2023-05-23 22:37:15
The ban on certain domestic flights will become a reality. The decree specifying the conditions of application of this emblematic provision of the Citizen’s Climate Convention was published Tuesday morning at the Official newspaper. It plans to remove domestic connections when an alternative by train exists in less than 2.5 hours, a measure which had sparked heated debate at the time of the vote on the “climate and resilience” law in 2021. In a press release, the Minister for Transport, Clément Beaune, welcomed Tuesday “an essential step” and “a strong symbol in the policy of reducing greenhouse gas emissions”. “This measure is a world first,” he also assured. What does it actually provide? The Parisian takes stock.
- What does the decree provide?
Several conditions must be met for a flight to be prohibited. A substitutable rail link must therefore be able to be made without change, and several times a day. The journey must also “take place between stations serving the same cities as the airports respectively concerned”, it is indicated.
However, if “the most important of these two airports” is “directly” served by a TGV station, it is this station that will serve as a reference. In concrete terms, for flights connecting Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport to another French airport, Roissy station will be taken into account in the calculation, and not a Paris station (as for Orly, which does not is not directly connected to a station). This precision is important. It implies in particular that air links between Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Bordeaux or Nantes will not be prohibited, due to a train journey time of more than 2h30.
In addition, the decree provides, the train connection “must allow more than eight hours of presence on site during the day, throughout the year”. “The frequencies must be sufficient and the schedules appropriate”, it is also specified. These provisions effectively exclude the links between Paris Charles-de-Gaulle and Rennes or Lyon, as well as the Lyon-Marseille link. “Even if the rail journeys can offer journey times of less than 2h30, they do not allow access early enough in the morning to Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport (or Lyon-Saint Exupéry in the case of the line Lyon-Marseille), or to leave sufficiently late in the evening”, thus indicated a note published on the administration’s website in December.
- Which links will be deleted?
In total, only three lines are concerned: Nantes-Orly, Bordeaux-Orly and Lyon-Orly. But these connections were actually canceled from “May 2020”, indicates Air France to Parisian. “They were interrupted at the time of confinement and have never resumed”, specifies the company, which had announced that it would definitively cease to operate them in 2021, in return for loans guaranteed by the State during the health crisis. These flights, which accounted for approximately 825,500 passengers in 2019, according to West Francecannot be provided by other carriers.
- Could others be banned?
The decree published on Tuesday provides that, “before each aeronautical season, the minister responsible for civil aviation will carry out an assessment aimed at determining the air links potentially concerned for which there is a satisfactory alternative rail service”. New connections may therefore be prohibited depending on the evolution of the train offer.
- What impact on greenhouse gas emissions?
In his statement, the Minister of Transport classifies this provision “in the policy of reducing greenhouse gas emissions”, without however specifying the real impact. Asked by Le Parisien, the Ministry of Transport did not give more information. Questioned by Ouest-France in December, a spokesperson for Greenpeace France had deplored an “extremely insufficient” measure and a “virtually zero climate benefit”. The NGO demanded a ban on flights that can be done in less than five hours by train, which, according to it, would have made it possible to “reduce CO2 emissions from metropolitan flights by 60.6%”.
According data available on the website of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, in 2019, domestic air transport emitted 5.4 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (Mt CO2 eq), compared to 0.4 for rail. However, with 71.7 Mt CO2 eq in the same year, private household cars accounted for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions in transport.
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