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Comment by pmyteh | Hacker News Reader

Trains already beat planes in practice for city-to-city journeys with a train time of <3h, because of the time of getting to and from airports, checkin etc. London-Paris flights were decimated when the channel tunnel opened, for instance. And rail will have a decent share (on price, atmosphere, or ability to work while traveling) up to about 4.5h. Beyond that it's much harder to justify.

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> Trains already beat planes in practice for city-to-city journeys with a train time of <3h, because of the time of getting to and from airports, checkin etc

...and then politicians such as Ursula von der Leyen hop in their jets. This summer the EU Commission President took a 19 minute(!) flight from Vienna to Bratislava (the two cities are ~60km apart) in a private yet, but still managed to be driven ~60km by road during the transfers from central Vienna out to VIE airport and from BTS airport back to central Bratislava.

https://www.diepresse.com/6055894/kritik-an-19-minuten-flug-...

Who could possibly care about that? She's attending meetings and events in professional and political capacity as the Commission President, it's not personal holiday time. The climate cannot possibly suffer some meaningfully negatively impact from her transportation means between events, whereas there could be meaningfully positive impacts from her maximizing presence in certain events.

It's difficult to convince people to change their habits when the person delivering the message is doing the complete opposite.

But she's the Commission President—an executive position for a very complex and powerful international institution. If she were an MEP, then fine, I could accept that an MEP does not have anywhere the representative power such that their time could be so important as to need chartered flights... But I do not accept that for major executive operating in that capacity should be beholden to mere messaging politics. You cannot predict the traffic situation ahead of time, whereas you know to the very minute what any flight times are, which makes them vital for planning at that level.

Why would you want the Executive leader of the EU risking event and meeting timings when she's representing almost the entire continent all in order to "deliver a message"? Should the US president take a taxi when going from DC to New York?

In any case the message is clearly not dependent on this since basically only the AfD and British tabloids are feigning outrage over this.

>You cannot predict the traffic situation ahead of time, whereas you know to the very minute what any flight times are, which makes them vital for planning at that level.

That's a bit of a red herring. Air travel is often disrupted, probably as much as trains.

>In any case the message is clearly not dependent on this since basically only the AfD and British tabloids are feigning outrage over this.

Well we are discussing it here and this is definitely no the Daily Mail.

Ideally, they're servants of the public/people. Not modern kings/queens, which is what most people see them as (even if temporary ones). So yes, they should be setting examples.

People who don’t want to change their habits will take any reason not to.

Which is perhaps all the more reason for spokespeople to act beyond reproach rather than an excuse to justify a 60km flight.

It’s hopeless. It boils down to “I am not going to listen to you because you don’t follow the arbitrary standards I just set, and that I am going to redefine if I feel like it”. It’s the same mental gymnastics as brexiteers and trumpists who justify their behaviour because Londoners and liberals are mean to them.

Besides, she is not a spokesperson. She is the head of the civil service.

A 60km flight is terrible, no doubt about that. However, had it been 500, you’d have heard the exact same complaints.

Did she continue her trip from BTS on plane?

> A spokesman for the EU Commission justified the flight to the "Bild" newspaper: "With departure and arrival in Belgium, the President's trip took seven countries in two days. Alternatives were examined, but there was no other logistical option." That same evening von der Leyen flew to Riga in a private plane.

That's a weird one. I wonder what the details of that case were. Without any context it seems pretty dumb to drive 60Km and Fly 60Km when you could have just driven that 60Km of flying instead.

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