France bans internal flights in favor of trains | Hacker News Reader

France bans internal flights in favor of trains

euronews.com

77 pointsvincvinc34 comments

"A tenth of all departure flights in 2019 were by private jets, T&E research found"

That's quite a lot more than I expected. Still I'm a bit disappointed there isn't more interest in going for high enough taxation to have it subsidize cleaner emissions elsewhere (e.g. about half the power in France still comes from oil and gas) rather than outright bans. If someone really wants to pay that much to get somewhere let them pay to create net reductions instead of focusing on how much that trip would create.

>about half the power in France still comes from oil and gas)

What ? Unless you're talking about global consumption, at the time of writing this comment, 12% of our electricity production comes from gas (https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR), and despite the situation being dogshit throughout Europe, the only countries cleaner than us at the moment are Norway (because shitloads of hydro and small country), Sweden (because small country and shitloads of nuclear) and Slovenia (because small country and shitloads of hydro). On a good day (read: when half of our nuclear reactors aren't busy being broken), we're at 40g eqCO2/kWh.

I guess that's what I get for taking the front chart on Wikipedia at face value. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_France seems to have some weirdly adjusted chart generated by British Petroleum of all sources as the main image. I'm not even sure I understand what the heck the "inefficiency" factor they applied is supposed to be based on.

Thanks for the correction.

That source would be from the bp statistical review of world energy, a widely quoted and surprisingly impartial collection of energy statistics. Charts and stats from that annual publication turn up all over the place. Disappointly, they're going to stop publishing it from next year.

I don't think I've ever seen a better example of consumer choice/free market ideology run amok. So instead of just banning something that's bad we have people fly around needlessly and then tax them so we can take their money and build a carbon capture plant next to their private airport, and we all do this so we're not mean to them?

> instead of focusing on how much that trip would create.

you need to focus on that anyway if you put a tax on their behavior

They would leave and take their tax revenue with them.

Would they really? Because they can't fly?

A very questionable assertion, that is trotted out any time we talk about making the rich pay for their excesses.

Being able to fly domestically is not the sole reason wealthy people live in France

Pay to play. If they want a piece of the economy they pay to get it.

I mean I guess carbon capture could be an option but it's probably bottom of the list in terms of effective things to use the subsidies for. Primarily I'd imagine it going to cost offsetting the transition to greener alternatives for other things people want to stop using as I gave examples of above. We would do it because it's better for everyone involved, even at the individual level. Nobody here has said we'd do it because it's mean to ban things.

> you need to focus on that anyway if you put a tax on their behavior

The tax would focus on the emissions not the behavior. If you mean "someone needs to calculate the emissions caused by the behavior" well sure but that's hardly making the behavior a focus let alone the focus.

But taxing means there's an opportunity for revenue to build more green infrastructure. Yes, that tax needs revisited in the future to make sure it's still accomplishing it's goal, but Europe is currently in the midst of an energy crisis due to lack of investment in local green power infrastructure (and instead relying on Russian gas for electricity). What solves this problem? Investment! What does investment require? Money! What do taxes generate? Money!

Yet trains remain very expensive and ticket prices continue to go up.

Example: Nice - Marseilles 38€ train - 9€ bus (40min slower)

What else would you expect? If you reduce consumer options artificially, the available options will obviously go up in price. Flights exist for a reason.

French rail is mostly state owned and heavily subsidized so I don't think that follows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_France

How does it not follow? Does state ownership and subsidization supersede the fundamental reality of demand and supply?

Yes. By definition price can't be the intersection of supply and demand if there are subsidies. Also Econ 101 isn't "fundamental reality", it's a useful model.

> By definition price can't be the intersection of supply and demand if there are subsidies

That's what the government would like to believe. But with incentives perverse enough, the reality of the market starts sneaking into the system in unpredictable ways. For example, if train tickets are extremely subsidized and flight travel is banned, people will start re-selling tickets at a higher price in the black market.

> it's a useful model.

Yes, it is very useful. And dangerous to think it doesn't apply just because a bureaucrat sitting somewhere in the government apparatus thought it would be a good idea to subsidize trains and ban flights.

Will this reduce the popularity of long-haul flights into hubs in France (e.g. CDG), since it won't be possible to get connecting flights to other cities in France?

2h30 by train is not a whole lot. All this does is ban people from taking a 4h long total flight (taking into account going to and from the airport, waiting, etc.) that basically brings you next door. Nobody gets connecting flights to other cities in France. If you're coming from a long haul, you either land in Orly/Roissy, Nice or Toulouse. From these places, you're either still far enough from your destination to take another flight, or you never had a connection to begin with.

EDIT:

Thankfully, Paris isn't the only city in France. Yes, the city that concentrates every infrastructure has infrastructure to go everywhere from it, fast.

Try to go from Nice to Lyon, Toulouse to Bordeaux (which is juuuuust on that 2h30 limit), Nantes to Brest, etc. All of these cities that are still major, but just connected through a TER will keep having access to these flights.

Truly, it's just Paris.

2h30 on the TGV is a whole lot. Keep also in mind that train stations are typically in the center of a city unlike air ports (with few exceptions). You can get from CDG to Bordeaux in as little as 2h using the TGV.

It'll lead to perverse outcomes like people in one city in France flying to Germany or Spain, and then back to their destination in France, instead of flying directly.

No one will ever do that. It's only for trips that can be replaced by a train trip of less than 2.5 hours, you won't fly from France to Germany back to France in 2.5 hours if you include reaching the airport+security+plane switch

You're not thinking like an air traveler who is just short on air miles to stay in the freqent flyer club. Flying isn't about convenience or speed you know. It's about being a big shot who flys places and has the platinum club card to show for it.

Is that supposed to be an argument _for_ air travel ?

2 flights (security screening, boarding, unboarding, security screening, transfer time, boarding, unboarding, taxi/train to the city) sounds much less pleasant than a train ride (hop on somewhere central, relax, hop off somewhere central).

This would also be great in Germany, but it's impossible to establish, because people want a seat. In contrast to TGV, tickets for the ICE do not include a seat reservation. And if you pay extra for it, there is this the possibility of unplanned shorter trains, substitute trains without carried-over reservation numbers or any other failure.

This is a fairly big issue. Trains just feel like a worse deal in Germany.

I want to choose the train more often, but I don't want to stand up for a whole leg of the journey. I also struggle to justify paying the same price as if I drove there myself, and significantly more than if I flew, yet lose either the flexibility or the time savings.

If you really want to reduce CO2 emissions, you need to ban cars, buses, and SUVs before you address planes.

https://truecostblog.com/2010/05/27/fuel-efficiency-modes-of...

Flippancy aside, in most cases the transportation mode has a relatively similar rate of emission. The problem is the number of miles travelled.

Not to worry, Steven Spielberg's types will get an exception. And "a Frenchman who is careful in his daily life" won't even know about it, since it will be forbidden/discouraged to write about.

I hope there won't be any rolling blackouts this winter, then.

Does anyone know whether this also applies to the government?

Time to bump the TGV capacity. Last time I tried to buy a ticket for the TGV from Rennes to Bordeaux it was fully booked, which appears to be a common theme.

I don't see a mention of le-bourget, which is where the bulk of private flights are operating.

fantastic to see this type of state intervention. People have choices, but those sometimes the consequences of those choices are too severe and choices need to be removed

Well, looks like people won't have a choice... but it'll be 'good' PR without making any difference.

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