“Commitment fulfilled”? Or “champion of the Earth” in trompe l’oeil? A decree published in the Official Gazette by the government on Tuesday formalized the ban on domestic flights when a train journey of less than 2.5 hours is possible. “We are the first to do it,” greeted the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, on Twitter at night.
A restricted field of application
But in fact, very few lines will actually be affected. The fault lies with the very limited scope of the decree. For a flight to be “prohibited”, a rail link must “guarantee, in each direction, a journey of less than 2h30”.
Trains run between Lyon and Marseille in less than two hours a day, it can be seen on the SNCF website. But the connection must be “secured several times a day and with satisfactory service.” Which is not the case, Judge Matigon.
“The Lyon-Marseille air link is excluded from the measure in the current state of the rail offer. In fact, even if train travel can offer journey times of less than 2h30, they do not allow access early enough in the morning at Lyon Saint Exupéry station, or leave late enough at night”, he specifies with Provence the Directorate of Legal and Administrative Information (DILA), a central administration directorate of the Prime Minister’s office.
In Paris, Roissy replaces Orly
In addition, the decree establishes that the trip “must be made between stations that serve the same cities as the respective airports.” In the case of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, the high-speed station that serves the airport is taken into account.
Orly, the other airport in the capital, does not have a high-speed station. Therefore, Nantes-Orly connections are prohibited, Clément Beaune welcomed BFMTV on Tuesday. But not the Roissy-Nantes routes, which are still available for purchase on the Air France site.
Same logic for direct flights between Orly and Lyon: now they are prohibited, but not between Roissy and the capital of Gaul.
Matches are not taken into account
As connecting flights are not affected by the decree, it is always possible to book a trip between Orly and Lyon, BFMTV noted. In this case, Air France offers a connecting route… in Toulouse or Nice.
Same logic between Paris and Strasbourg. If a direct connection is not offered on the Air France website, it is possible to book a flight between the airports of the two cities with a connection… in Lyon.
In concrete terms, the links that fall within the scope of the decree are few: for the moment they are Orly-Nantes, Orly-Lyon and Orly-Bordeaux.
“This decree completely empties the Climate and Resilience law on this issue of its meaning,” denounces Christine Arrighi, environmental deputy for Haute-Garonne, AFP points out. The main European airline organization, Airlines for Europe (A4E), for its part, criticized the “symbolic bans” and called on governments to support “real and meaningful solutions” to decarbonise aviation.
Source: BFM TV
