fly private personal planes. What the ban likely will cause is an increase in the cost of travel, which hurts middle class people.
    • flavius29663 6y ago
      Flights can be quite cheap in Europe if you can take a low cost airline: ryanair, wizzair etc. They won't connect every city, and connection flights are a no-no, but direct point to point flights are cheaper than anything else. Cheap flights across Europe is what allows a lot of low wage migrants to find seasonal work, students and young workers to travel and visit the cities etc. The rich fly in expensive airlines, not with ryanair. Check this out: Paris to Bratislava, round trip for 80 bucks https://www.ryanair.com/us/en/trip/flights/select?adults=1&teens=0&children=0&infants=0&dateOut=2021-11-02&dateIn=2021-11-13&isConnectedFlight=false&isReturn=true&discount=0&promoCode=&originMac=PAR&destinationIata=BTS&tpAdults=1&tpTeens=0&tpChildren=0&tpInfants=0&tpStartDate=2021-11-02&tpEndDate=2021-11-13&tpDiscount=0&tpPromoCode=&tpOriginMac=PAR&tpDestinationIata=BTS https://www.ryanair.com/us/en/trip/flights/select?adults=1&t... Paris to Bratislava by train is 100 bucks one way (also taking much longer) https://www.raileurope.com/en-us/destinations/paris-bratislava-train https://www.raileurope.com/en-us/destinations/paris-bratisla...
• mensetmanusman 6y ago
  It would be better to demand syngas use to spur innovation.
• Scoundreller 6y ago
  I'll assume this is just for commercially available tickets, right? If you're important enough to charter, you won't be forced to slum it on the train, right?
  • hyakosm 6y ago
    It's only for commercial tickets from one city to another. Short flights will still exist in correspondance of a bigger flight.
• raverbashing 6y ago
  > to abolish domestic flights on routes than can be covered by train in under two-and-a-half hours So yeah, it's a non-issue. If a train takes 2:30 it would have been a short flight anyway
• crazygringo 6y ago
  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 connect to a smaller city -- e.g. Paris to Lyon -- switching to a train is massively inconvenient. You've got to travel into Paris (an hour?) and then take another 2-hour train, after you're already tired from your transcontinental flight. 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? Or because Paris as a hub is out of the picture, will I just book a flight via Brussels (New York -> Brussels -> Lyon) because that will still be fine... ...and burn a ton more CO2 because I'm forced to take a longer flight because France banned shorter ones?
  • martius 6y ago
    There is a TGV station in CDG.
  • tom_mellior 6y ago
    > 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 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). The second fastest connection (11:30) is also a connection at CDG... taking a direct train to Lyon. Such flight+train combinations have existed for a long time.
    • Befterriager 6y ago
      > 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.
• oleganza 6y ago
  This may also seem like a nice cover up for French gov messing up economy and having companies go bankrupt / close destinations. "Looks, the flights disappeared not because we fucked things up, but because we are proactively saving the planet here!"
  • Scoundreller 6y ago
    Canada kinda did this by banning flights from EU except through 4 airports at the beginning of the pandemic. But flights to those non-4 airports from EU were doomed anyway, but now airlines wouldn't owe compensation.
• aaron695 6y ago
  How many people does it kill? People are not using trains for a reason. If they drive instead that's far less safe. It should kill a fair few people.
• netfortius 6y ago
  In France I would never consider flying, when I could take the TGV. The level of comfort of a 1st class train ticket vs an economy airflight (space and positioning of seat) + ability to move around + enjoying the scenery + no worries about the airport hassles / security checkpoints / luggage check-in and check-out, and transportation from airport to the center of the city, always made the choice very easy fo me.
  • benhurmarcel 6y ago
    It’s a lot more expensive though. Nice if you can afford it.
    • Parae 6y ago
      It's about the same price. With a TGV Max card it's even cheaper to take the TGV.
• PostThisTooFast 6y ago
  Fine, as long as electric aircraft are exempt.
• happyjack 6y ago
  I prefer Cessnas.
• lsh123 6y ago
  French high speed trains are so awesome that government has to ban flights to force people to use them. Joking aside, big government is a problem that needs to be solved around the world.
• gfodor 6y ago
  How strange it will seem to our grandchildren that some governments were willing to subject their population to a technological regression to reduce emissions, instead of taking the conveniences and productivity of modern society as beyond compromise, and determining how to push forward new technology to maintain it while eliminating carbon emissions. Once you decide it’s worth receding back to the caves to reduce emissions, however slightly, you have to wonder how slippery the slope is. Edit: To the downvoting conservationists: I support a carbon tax. I don’t support us clipping our own wings out of fear.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• fy20 6y ago
  I grew up in the UK and from a late teen until my mid twenties I travelled by train across the country every week or so. I took the train as it was convenient for my route (no changes) and it didn't make sense to have a car for the rare times I used it (I'd commute to work by train or bike). There were long distance busses, but the times weren't convenient and they had even less leg room than aircraft. The one thing that still makes me wonder is how expensive trains are, or maybe more accurately how cheap budget airlines are. I'd usually pay ~£25 each way, and I'd book in advance and had a youth discount. Full price tickets if I'd just turn up on the day would be over £100, and closer to £200 for first class (which on this route was just a slightly bigger seat, no food). For the same price I could have flown to the other side of Europe for the weekend and paid for a hotel. During peak times often the trains would be completely full up (500 seats, and maybe another couple hundred standing), so the routes are not exactly under-utilised. Do trains just cost more to build and run than airports and aircraft or what is going on here?
  • ornornor 6y ago
    I think this has to do with privatization. If trains were run by the government (sure, less efficient but also no need to feed greedy shareholders), it would be much cheaper.
    • jsty 6y ago
      Whilst there might be some gains from bringing everything under one roof, cutting out the need for shareholder returns isn't going to do much for the average ticket price - IIRC most train companies in the U.K. have long-run profit margins of 2-3%.
    • vl 6y ago
      Ironically it’s other way around. The reason why flights are so cheap is because they are privatized and there is heavy competition. US used to have heavily-regulated air travel. Once it was de-regulated prices went down. Since railroads require very expansive infrastructure, have natural competition limitations (two companies can’t send two trains on the same path at the same time), they are heavily regulated, and as such there is less competition, and thus no invisible hand of the market helping to lower the prices.
• deleted 6y ago
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• amomo 6y ago
  Also we (in France) try to put back the night trains. They were removed during the 2 or 3 last decades because they were not competitive enough
  • msh 6y ago
    I have taken night trains from denmark to germany. They suck big time, almost any other kind of transport would be prefered (maybe excluding bus).
• thitcanh 6y ago
  Semi-related: Do you think we’ll ever see a substantial reduction of pre-flight times? Why can’t we go through check-in and board directly, after an immediate security check? (Needless to say, this requires a brand new type of airport) Some airports are in a good position to implement this already: Singapore airport has security checks right at the gate so you go through them and wait a short time in the seating area. When the plane is available, boarding happens immediately. What’s missing here is that the check-in desk is still way before this point.
  • ekimekim 6y ago
    I think the problem here is security checking, and not just because it adds time, but because it adds a highly variable AMOUNT of time. Queueing theory says that unless you massively overprovision on available security screening stations, there's always going to be a long tail of latency for getting through security. For example, if a burst of people arrive all at once then you could take an hour to get through, whereas if you arrive at just the right moment you might only need 5 minutes. The second part of the puzzle is that the plane costs a lot to be sitting around while people board. So it's important the plane spend as little time boarding as possible, which means passengers need to all be available to board at the same time. I don't really see any other solution to these requirements except for passengers to arrive early enough that the worst-case security latency still gets them to their boarding on time, which means a long seemingly-useless wait for the vast majority of passengers who don't get unlucky. Of course, the real solution to all of this is to discard or streamline the security theater that happens at airports, but that's a political problem, not a technical one.
  • mFixman 6y ago
    It might be different outside of Europe, but we did go through a significant reduction in pre-flight times in our lifetimes: I remember scrambling with my family to arrive to the airport 3–4 hours in advance and spending all that time queuing. Now for most of my flights I just check-in online, arrive to the airport an hour before departure, and spend 45 minutes and jaywalking around the airport while drinking overpriced coffee.
• winter_blue 6y ago
  > French lawmakers voted ... as the government seeks to lower carbon emissions even as the air travel industry reels from the global pandemic. I'm trying to reconcile with the stuff I've read and heard recently about how France (a country where 80%+ of the electricity comes from nuclear) is trying to move away from nuclear. It makes zero sense; it makes absolutely no sense at all. Germany has also been shutting down its nuclear plants, and switching to (freaking) coal power in the interim instead. It's horrid beyond words.