2023-06-07 02:03:54
France adopted weeks ago the decision to eliminate those short-haul flights that have a high-speed train alternative of less than two and a half hours. A policy that is more cosmetic than practical – only one flight has been eliminated from the Parisian Orly airport – and which, if Spain continues, would cause significant economic inefficiencies for the country. This is at least the estimate of the report “Short-haul flights in Spain”, prepared by the consulting firm PwC for Iberia, which states that a decision in this regard would have important implications not only economically but also for connectivity for the country since, in At this time, the airline considers that it is irreplaceable flights.
And it is that right now, as defended by Iberia, the role of short-haul flights is irreplaceable. Beatriz Guillén, director of Global Sales of the airline, assured yesterday that “until there is a true intermodality that allows an efficient connection of the airports with high speed, it is impossible to replace short-haul flights with train trips. Without domestic flights, it is not possible to meet the demand of the millions of travelers who need to connect with their medium or long-haul flights»said.
The PwC study maintains that in the five domestic routes in which there is a high-speed alternative less than two and a half hours away, those of Barcelona, Malaga, Valencia, Alicante and Seville, the train has gradually been replaced and natural to the plane, especially for point-to-point trips. Thus, between 2007 and 2019 the number of passengers who traveled by plane on the five routes studied decreased by more than half, from 8.97 to 4.06 million. However, the study concludes that short-haul flights continue to be essential to transfer passengers to the Madrid-Barajas hub from where Iberia and other airlines connect Spain with international destinationsespecially with Latin America and the United States.
PwC believes that, before considering the possibility of replacing short-haul flights with high-speed, efficient intermodality should be designed and deployed to ensure connectivity for these medium- and long-haul passengers. According to his calculations, of the four million travelers who used these flights last year on the aforementioned routes, more than half of them used these routes to connect with other flights, mostly medium and long-haul international. To assume that volume of travelers, the study calculates that a minimum of eight to ten high-speed trains every hour would need to be brought to the airport, coinciding with the flight departure and arrival windows. Both Iberia and PwC believe that it is a scenario from which Spain is still a long way off -the first trains will not reach the T-4 until at least 2024 or 2025, but initially with very few frequencies-, but which could be approached with investments adequate, even more so, having the privileged tool of the Next Generation funds.
Iberia also considers that the suppression of these flights would mean a significant weakening for the Barajas “hub” at this time. The report warns that a hypothetical elimination of these routes “it would reduce the national and international connectivity of the peripheral areas of Spain and would increase the risk of passenger migration to other international airportswhich would weaken the Madrid-Barajas hub in favor of others such as Paris or Frankfurt”. This, according to the consultant, would also increase environmental risks and carbon leakage, since it would mean more kilometers per flight and more CO2 because, for example, a hypothetical flight from Málaga to Bogotá, instead of making a stopover in Madrid, would do so in Paris, which would mean a longer trip and more emissions.
Economic impact
From an economic point of view, the elimination of these flights would also have a significant impact on the economy. PwC calculates that for every million passengers traveling on a domestic flight in Spain, 102 million euros are generated for the Spanish economy: 40.4 million from sectors related to aviation and 61.6 million from tourism and complementary activities. In addition, that million passengers generates 1,852 full-time jobs: 626 from sectors linked to aviation and 1,226 from tourism and complementary sectors.
The PwC study also shows how, according to specialized studies, a 10% increase in the supply of airplane seats increases foreign direct investment by 4.7%, exports by 2.5%, tourism by 4% and a 4% also the number of headquarters of large companies in the area of influence of the airport.
According to the analysis, only the five routes studied contributed to the Spanish GDP 329 million euros in 2022: 130 million from the aviation sector and 199 million from complementary sectors such as hotels, restaurants or leisure. In addition, these five routes generated 5,980 full-time jobs in 2022: 2,021 in the aviation sector and 3,959 in sectors complementary.
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