I understand the criticism but to be fair high speed trains are better in many cases:
Paris - Lyon by airplane: 1h15 plus travel to and from airport, plus security, boarding etc
Paris - Lyon by train: 2h30, city center to city center, no security checks. This might actually be faster!
Personally when traveling between London and Paris I choose the high speed train. It's usually more expensive but just the fact it removes traveling to and from airports (especially in London!) adds so much comfort that you realize the extra £50-70 are totally worth it. The overall travel time is also comparable.
That’s correct if everyone traveled from city center to city center, but in my case, the airport is easier to get than the hsr station, has more long time parking options, and sometimes the destination is a layover, so I would have to go from the center of paris to the airport equally. I Would love to travel a lot more by train, or less by plane, but right now and at least in my case, it’s not a very good option.
Laws should not be decided just based on what is good for you in particular, but in considering what is the most efficient in average.
Sure, you may have an easy access to the airport outside the city centre, but people in the city centre, which constitute a bigger number, have a worst access. And people who are not in the city centre but on the other side also have a worst access to the airport than the city centre.
The comment you answer to is still very relevant: it is true that in average using the train is not as disastrous as one could think (so the disadvantages are compensated by the advantage with regard to environment). The fact that it is not advantageous for every one is trivial and not really relevant.
It costs me around 60€ to go from France to Switzerland by plane. It costs me way more than 60€ to go from France to Switzerland by train. This why people are taking the plane, because it's less expensive that high speed rail, nothing more. Make high speed rail less expensive and people will take the train.
Government induced free market distortion under pretense of ecology concerns is just what it is, bullshit, and a bad French habit.
edit: I know France Switzerland trips aren't affected by these laws, it's just an example.
Just taking a simple example like Lausanne (Switzerland) to Paris (France)¹ shows comparable ticket prices. For an arbitrary date a few months away like April 21st, that gives me a single train ticket for €65 on a direct connection to Gare du Nord, or a train ride to Genève-Aéroport (€8) plus a plane ticket for around €65 to Orly. Cheaper plane tickets exist, but not if you have even a single backpack.
In terms of time, the train is a direct TGV that takes 3¾ hours, while the plane route means taking a train for ¾ hours, waiting at the airport for at least an hour because of security, flying for 1¼ hour, wait for another half hour at least to get out of the airport, and then spend at least half an hour getting to where you actually want to be in Paris. It takes just as long, but probably longer if you want a decent safety margin on the airport.
And that excludes the simple fact that we all have a responsibility in reducing our carbon footprint, and that for most us who have the means to travel taking a route that may be (but isn't in this case) slightly more expensive and take slightly longer is the least we can do if it is the greener alternative by far.
1: Just an example of a journey I took myself, by train.
Why is train so much more expensive? Surely jets that cost $100s of millions, supported
by massive airports, are more expensive? Seems like the market distortions are subsidies to airlines of some sort.
Forgive me, but your comment drops below any reasonable threshold of HN guidelines and I am forced to use strong language like “absurd” and “clownish” to describe what you’re asserting …
The overriding market distortion, which trumps every other variable here, is the zero value given to any environmental externalities coming from air travel.
In addition, both CH and FR have massive governmental subsidies for their national carriers and the operation of their airports.
Which is to say:
you’re swimming in free market distortions so deeply you’ll never come up for air … and you’re decrying this one ?
> This why people are taking the plane, because it's less expensive that high speed rail, nothing more.
This is often true. But - not always. Depends on which endpoints. Sometimes it's speed, sometimes convenience, sometime price.
> free market distortion
1. Markets are not free. They are based on violent coercion of private ownership of land, factories, service providing corporations etc.
2. Markets are always "distorted", in the sense that they don't just occur naturally.
3. I can't say for certain whether this specific measure is appropriate or well-intentioned, but - emissions need to be reduced drastically over the next several years; and not just in one sector of the economy. So in _some_ way, people do need to change their habits in favor of using more carbon-frugal modes of travel.
Agree, in France train is usually way more convenient. There are still issues though, for example Rennes-Toulouse is 1h30 by plane, and 7 (!) hours by train. I really hope this gets fixed, until then train is just not an option in this case.
If it’s better to travel by train, then no need to ban short flights, because people wouldn’t use them much. Empirically, since people ARE taking short flights instead of trains, the people who are doing so believe that flights are better for them.
Meanwhile the entire world, France included for Nice-Paris, study flying taxis and "cars"... Oh, but such moves are not made to push some cohort of peoples out of traveling while pushing others to do so...
> Paris - Lyon by airplane: 1h15 plus travel to and from airport, plus security, boarding etc
Reminds of when someone says "this recipe only takes 20 minutes to make!" and they fail to mention you have to spend whole day shopping for ingredients, do some prep the day before and then spend half a day cleaning the kitchen afterwards... oh and then if you actually cook it for 20 minutes, chances are it will be barely safe to eat and would need much longer time.
>Reminds of when someone says "this recipe only takes 20 minutes to make!" and they fail to mention....
Or, keep essential ingredients for good and favorite recipes on hand generally, clean pots and utensils in the middle of cooking (usually very possible during pauses and wait times) and cook properly. Most foods can indeed be cooked perfectly in 20 minutes and with a bit of practice it's easy to create great 20-30 minute meals without any of the hassles you describe,unless you're one of those people who barely bothers to ever cook or keep a thing at home and even scrambled eggs with toast require a trip to the grocery store and bakery first.
Only when you can plan ahead by a few weeks. Typically, flying is still cheaper than the train. Tried to book a trip from London to home for boxing day. Eurostar was double
I have found that flying is often cheaper for many close-ish and middle-ish distances where I want to go. Why is this? These are the cases where I would most like to take the train, and it is hard to justify by ticket price.
This seems like making headlines for little real impact.
If they did want to do something for the environment and fairer competition between transport modes they should tax aviation fuel and airline tickets. Regardless of distance and destination.
Aviation emissions are 1.9% of global emissions. [0] I certainly don't disagree with a jet fuel tax (which is obscenely tax free in most of the world).
However, if we want to be impactful then we need to start building massive storage infrastructure and grow renewable sources so that we can curb down emissions from energy production using coal and gas.
Everything else is a drop in a bucket comparatively speaking (even ICE to EV transition is relatively small in comparison with Electricity related emissions). More so if EVs are charged up from Coal/Gas Electricity sources.
This is one of the problems with hiring non-technical politicians. They have zero background in science and base everything on current trends and analogies. It is a real problem in many western democracies - people who are only capable of getting a political science degree run for office because that is the only job they can get. Capable people end up doing other jobs because politics doesn't pay until you are in a position to corrupt things and capable people usually aren't interested in corruption. Politics needs to pay far more in order to attract capable/competent people.
100%, most for the climate rules in the Eu are just for show.
they pick the most miniscule and most visible / inconveniencing regulations so that they look like they care about the environment, while actually doing nothing.
You could basically say that about any climate initiative. Cheap carbon-based fuels form the entire foundation of our society. Changing that is going to be a long, hard fight. You have to start somewhere.
As a personal anecdote. My family decided to drive instead of fly over Thanksgiving. We saved about 1200 kg of CO2 even though we had to drive 12 hours. Clearly some savings can be made by forcing alternate means of transportation.
The U.S. has seemingly done the opposite. Nonstop flights have all but vanished completely. What used to be a few hours on a cross-country nonstop flight has now become two to four connecting regional flights that start to approach international flight times in total.
Does anyone know what's going on with no nonstop flights anymore?
20 years ago, there were many more airlines in the US [1]. Many of these airlines, while 'national,' were mostly regional, and serviced particular routes. As the airlines have merged, not only have costs gone up, but routes have gone down because the big players aren't competing with each other. In fact, they were found guilty of price collusion with the whole 'capacity discipline' scandal.
Another thing to consider is the airports themselves. It's impossible for new carriers to introduce new routes in many instances because the airports cannot accommodate any more planes. Air traffic has gone from around 2B travelers per year in 2004 to 4.7B in 2019 [2]. I'm willing to bet terminals, gates, and runways have not gone up 250% in the same time period (it's likely air traffic has increased more in developing nations relative to the US, but I'm sure the US still accounts for a fair amount of this growth).
Personally speaking, I have never had more than 1 connection each way to anywhere in the US. I only fly major carriers and live near a decent sized international airport. I also travel any day or time, depending on which flights I like best, not necessarily the cheapest flights. It might be a worse experience if you're always shopping for the cheapest flight.
That is not my experience at all. I fly non-stop between major US cities all the time. For smaller cities I may need to make a single connection.
I live on the east coast and within 45 minutes of 2 major airports. I just did some quick checking. Following are examples of the number of daily non-stops available from them:
San Francisco - 11
Las Angeles - 13
Dallas - 17
Seattle - 9
Portland - 4
Chicago - 33
St Louis - 9
Denver - 14
I fly to Little Rock, AR a couple of times a year. There are no non-stop flights but a quick search showed over 40 1-stop options from just the airport closest to me. Not all of those are going to be combinations most people want to do or are cost effective but if you throw away 1/2 if them that is still over 20 options. I also fly into Albuquerque, NM a couple of times a year. From my closest airport there are 58 1-stop options. If I drive 75 minutes to a further airport there are 4 non-stop flights to Albuquerque per week.
If you live in or near a smaller city served only by regional flights and are flying to another smaller city served only by regional flights than 2 stops will be necessary but 4 seems excessive.
Anecdotally, the reverse is not true. West to East non-stop flights have been scarce as of late to many major cities, even from a major hub, compared to a few years ago. Some flights in the same direction have sometimes been faster via Canada than staying the US.
Well your experience contradicts both mine and my family's, the both of us living in two of the most major cities in the U.S. And there has absolutely been a dropoff of nonstop flights. Several used to exist and now literally none between areas I used to fly.
No experience with the US market, but I thought that thanks to planes like A350 the opposite was happening: new routes between smaller cities thanks to fuel efficiency.
It's possible that in the US you're seeing that as a consequence of few available pilots and their resistance to change (hub and spoke has been around forever in the region)
The regional operator of the spoke flight from my local airport to the hub tried to change it to have a stopover at another airport, changing a ~1 hour flight to like 2.5 hours, with an hour sitting on the ground. The airport managed to reject the change.
I took that flight several times earlier in the year and it was always pretty close to capacity, so sort of hard to understand. I guess the most likely thing is that they were trying to eliminate the direct flight to the middle airport while maintaining service there, but screwing over the majority of your customers seems like a bad way to go about that.
Flying is more expensive than it used to be, demand has dropped.
At least for me, the additional COVID security theater, as well as frustratingly high rental car prices has made it a no brainer. I'll just drive. At least the covid theater is going away, it seems. Airlines are losing money if a plane is empty. Until demand for those nonstop routes pick up, those routes will not be revived.
Same sentiment. Airports are a pain to get to, security is a pain, taking time to account for the variable length of the security line is a pain, checking your baggage is a pain, dealing with the race for the overhead bin space is a pain, the inevitable delays that will ruin your whole itinerary are a pain, the lack of legroom is a pain... For destinations on the east coast (where Amtrak is actually reliable) I've begun taking trains to the exclusion of flying. Slower, but more comfortable, and I can get work done or just relax without being crammed into a sardine can.
I wish I knew. Nothing worse than a red-eye from CA to DC with a forced multi hour layover in Atlanta or Charlotte at 4am (before many dining options are open).
Read between the lines: this has nothing to do with ecology. I don’t really understand the French government and culture enough to guess what the ulterior motive is; perhaps something with keeping non-French companies from running cheap airlines in the country?
Absolutely this. Also, in political threads, I always read the grey-ish/dead comments because they are the ones with a glimpse of common sense. I think that this forum should stick strictly to technology as it simply can't handle political news, and it causes more harm that good. A false consensus, an echo chamber, whatever you want to call it.
So this is another measure to widen the gap between the rich and the pleb - when the pleb's travel gets restricted further, the rich can enjoy private jet hopping undisturbed - which gives them advantage over the pleb as they can get to places even quicker.
If we are serious about climate, then there should be no exceptions for the rich, in fact they should be leading by example.
” France is also cracking down on the use of private jets for short journeys in a bid to make transport greener and fairer for the population.”
”Transport minister Clément Beaune said the country could no longer tolerate the super rich using private planes while the public are making cutbacks to deal with the energy crisis and climate change.”
I don't think we (assuming you are also US american) have a leg to stand on until we raise our taxes. France iirc has a solidarity tax and from what I hear people don't go bankrupt due to routine medical care.
Back to the topic though, a ban on short flights doesn't sound right to me. I'd feel better if the flights were made more expensive with higher taxes or perhaps even a new tax altogether
Don't see any mentioning of electric planes :/ - I'd assume they should be encouraged. Today they probably won't cover all distances for 2.5 hours flight, but they still can be used on shorter distances.
Readit News
Paris - Lyon by airplane: 1h15 plus travel to and from airport, plus security, boarding etc
Paris - Lyon by train: 2h30, city center to city center, no security checks. This might actually be faster!
Personally when traveling between London and Paris I choose the high speed train. It's usually more expensive but just the fact it removes traveling to and from airports (especially in London!) adds so much comfort that you realize the extra £50-70 are totally worth it. The overall travel time is also comparable.
Sure, you may have an easy access to the airport outside the city centre, but people in the city centre, which constitute a bigger number, have a worst access. And people who are not in the city centre but on the other side also have a worst access to the airport than the city centre.
The comment you answer to is still very relevant: it is true that in average using the train is not as disastrous as one could think (so the disadvantages are compensated by the advantage with regard to environment). The fact that it is not advantageous for every one is trivial and not really relevant.
The public transportation too the city center is better in european cities than driving. Sample route is charles de gaul to the train station.
Government induced free market distortion under pretense of ecology concerns is just what it is, bullshit, and a bad French habit.
edit: I know France Switzerland trips aren't affected by these laws, it's just an example.
In terms of time, the train is a direct TGV that takes 3¾ hours, while the plane route means taking a train for ¾ hours, waiting at the airport for at least an hour because of security, flying for 1¼ hour, wait for another half hour at least to get out of the airport, and then spend at least half an hour getting to where you actually want to be in Paris. It takes just as long, but probably longer if you want a decent safety margin on the airport.
And that excludes the simple fact that we all have a responsibility in reducing our carbon footprint, and that for most us who have the means to travel taking a route that may be (but isn't in this case) slightly more expensive and take slightly longer is the least we can do if it is the greener alternative by far.
1: Just an example of a journey I took myself, by train.
The overriding market distortion, which trumps every other variable here, is the zero value given to any environmental externalities coming from air travel.
In addition, both CH and FR have massive governmental subsidies for their national carriers and the operation of their airports.
Which is to say:
you’re swimming in free market distortions so deeply you’ll never come up for air … and you’re decrying this one ?
Seriously: grow up.
Yes, the evil government is propping up BIG TRAIN because they hate planes!!!
This is often true. But - not always. Depends on which endpoints. Sometimes it's speed, sometimes convenience, sometime price.
> free market distortion
1. Markets are not free. They are based on violent coercion of private ownership of land, factories, service providing corporations etc.
2. Markets are always "distorted", in the sense that they don't just occur naturally.
3. I can't say for certain whether this specific measure is appropriate or well-intentioned, but - emissions need to be reduced drastically over the next several years; and not just in one sector of the economy. So in _some_ way, people do need to change their habits in favor of using more carbon-frugal modes of travel.
Why take away a choice from people?
https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-...
https://siecledigital.fr/2021/10/28/laeroport-de-nice-souhai...
Reminds of when someone says "this recipe only takes 20 minutes to make!" and they fail to mention you have to spend whole day shopping for ingredients, do some prep the day before and then spend half a day cleaning the kitchen afterwards... oh and then if you actually cook it for 20 minutes, chances are it will be barely safe to eat and would need much longer time.
Or, keep essential ingredients for good and favorite recipes on hand generally, clean pots and utensils in the middle of cooking (usually very possible during pauses and wait times) and cook properly. Most foods can indeed be cooked perfectly in 20 minutes and with a bit of practice it's easy to create great 20-30 minute meals without any of the hassles you describe,unless you're one of those people who barely bothers to ever cook or keep a thing at home and even scrambled eggs with toast require a trip to the grocery store and bakery first.
If they did want to do something for the environment and fairer competition between transport modes they should tax aviation fuel and airline tickets. Regardless of distance and destination.
However, if we want to be impactful then we need to start building massive storage infrastructure and grow renewable sources so that we can curb down emissions from energy production using coal and gas.
Everything else is a drop in a bucket comparatively speaking (even ICE to EV transition is relatively small in comparison with Electricity related emissions). More so if EVs are charged up from Coal/Gas Electricity sources.
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/09/Emissions-by-sect...
they pick the most miniscule and most visible / inconveniencing regulations so that they look like they care about the environment, while actually doing nothing.
As a personal anecdote. My family decided to drive instead of fly over Thanksgiving. We saved about 1200 kg of CO2 even though we had to drive 12 hours. Clearly some savings can be made by forcing alternate means of transportation.
Does anyone know what's going on with no nonstop flights anymore?
Another thing to consider is the airports themselves. It's impossible for new carriers to introduce new routes in many instances because the airports cannot accommodate any more planes. Air traffic has gone from around 2B travelers per year in 2004 to 4.7B in 2019 [2]. I'm willing to bet terminals, gates, and runways have not gone up 250% in the same time period (it's likely air traffic has increased more in developing nations relative to the US, but I'm sure the US still accounts for a fair amount of this growth).
Personally speaking, I have never had more than 1 connection each way to anywhere in the US. I only fly major carriers and live near a decent sized international airport. I also travel any day or time, depending on which flights I like best, not necessarily the cheapest flights. It might be a worse experience if you're always shopping for the cheapest flight.
1: https://www.businessinsider.com/airline-mergers-and-acquisit... 2: https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-...
I live on the east coast and within 45 minutes of 2 major airports. I just did some quick checking. Following are examples of the number of daily non-stops available from them:
San Francisco - 11 Las Angeles - 13 Dallas - 17 Seattle - 9 Portland - 4 Chicago - 33 St Louis - 9 Denver - 14
I fly to Little Rock, AR a couple of times a year. There are no non-stop flights but a quick search showed over 40 1-stop options from just the airport closest to me. Not all of those are going to be combinations most people want to do or are cost effective but if you throw away 1/2 if them that is still over 20 options. I also fly into Albuquerque, NM a couple of times a year. From my closest airport there are 58 1-stop options. If I drive 75 minutes to a further airport there are 4 non-stop flights to Albuquerque per week.
If you live in or near a smaller city served only by regional flights and are flying to another smaller city served only by regional flights than 2 stops will be necessary but 4 seems excessive.
I too am curious as to the shift.
It's possible that in the US you're seeing that as a consequence of few available pilots and their resistance to change (hub and spoke has been around forever in the region)
I took that flight several times earlier in the year and it was always pretty close to capacity, so sort of hard to understand. I guess the most likely thing is that they were trying to eliminate the direct flight to the middle airport while maintaining service there, but screwing over the majority of your customers seems like a bad way to go about that.
400 mile drive, no trains.
*except the rich
So this is another measure to widen the gap between the rich and the pleb - when the pleb's travel gets restricted further, the rich can enjoy private jet hopping undisturbed - which gives them advantage over the pleb as they can get to places even quicker.
If we are serious about climate, then there should be no exceptions for the rich, in fact they should be leading by example.
” France is also cracking down on the use of private jets for short journeys in a bid to make transport greener and fairer for the population.”
”Transport minister Clément Beaune said the country could no longer tolerate the super rich using private planes while the public are making cutbacks to deal with the energy crisis and climate change.”
This is a soundbite designed to calm people down. If there was a "crackdown", they would have listed steps taken to ensure the transport is "fairer".
When government is saying they are "cracking down" - using quite emotionally loaded word - is precisely to cover up the fact they do nothing.
If they really wanted to make transport fairer, they would have banned short private jet trips too. There is no excuse to not do that. None.
I'm sure this is a misunderstanding. With a small donation for the party, everyone will be happy.
Back to the topic though, a ban on short flights doesn't sound right to me. I'd feel better if the flights were made more expensive with higher taxes or perhaps even a new tax altogether
They do nothing. Words have no bearing if they are not backed by actions. There was no excuse why they shouldn't ban short private jet trips too.
France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of having to prop up SNCF
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerosene_tax
However, as of 2018, commercial kerosene consumption is currently tax exempt under the legislation of all member states of the European Union.