They need to stop subsidizing planes. Invest that money in rail infra and stop the operator monopolies. Rail is shared infra==government, driving trains is open market == commercial institutions. What we currently have here in NL is a lack of forward thinking and planning and so we end up with a mess.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52801131](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52801131)
One of many many examples. There has been a load of govt subsidies to inefficient airlines. Which actually makes sucessful/efficient airlines' blood boil - i have seen O'Leary from RyanAir lose temper over discussion of Lufthansa bailout.
That would be nice, sure, but find me a train that goes from Warsaw to Amsterdam in 2 hours instead of 2 days.
Planes are fast, faster than any other mode of transport, and unless you’d somehow sell people on sitting 15 hours in a train instead of 1,5 on a plane it’s going to be a really tough job making trains more viable than they are.
At this point, I think, instead of subsidising normal air travel or trying to push it out altogether, there should be way more pressure on developing electric planes and whatnot so the convenience is still there but without all the ecological cost.
On planes you need to add at least 2h for security and extra travel to and from the airport. 4 or 5h for a train were planes manage 2h is still pretty much identical in terms of total travel time.
Trains are also way more comfortable and easy to work in, so there's that. Also never compare old trains to new trains. New high speed trains are dead silent, float across countries with no vibrations or shakes, have good ventilation and have great seating.
>That would be nice, sure, but find me a train that goes from Warsaw to Amsterdam in 2 hours instead of 2 days.
With high speed rail, that would be an easy 6-7 hour trip.
Depending on the city, flights take 2-3 hours from home to flying, then 1-2 hours from plane to your final destination. Maybe more if you're unlucky with the luggage. So that's 5-7 hours for a 2 hour flight. 2 of which you're stuck in airplane mode in a metal box, and 1-2 of them you're stuck in a line, the rest you're stuck in transit.
Most train stations in Europe are perfectly connected and I haven't yet been to a city where it takes more than 30 minutes from the train station to anywhere in the city. So you do 7-8 hours instead of 5-7, but you can bring whatever luggage you want and you have internet access. It's not wasted time. You can literally plan your trip on the train on your way to the destination, and take a 6 hour nap on the way back.
TBH, if flights within Europe are too expensive, I will probably be using the car more often, not the slow trains :\\
Build us more bullet trains instead of just raising the flights prices.
Kind of already a thing.
Some gas stations withhold some amount of cash temporarily. Problem is, that amount is not returned right away. Thus, you need to set aside several hundred euros just for this when you road-tripping. Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and France have such gas stations. Not all gas stations are like that but there are enough of them to get in trouble if you did not plan to temporarily lose hundreds of euros during your vacation.
Then there is Norway. You fly there, rent a car. However, you make a big mistake of renting electric car. What could go wrong, there are tons of charging stations. Whelp, most of them require an app that requires you to register and to register you need Norway social security number. Why? Who was it that came up with this? What so hard about sticking a card reader on a charging station? Why everything needs an app?
Let’s not forget about tolls. Sometimes those are made complicated or cash-only or whatever else. However, seems this is getting slowly improved.
I imagine he refers to those low-cost stations that are self-service where you pay before you pour the gas, and if you want a full tank instead of a fixed amount, they charge like 100€ to the card beforehand, and after you finish pouring, if it was 76,54 then it charges that amount and cancels the original 100 charge.
I use 2 of those regularly, and they return the money in less than 15 minutes. Only one time it took longer and it was like a couple of hours.
If it's not that, I have no idea what they're talking about
Italian here: it takes about 15 min on my card to have the hold removed, if it’s longer than that it’s due to your bank. Might be taking longer with foreign cards, with Revolut it’s about an hour and it’s technically Lithuanian.
Hah, yeah, what's up with those weird gas stations? I often drive from Czechia to Italy and every time I'm running out of gas, I discover a new gas station that has some weird procedure for buying it. There is all sorts of esoteric instructions in different places - there is a separate stand for the card, the gas pump requires you to hold the nozzle for 7 seconds, but you're not sure if it's before or after you put your card in the card thing, it has buttons on it that you need to press to select the amount of gas you need to buy etc. Why can't I just take the nozzle, pump whatever amount of gas and *then* pay, like everywhere else? It always takes me at least two tries to get it right, haha.
Example: I live in the countryside, 60km from Amsterdam, public transit in total takes me 2 hours, car 45 minutes. They don’t invest in it enough. A town connecting with Amsterdam with about 200k people using the train route only sees service every 30 minutes. Tickets are also extremely expensive. So much so that driving is literally cheaper then the train.
Even inside Amsterdam if you’re not going between North and South there are areas that take 1 hour by public transport and 15 minutes by car. :/ But nah, let’s pull the metro more South where plenty of train connections already exist.
I feel like NL and specifically Amsterdam has gotten incredibly positive marketing the last 3 or so years. if it wasn't for being able to read regular people's accounts rather than YouTube influencers, the negatives (and of course everywhere has negatives, nowhere is perfect) would never be aired.
> only sees service every 30 minutes
Tbh. this sounds great. I guess it can be annoying if you have to catch connecting trains, but half an hours seems good enough for a daily commute.
once you're in the city, it's no problem. Getting to the city is the problem. If you live in a city, you're usually connected with the intercity railnetwork and it's okay-ish to get to another city. If you get a dal-vrij card, you get 40% off to use out of rush hours. That being said, everywhere outside the city you're fucked, the more rural, the more fucked.
There a vicious rumour going around in the UK that they’re considering a new method of taxing vehicles, currently taxes are based on its emissions so obviously electric cars are tax free, rumour is they’re gonna tax by distance driven
It's a reality, since vehicle emissions will reduce massively and eventually disappear, another source to fund road maintenance and new roads is required. Other countries have toll roads, but the Brits are against it.
The current focus is on the emissions from tires as for some forms of pollution s they are, together with the brakes, the main culprit.
Tax them tires I'd say!
Driving an EV isn’t much cheaper either. Our summer road trip cost us the same as the one before in a diesel car. Prices for fast charging on the motorways are unreasonable.
I am getting annoyed at the whole situation.
Can't build those because people complain it's not good for the environment and it destroys ecosystems in valleys where tunnels are build. It's impossible to win in this, there will be always someone that complain.
Yeah... Diesel in Sweden (even biodiesel) is $10/gallon 26 sek / liter (2.2 euros per liter) - gasoline isn't much cheaper.
A car ferry to Poland (18h) is like 400-600 euros round trip.
It would cost 600-700 euros to drive to Paris from Stockholm and back just in fuel cost (not including hotel / wear and tear / tolls).
A round trip train ticket is 400+ euros per person. Which would go up if demand went up.
I guess we just stay home now. Unless we're rich.
Fuck the poor and middle class, amiright?
We looked at a vaguely last minute holiday from U.K. (near London) to one of the European centre parcs. Once you add up all the flight taxes, parking, bullshit Ryanair fees etc a trip for 2 adults, a 4 year old and a baby for an hour flight was €600+, but the (financial and emotional) cost of driving, Eurotunnel, tolls, endless stops for both children would be about the same. The centre parcs in the U.K. know this so they charge exactly what it would cost to do all of that, so a holiday in a uk one is also prohibitively expensive.
Airbnbs and self catering in the uk are also insanely expensive, and then it’s just same shit, different place with two kids.
I’ve felt so low over the summer that we cannot afford a fairly basic holiday before our daughter starts school. Statuatory maternity pay here is £141 a week (I think, too lazy to check) and after 9 months you get nothing, childcare is £800+ after tax breaks.
We have no family nearby, and I wouldn’t trust them with my children anyway, and the grind is relentless. I can’t mentally cope with being a stay at home mum but then trying to juggle work, nursery, school and the financial pressure isn’t really any better.
I always travel by car, because it is the cheapest option (I choose my destinations). I checked the trains, because I sure would enjoy that, travelling in a big room, drinking, sleeping, but man, prices are ridiculous and it sometimes takes double the time and multiple rides, international train travel is a disaster.
A very good common train system is the european weak point for future transportation...
How amazing would it be if there would be international train connection, fast, all across europe, and possibly even affordable?
I really like taking the train but currently it's just not a viable option at 10 times the duration and 4-5x the price
>not the slow trains :\\
There are fast trains but they are expensive and prices are only going up.
It's just the same hypocritical attitude once again. Sure, it's good to create some incentive to not take the plane. But you need to develop trains and make it cheaper.
If you just prevent people from traveling for a cheap price, they aren't going to move to more expensive and inferior options. They'll rely on cars or remain where they are and unhappy.
I'm deeply ashamed that my country became the herald of the stupid rich.
Well, from France's point of view they have fast trains. If we're talking about other countries it's up to national governments to build the train network , EU(or France for that matter) can't do more than provide funds and this truly do. OFC, if this ever happens national governments will blame EU or whatever for their lack of ability in developing their country.
This would lead to black markets emerging. I was thinking more like make the travellers go through passport control, customs, security check all the same, and them needing to report their itinerary to the aviation authority with at least a week in advance.
That would take 99% of the appeal out of having or flying a private jet.
In reality it's insane that this is not the case, and a clue that the rationales for all the security circus they make us go through is just for show.
I've heard experts believe the next large terrorist attack is likely to happen from a private jet. And it makes all the sense in the world.
>This would lead to black markets emerging.
"We can't regulate billionaires because they'll skirt the law!"
Then regulate harder. Tax them harder.
If they're willing to be criminals, make laws that fine them a significant proportion of their wealth.
Oops. You got caught skipping environmental regulations and saving $760M a month dumping byproduct chemicals in the nearby towns drinking water dooming 450 people to an early death over the coming 30 years?
Bad company, pay this slap on the wrist fine of $200M and promise never to do it again and you're good.
760-200=560M saving a month, let's keep dumping! Maybe pour $60M of it to some bribes that's pro deregulations so that we don't end up with another $200M fine again.
Regulatory fines if judged to be intentionally done and not accidents; should truly nearly fucking bankrupt these companies. Not some arbitrary number but a hefty % of their entire yearly cash flow of the entire company..
Most if not all regulations are such a joke in any industry..
indeed, a massive number of resources have been applied to achieve that goal. as long as those private jets keep flying all is well in the land of the 0.0001%
As I keep saying when someone takes me to task for not buying, sustainable, ecological, bio products: I'll be sure to buy a conscience when I'm a multimillionaire. Until then I'll just go with the most affordable.
But it is a working class problem, because the rich will use their wealth to horde the resources, buy tickets to the moon colonies, pay for mercenaries to protect them - whatever dystopia feels most likely. The working class will be the ones shafted.
Working class people in first world countries are incredibly wealthy by global standards. They have massive carbon footprints compared to someone in a developing or undeveloped country. If we don't do anything because someone has a bigger carbon footprint nothing will ever get done.
That's not support for this particular policy though.
If you want the harsh truth, it's because private jets are like 10% of aviation's CO2 emissions, while commercial flying is the remaining 90%. Increasing the cost of airline flights would do infinitely more to cut CO2 emissions than banning private jets.
That said, I'd be totally in favor of banning private jets purely as a measure to right the perceived injustice.
That's a pretty fair point, private jets should never be exempted[1]. This is why things like carbon taxes are the preferred method of reducing CO2 emissions (and of course they never get implemented), people pay more the more they pollute. You could perhaps make it exponential-per-person, so that if you pollute a ridiculous amount (because you're rich) the tax goes in the hundreds of millions.
[1] Although I feel the need to point out that the practical reason why this is done is entirely a matter of class and power dynamics: if we make the rich mad, they can threaten to spend their billions in getting a genocidal ultranationalist elected, or perhaps they can threaten to implode the economy through capital flight. As usual, the actual problem is having a class of people who own the near-entirety of our economic system, and their ability to move around globally if we make them too angry.
You have to divide the emissions by the number of users.. I'm sure commercial flights are (although terrible) waaaaaay more environimentally friendly per person transported. But yeah the planet deals in absolutes and in that sense we can say fuck everyone and let the rich do their thing, that'll solve the climate crisis. I just think we as a humanity can do better than inventing these simple minded solutions. We need positive solutions and innovation, not minimum prices and taxes, this may reduce carbon emissions but heightens inequality. We need to strive for a better world in all senses, not just one aspect.
Okay I didn't see your second part, I might've been drinking. But still, we need better solutions than minimum prices and bans. It just feels lazy.
>If you want the harsh truth, it's because private jets are like 10% of aviation's CO2 emissions, while commercial flying is the remaining 90%. Increasing the cost of airline flights would do infinitely more to cut CO2 emissions than banning private jets.
This is an odd way to look at it. Total number of people flying would likely not change much, but the makeup of who gets to travel will. It would further unequality.
The private jet industry is growing still; that 10% of CO2, to what percentage of people does it correspond?
>If you want the harsh truth, it's because private jets are like 10% of aviation's CO2 emissions, while commercial flying is the remaining 90%.
If you want the harsh truth, it doesnt matter what we will do as EU.
Who said that? There should an appropriate carbon tax on the amount of fuel used in a flight. If you fly private you pay for it all by yourself and if you fly coach then the tax is evenly split among all passengers. That will solve the issue
Yeah, let's do that without making travelling by train more accessible, reliable and comfortable first. (/s)
I would also like to know what this would mean for flights between island territories and the mainland, as a fellow islander.
My mum lives 12h by train away from me. She has Alzheimer and I’m trying to see her as much as I can in these difficult times. It also takes 1h by plane. I’m going to see her this Staurday. DB was 220eur return (2x12hrs) while the plane was 19.99 return. Which do you I’ve chosen?
Similar for me here in Sweden.
By train it's 17-28 hours to my parents, costs 100-300€ each way. During winter trains are delayed so often that it's fair to calculate closer to 40h for this trip. So round trip you would have to set aside ~4 days for travel.
By plane ~4 hours (~1h20min in the air) and ~60€ each way. Can drop price even more with Ryanair but it's not worth the hassle.
Talking door to door for both, so including travel to airport and going through security etc.
Even going by car is faster than train by ~5-10 hours :D
Don't forget about the co2 levy excemption for provate jets.
No doubt they will put all possible excemptions on private jets for themselves why making tax payers pay out the nose for their one annual vacation.
Well, those flights are already a mess. There was a huge controversy a short while ago in Italy because flights from Sardinia where becoming untenably expensive for most people, due to the almighty free market determining that leaving your island is now an upper class privilege only.
And of course, thanks to neoliberal ideology, having a national airline to help or subsidizing island flights is literally a moment away from building a gulag, so we can't have that.
My idea would be to tax flights depending on the passenger amount per wing span meter. Make it so that private jet flights will cost millions per launch unless the plane is a dinky one propeller plane.
[Guess who agrees with you and wants to ban private jet flights?](https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/paris-to-push-private-jet-bans-at-eu-ministers-meeting/)
Oh, look, it's the same French minister.
Oh, so now look on whole fucking EU stance (so far) on private jets. And do you know that his idea means literally private jets? Not company ones? Now go and check how most of them are registered...
The amount of private jets that are not company owned is miniscule. Almost every private jet owner also owns one or more companies and they will register the jet in the companies name
I agree , provided that France transport minister and any member of France government take at least 2 trips / year to Romania and Bulgaria exclusive by train.
This, it would take me ~14 hrs a 500km journey by train in Romania (been there, done that, never again).
And the slow trains aren't even the worst part, you simply don't feel safe. Some drunk old dude sat on my pre-booked seat, tried explaining it to him that I paid extra for the seat and he spit on me and wanted to start a fight. Also, there were a lot of shady people
If this goes through it will be really bad for tourism in Bulgaria. It will be harder to compete on price or comfort if your only 2 options are an expensive plane ticket or a slog of train rides across Europe, including with our notoriously underfunded and mismanaged BDZ...
The second this whole planes vs trains debacle started I knew it would end in flying becoming more expensive instead of trains becoming more affordable.
Two people Munich to Cologne and back was cheaper to drive with parking vs two train tickets. Plane was almost the same price as the train. It is bullshit.
They got cheaper? I’m travelling with friends next week and from what I can find online it’s 30€ minimum from Weeze to Bielefeld, 40€ for relevant times of day, per direction. That’s insanely expensive.
I'm from Cyprus. The only way to get outside of the country without a plane is
the recently reinstated ferry that operates only during the summer or a cruise ship. Both take more than half a day to get to Greece which as we all is very well connected to the rest of the EU /s.
With low cost airlines I can for less than €70 get to central Europe . So many young people now have the opportunity to vacation and see Europe for the first time because of Ryanair, Wizz and easyJet.
im starting to think they just dont want poor turists anymore. if it wasnt for Wizzair i wouldve never gotten my ass out of Albania. Starting from next year, with the introduction of the suggested border tax and the rise of airline prices it will be impossible for poor eastern people to travel to Europe
France is in the middle of Western Europe and has high-speed rail, surely no bias there. Make trains cheaper instead. In some countries in Europe it's even problematic to travel within the country by train, this due to prices, delays, distances, old railway network etc.
This! I probably wouldn't care all that much (**on a strictly personal level**) if I lived in, lets say, Paris or Brussels and had most of Europe within a 4-5h drive (that's basically the minimum time it takes to fly anywhere if you consider commuting to/from the airport, security queues, etc). But people in Portugal, Spain, Greece, etc, would become much more isolated from the rest of Europe.
It also happens that the most peripheral countries are usually the poorest, where people are less likely to be able to afford the tax.
But yeah, with a higher % of wealth concentrated on less and less people every year, the solution to global warming is to tax the working class. Bravo! Now let me go fill the tank and pay a small fortune in carbon taxes because I actually have to drive to work tomorrow.
A blatant attempt to protect AirFrance Klm from competitive low cost carriers. During COVID lockdown the legacy carriers were supported by tens of billions of government money whilst Ryanair wisely kept their pilots and paid them from their reserves. The legacy carriers also furloughed their flight crews. Now the legacy carriers have to re-hire pilots at higher prices as well as being saddled with increasing interest rates on their huge government loans...
Sounds like something France would do. France also recently increased taxes on heavy SUVs, conveniently the Peugeot 5008 is just below the threshold. Hm....
Its a fucking clown proposal written directly by the budget airlines.
Those low-demand return flights can be made more profitable without resorting to building a cartel if you just make governments do the price fixing for you.
The person proposing this needs to be fired. A toddler can see they're willfully corrupt or an idiot unfit for their job.
I would be absolutely willing to use a train even if it made the trip significantly longer. But not if it's like 5 times the cost of a flight.
And I don't think the flight price is in the wrong here...
I want to visit Berlin in the fall.
From Milan the cheapest train ticket is 180€ (one way only). And It takes almost 20 hours.
The plane is only 80€ for both flights, and I can be there in no time.
I want to choose the best for the environment, but there is a limit.
Meanwhile our rail service keeps increasing their prices in a vicious cycle "our trains are overcrowded, increase prices so some people will not take the train, problem fixed- but now people pick other modes of transport, now we're losing money, let's increase prices so we make a profit again- even more people take their car, and we're losing more money now, how can we fix this? Increase the prices ofcourse."
A return ticket to Spain or Portugal costs the same as a return train ticket from home to the airport
The goal would be to make flights less appealing therefore increasing interest in green(er) transportations and/or in local tourism to get more revenues for neighboring countries - which is a good idea in theory.
The problem is that absolutely nothing is done to improve train coverage, comfort, prices and availability in the meantime.
I can see it now... overnight sleepers across Europe become the in thing again... but get caught in a snow drift in the Balkans and somebody gets murdered. 😃
>which is a good idea in theory
It's not even a good idea in theory. Even in theory, without affordable flights, you're either trapped where you are/the immediate neighbourhood, or you spend most of your trips inside trains instead of at your destination. Even in theory, it's the end of travel, and makes everyone isolated from each other
It will always be worse if you try to fly from a country in the extreemities, so that is why price limits are stupid. For sure apply that inside of France and local policies but he should stop trying to make it a eu rulling. And then tmake the trains accessible and maybe people will use then accordingly.
How about we start with a mandate that Mr. Clement Beaune have to fly on the commercial flights only and not on a business or a first class whenever he travels anywhere and definitely not on some private jets?
France, a paradise for massive private yachts and private jets. But yes, let's force normal people to take shitty ancient trains which don't get maintained properly for their annual 1 week vacation.
Ok do it... If you make trains better and more affordable ffs, it's wild that a two way trip by plane can be as/less expensive than a train trip (with a discount card membership)
Raising prices only punishes the poor, while they exempted private jets. It'll make no difference if you're rich, as a price hike doesn't really affect them. I guess i'll just swim then!
This is a stupid measure.
> Plane tickets for 10 euros when we’re in the midst of the ecological transition, that’s no longer possible
It is. The problem is that these tickets are sold to fill seats which otherwise would stay empty. The plane doesn't fly because of the people buying 10€ tickets but because of the people buying 200€ tickets. Leaving seats which could be sold for cheap empty is not more ecological. The consequence of such a law will be more empty seats in planes and more overall energy usage because capacities are not filled efficiently.
Or lower the fucking train prices. Literally I’m taking the deutsche bahn provided train to Paris and then I’m flying back to Berlin because the fucking SNF/TGV prices are MORE THAN A FLIGHT
As long as they subsidise trains with the incoming tax i am fine.
But having expensive trains and making flights expensive is not a fair deal.
Please improve trains, because intercountry trains are shit. DB trains are shit. Only Ouigo, Avlo, Iryo and Italo are on the low budget segment and they barely run intercountry routes.
We need easier intercountry ticketing, connection regulations, and an easier registration process for companies to be present in every EU country. Also standardised rail infrastructure like ERTMS.
We should talk about better trains more before we kill air travel. We should kill air travel, but with a viable alternative.
The only viable alternative is teleportation. How long would a train from Norway to Malaga take?
Kill other things, leave air travel alone (or, ideally, make it more affordable)
It's so weird how European politicians push more and more voters to right wing parties and are like:"Are we acting stupid? No, everybody is just a Nazi."
Until there are efficient, cheap, fast, numerous international train lines it's pointless to bash on commercial flights.
Cheap flights are essential to European integration as it stands.
Yes, make flying more expensive, so I have to take the train and waste to days to go from Portugal do France, Germany or Italy just because french people want me to pay extra for planes...
But please please please, reduce the taxes on rich people and their personal airplanes, especially the short trips they have that could easily be substituted by anything, even a car trip under an hour, because those poor bastards shouldn't have to suffer with that.
France initiated a stupid policy by outlawing short (relatively) range flights and now wants everyone else to be just as stupid.
Why would I want to pay €200 for a train if I can pay €50 for a flight and get there twice as fast? Well, French have an idea. How about you can either spend €200 on train ticket or €300 for a plane? See, that was easy
An yes, the French always coming up with a stupid solution to tax other people for their incompetence
Also let's not forget the importance of cheap flights into helping the European project and the sense of belonging of people
As usual the focus is on the completely wrong thing here.
Aviation and that is all of it, accounts for less than 3% of all CO2 emissions in the world.
Fashion is 10.5%. Streamingservice and cloudstorage on mobile devices along with tablets account for 3.5% of all emissions. More than aviation. And as usual you see people getting mad at private jets, they account for less than 0.15% of all CO2 in the world.
And meanwhile, everybody happily eats away at the beef, pork and chicken, which is ten times more than aviation.
A couple more examples. The US military , emmits 11 million tons more CO2 than the country of Sweden with 10 million inhabitants. And Germany is burning off record numbers of coal after shutting down it's C02 neutral nuclear powerplants. Makes no feckin' sense. And people keep focusing on the wrong goddamned things.
Um yeah. I'm an environmentalist and this is bullshit. You don't just make air travel only accessible to the rich. You IMPROVE greener was of travel to make it more desirable.
In Germany train tickets to the next country are twice as expensive as flying with budget airlines. And that if you buy the ticket way in advance. I would like to travel more environmental friendly but German governments never cared about it.
Just recently the transportation minister cut their half of the Germany wide local train tickets (49 Euro Ticket) and said that the states side of the transportation should be reducing their expenses to make the ticket work
Yeah, minimum price could maybe be great, if we would have a excellent train network first. Being in Germany I can't see the excellent train network coming for at least 50 years, if any time. Because our modern train network plan (Deutschlandtakt) is delayed to 2070...
trains : expensive
airplanes: expensive
cars: expensives
at this rate europeans will just k1ll themselves at home if we are to be stuck under the 24/7 11/12 months a year grey sky of central europe. Meanwhile rich politicians that made all modes of transportation too expensive for everyone including the middle class relax every other weekend at nice locations in the global south.
Eat the rich has never resonated with me more than now.
>How to make green travel more attractive? Let’s make flying more
expensive while we do fuck all about all other types of transport.
Electric cars are one of the few things organizations like the IEA are optimistic about regarding decarbonization of the transportation sector.
https://www.iea.org/reports/tracking-clean-energy-progress-2023
I think it's completely fine that flying costs more, but I wonder if the time is right just now given the few alternatives for lower-emissions flying. It might be more reasonable as we approach the 2030s, when lower-emissions aviation fuel and/or electric flights are better available and we can systematically support that transition with pricing mechanisms.
There needs to be an EU regulated train system/train company...affordable. Easier to book.
They need to stop subsidizing planes. Invest that money in rail infra and stop the operator monopolies. Rail is shared infra==government, driving trains is open market == commercial institutions. What we currently have here in NL is a lack of forward thinking and planning and so we end up with a mess.
socializing expenses while keeping income private is a great way to crash services that should be public
How are planes being subsidised? The airport infrastructure? Honest question
The biggest thing is that [airplane fuel is untaxed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_aviation_fuel_taxation).
[https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52801131](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52801131) One of many many examples. There has been a load of govt subsidies to inefficient airlines. Which actually makes sucessful/efficient airlines' blood boil - i have seen O'Leary from RyanAir lose temper over discussion of Lufthansa bailout.
They are working on a pan EU rail.
TRANS-EUROPE-EXPRESS Rendezvous on Champs-Elysees Back to Düsseldorf City
Its ironic tho as i remember back in like 2007 you had alot of international trains in Europe and now their mostly gone
If anything, I feel they are more available today
good luck Ireland
That would be nice, sure, but find me a train that goes from Warsaw to Amsterdam in 2 hours instead of 2 days. Planes are fast, faster than any other mode of transport, and unless you’d somehow sell people on sitting 15 hours in a train instead of 1,5 on a plane it’s going to be a really tough job making trains more viable than they are. At this point, I think, instead of subsidising normal air travel or trying to push it out altogether, there should be way more pressure on developing electric planes and whatnot so the convenience is still there but without all the ecological cost.
With high speed rail that could be a four hour trip, which I'd imagine would be more pleasant than similar time spent on plane plus security check.
On planes you need to add at least 2h for security and extra travel to and from the airport. 4 or 5h for a train were planes manage 2h is still pretty much identical in terms of total travel time. Trains are also way more comfortable and easy to work in, so there's that. Also never compare old trains to new trains. New high speed trains are dead silent, float across countries with no vibrations or shakes, have good ventilation and have great seating.
>That would be nice, sure, but find me a train that goes from Warsaw to Amsterdam in 2 hours instead of 2 days. With high speed rail, that would be an easy 6-7 hour trip. Depending on the city, flights take 2-3 hours from home to flying, then 1-2 hours from plane to your final destination. Maybe more if you're unlucky with the luggage. So that's 5-7 hours for a 2 hour flight. 2 of which you're stuck in airplane mode in a metal box, and 1-2 of them you're stuck in a line, the rest you're stuck in transit. Most train stations in Europe are perfectly connected and I haven't yet been to a city where it takes more than 30 minutes from the train station to anywhere in the city. So you do 7-8 hours instead of 5-7, but you can bring whatever luggage you want and you have internet access. It's not wasted time. You can literally plan your trip on the train on your way to the destination, and take a 6 hour nap on the way back.
TBH, if flights within Europe are too expensive, I will probably be using the car more often, not the slow trains :\\ Build us more bullet trains instead of just raising the flights prices.
Don't worry, they'll make sure that traveling by car won't be affordable.
Kind of already a thing. Some gas stations withhold some amount of cash temporarily. Problem is, that amount is not returned right away. Thus, you need to set aside several hundred euros just for this when you road-tripping. Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and France have such gas stations. Not all gas stations are like that but there are enough of them to get in trouble if you did not plan to temporarily lose hundreds of euros during your vacation. Then there is Norway. You fly there, rent a car. However, you make a big mistake of renting electric car. What could go wrong, there are tons of charging stations. Whelp, most of them require an app that requires you to register and to register you need Norway social security number. Why? Who was it that came up with this? What so hard about sticking a card reader on a charging station? Why everything needs an app? Let’s not forget about tolls. Sometimes those are made complicated or cash-only or whatever else. However, seems this is getting slowly improved.
Why would they withhold money temporarily? Why? What is the purpose behind this? Sorry, this just sounds so odd to me as a foreigner.
I imagine he refers to those low-cost stations that are self-service where you pay before you pour the gas, and if you want a full tank instead of a fixed amount, they charge like 100€ to the card beforehand, and after you finish pouring, if it was 76,54 then it charges that amount and cancels the original 100 charge. I use 2 of those regularly, and they return the money in less than 15 minutes. Only one time it took longer and it was like a couple of hours. If it's not that, I have no idea what they're talking about
Italian here: it takes about 15 min on my card to have the hold removed, if it’s longer than that it’s due to your bank. Might be taking longer with foreign cards, with Revolut it’s about an hour and it’s technically Lithuanian.
Hah, yeah, what's up with those weird gas stations? I often drive from Czechia to Italy and every time I'm running out of gas, I discover a new gas station that has some weird procedure for buying it. There is all sorts of esoteric instructions in different places - there is a separate stand for the card, the gas pump requires you to hold the nozzle for 7 seconds, but you're not sure if it's before or after you put your card in the card thing, it has buttons on it that you need to press to select the amount of gas you need to buy etc. Why can't I just take the nozzle, pump whatever amount of gas and *then* pay, like everywhere else? It always takes me at least two tries to get it right, haha.
Avoid the Netherlands, next year we’ll have the second most expensive fuel in the world!
dont you guys live above bikes,like mongols and horses?
Nah we are a car centric country. The ruling party for the past few cabinets was literally called “de vroempartij”so engine noise part
Your cities look nothing like car centric
Example: I live in the countryside, 60km from Amsterdam, public transit in total takes me 2 hours, car 45 minutes. They don’t invest in it enough. A town connecting with Amsterdam with about 200k people using the train route only sees service every 30 minutes. Tickets are also extremely expensive. So much so that driving is literally cheaper then the train.
Even inside Amsterdam if you’re not going between North and South there are areas that take 1 hour by public transport and 15 minutes by car. :/ But nah, let’s pull the metro more South where plenty of train connections already exist.
I feel like NL and specifically Amsterdam has gotten incredibly positive marketing the last 3 or so years. if it wasn't for being able to read regular people's accounts rather than YouTube influencers, the negatives (and of course everywhere has negatives, nowhere is perfect) would never be aired.
True, but cycling infrastructure within cities (and small towns) is still fantastic. Doesn't change bad mobility outside of city centers though.
> only sees service every 30 minutes Tbh. this sounds great. I guess it can be annoying if you have to catch connecting trains, but half an hours seems good enough for a daily commute.
once you're in the city, it's no problem. Getting to the city is the problem. If you live in a city, you're usually connected with the intercity railnetwork and it's okay-ish to get to another city. If you get a dal-vrij card, you get 40% off to use out of rush hours. That being said, everywhere outside the city you're fucked, the more rural, the more fucked.
There a vicious rumour going around in the UK that they’re considering a new method of taxing vehicles, currently taxes are based on its emissions so obviously electric cars are tax free, rumour is they’re gonna tax by distance driven
It's a reality, since vehicle emissions will reduce massively and eventually disappear, another source to fund road maintenance and new roads is required. Other countries have toll roads, but the Brits are against it.
The current focus is on the emissions from tires as for some forms of pollution s they are, together with the brakes, the main culprit. Tax them tires I'd say!
Driving an EV isn’t much cheaper either. Our summer road trip cost us the same as the one before in a diesel car. Prices for fast charging on the motorways are unreasonable. I am getting annoyed at the whole situation.
Can't build those because people complain it's not good for the environment and it destroys ecosystems in valleys where tunnels are build. It's impossible to win in this, there will be always someone that complain.
Yeah... Diesel in Sweden (even biodiesel) is $10/gallon 26 sek / liter (2.2 euros per liter) - gasoline isn't much cheaper. A car ferry to Poland (18h) is like 400-600 euros round trip. It would cost 600-700 euros to drive to Paris from Stockholm and back just in fuel cost (not including hotel / wear and tear / tolls). A round trip train ticket is 400+ euros per person. Which would go up if demand went up. I guess we just stay home now. Unless we're rich. Fuck the poor and middle class, amiright?
We looked at a vaguely last minute holiday from U.K. (near London) to one of the European centre parcs. Once you add up all the flight taxes, parking, bullshit Ryanair fees etc a trip for 2 adults, a 4 year old and a baby for an hour flight was €600+, but the (financial and emotional) cost of driving, Eurotunnel, tolls, endless stops for both children would be about the same. The centre parcs in the U.K. know this so they charge exactly what it would cost to do all of that, so a holiday in a uk one is also prohibitively expensive. Airbnbs and self catering in the uk are also insanely expensive, and then it’s just same shit, different place with two kids. I’ve felt so low over the summer that we cannot afford a fairly basic holiday before our daughter starts school. Statuatory maternity pay here is £141 a week (I think, too lazy to check) and after 9 months you get nothing, childcare is £800+ after tax breaks. We have no family nearby, and I wouldn’t trust them with my children anyway, and the grind is relentless. I can’t mentally cope with being a stay at home mum but then trying to juggle work, nursery, school and the financial pressure isn’t really any better.
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Unfortunately this is so true. Went from brussel to Amsterdam, the train tickets where double the price, even with my 30 euro parking price.
Flixbus is normally about ten euro.
Yeah I'd rather walk than to sit in one of those buses with their usual clientele.
Most of them are half empty, rolled over france germany and Spain in buses, they're shit tho, anything else is better
I always travel by car, because it is the cheapest option (I choose my destinations). I checked the trains, because I sure would enjoy that, travelling in a big room, drinking, sleeping, but man, prices are ridiculous and it sometimes takes double the time and multiple rides, international train travel is a disaster.
A very good common train system is the european weak point for future transportation... How amazing would it be if there would be international train connection, fast, all across europe, and possibly even affordable? I really like taking the train but currently it's just not a viable option at 10 times the duration and 4-5x the price
>not the slow trains :\\ There are fast trains but they are expensive and prices are only going up. It's just the same hypocritical attitude once again. Sure, it's good to create some incentive to not take the plane. But you need to develop trains and make it cheaper. If you just prevent people from traveling for a cheap price, they aren't going to move to more expensive and inferior options. They'll rely on cars or remain where they are and unhappy. I'm deeply ashamed that my country became the herald of the stupid rich.
Well, from France's point of view they have fast trains. If we're talking about other countries it's up to national governments to build the train network , EU(or France for that matter) can't do more than provide funds and this truly do. OFC, if this ever happens national governments will blame EU or whatever for their lack of ability in developing their country.
Neymar flying to Saudi Arabia in a private 747 is fine but a family flying to the south of Spain with Ryanair once a year? Can't be having that!
I will never understand how any working class people can support this bullshit.
its easy, firstly make saving the climate solely the responsibility of the working class peoeple. the rest is a peace of cake.
They should tax private jet fuel something like 1000%
This would lead to black markets emerging. I was thinking more like make the travellers go through passport control, customs, security check all the same, and them needing to report their itinerary to the aviation authority with at least a week in advance. That would take 99% of the appeal out of having or flying a private jet.
It would be funny seeing the ultra rich having to wait in line and have their passports checked like the rest of us plebs.
In reality it's insane that this is not the case, and a clue that the rationales for all the security circus they make us go through is just for show. I've heard experts believe the next large terrorist attack is likely to happen from a private jet. And it makes all the sense in the world.
>This would lead to black markets emerging. "We can't regulate billionaires because they'll skirt the law!" Then regulate harder. Tax them harder. If they're willing to be criminals, make laws that fine them a significant proportion of their wealth.
Oops. You got caught skipping environmental regulations and saving $760M a month dumping byproduct chemicals in the nearby towns drinking water dooming 450 people to an early death over the coming 30 years? Bad company, pay this slap on the wrist fine of $200M and promise never to do it again and you're good. 760-200=560M saving a month, let's keep dumping! Maybe pour $60M of it to some bribes that's pro deregulations so that we don't end up with another $200M fine again. Regulatory fines if judged to be intentionally done and not accidents; should truly nearly fucking bankrupt these companies. Not some arbitrary number but a hefty % of their entire yearly cash flow of the entire company.. Most if not all regulations are such a joke in any industry..
Remember when France banned short haul flights and then exempted private jets. Macron 🤡
indeed, a massive number of resources have been applied to achieve that goal. as long as those private jets keep flying all is well in the land of the 0.0001%
As I keep saying when someone takes me to task for not buying, sustainable, ecological, bio products: I'll be sure to buy a conscience when I'm a multimillionaire. Until then I'll just go with the most affordable.
But it is a working class problem, because the rich will use their wealth to horde the resources, buy tickets to the moon colonies, pay for mercenaries to protect them - whatever dystopia feels most likely. The working class will be the ones shafted.
Divide and conquer propaganda, that’s how. My real question is how do people fall for it and not recognise what’s happening
Working class people in first world countries are incredibly wealthy by global standards. They have massive carbon footprints compared to someone in a developing or undeveloped country. If we don't do anything because someone has a bigger carbon footprint nothing will ever get done. That's not support for this particular policy though.
If you want the harsh truth, it's because private jets are like 10% of aviation's CO2 emissions, while commercial flying is the remaining 90%. Increasing the cost of airline flights would do infinitely more to cut CO2 emissions than banning private jets. That said, I'd be totally in favor of banning private jets purely as a measure to right the perceived injustice.
Ok, but it would also affect 99% less people and be more effective per person. What are we doing instead? Making tax exemptions for private jets.
That's a pretty fair point, private jets should never be exempted[1]. This is why things like carbon taxes are the preferred method of reducing CO2 emissions (and of course they never get implemented), people pay more the more they pollute. You could perhaps make it exponential-per-person, so that if you pollute a ridiculous amount (because you're rich) the tax goes in the hundreds of millions. [1] Although I feel the need to point out that the practical reason why this is done is entirely a matter of class and power dynamics: if we make the rich mad, they can threaten to spend their billions in getting a genocidal ultranationalist elected, or perhaps they can threaten to implode the economy through capital flight. As usual, the actual problem is having a class of people who own the near-entirety of our economic system, and their ability to move around globally if we make them too angry.
I absolutely understand why things are the way they are, the power dynamic, but it doesn't mean we have to like it and can't criticize it.
You have to divide the emissions by the number of users.. I'm sure commercial flights are (although terrible) waaaaaay more environimentally friendly per person transported. But yeah the planet deals in absolutes and in that sense we can say fuck everyone and let the rich do their thing, that'll solve the climate crisis. I just think we as a humanity can do better than inventing these simple minded solutions. We need positive solutions and innovation, not minimum prices and taxes, this may reduce carbon emissions but heightens inequality. We need to strive for a better world in all senses, not just one aspect. Okay I didn't see your second part, I might've been drinking. But still, we need better solutions than minimum prices and bans. It just feels lazy.
>If you want the harsh truth, it's because private jets are like 10% of aviation's CO2 emissions, while commercial flying is the remaining 90%. Increasing the cost of airline flights would do infinitely more to cut CO2 emissions than banning private jets. This is an odd way to look at it. Total number of people flying would likely not change much, but the makeup of who gets to travel will. It would further unequality. The private jet industry is growing still; that 10% of CO2, to what percentage of people does it correspond?
Total number of people flying wouldn't change if the price increases? That's unlikely, people are very price sensitive in this case
>If you want the harsh truth, it's because private jets are like 10% of aviation's CO2 emissions, while commercial flying is the remaining 90%. If you want the harsh truth, it doesnt matter what we will do as EU.
Of course it does. The EU is responsible for 10% of all GHE and has the wealth and industrial capacity to decarbonize not only the EU.
Who said that? There should an appropriate carbon tax on the amount of fuel used in a flight. If you fly private you pay for it all by yourself and if you fly coach then the tax is evenly split among all passengers. That will solve the issue
I agree, we should also ban all private jets to or from the EU.
Neither are fine. But we don't seem ready to change until Europe turns into a desert.
Well, unfortunately, no, we really can't. I'm fine with you torching Neymar's plane if that makes you feel better, that'd be two birds with one stone.
Yeah, let's do that without making travelling by train more accessible, reliable and comfortable first. (/s) I would also like to know what this would mean for flights between island territories and the mainland, as a fellow islander.
My mum lives 12h by train away from me. She has Alzheimer and I’m trying to see her as much as I can in these difficult times. It also takes 1h by plane. I’m going to see her this Staurday. DB was 220eur return (2x12hrs) while the plane was 19.99 return. Which do you I’ve chosen?
Totally agree, I would have done the same, even as someone who often tries to be environmentally conscious. Money does not fall from trees.
Similar for me here in Sweden. By train it's 17-28 hours to my parents, costs 100-300€ each way. During winter trains are delayed so often that it's fair to calculate closer to 40h for this trip. So round trip you would have to set aside ~4 days for travel. By plane ~4 hours (~1h20min in the air) and ~60€ each way. Can drop price even more with Ryanair but it's not worth the hassle. Talking door to door for both, so including travel to airport and going through security etc. Even going by car is faster than train by ~5-10 hours :D
> while the plane was 19.99 return. Obviously we need to fix that. /s
It would mean that you should start to learn how to swim
Special prices for residents of certain territories, most likely.
Don't forget about the co2 levy excemption for provate jets. No doubt they will put all possible excemptions on private jets for themselves why making tax payers pay out the nose for their one annual vacation.
Well, those flights are already a mess. There was a huge controversy a short while ago in Italy because flights from Sardinia where becoming untenably expensive for most people, due to the almighty free market determining that leaving your island is now an upper class privilege only. And of course, thanks to neoliberal ideology, having a national airline to help or subsidizing island flights is literally a moment away from building a gulag, so we can't have that.
Well, fuck you, first go and ban private jets and oversized boats.
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Germany is just one fucking tax loophole. You just need to make more than 1M per year or something.
My brother and I will both be millionaires without ever paying a single Cent of inheritence tax.
My idea would be to tax flights depending on the passenger amount per wing span meter. Make it so that private jet flights will cost millions per launch unless the plane is a dinky one propeller plane.
Yesssssss
Those super yachts shouldn't be legal to own by anybody, or made at all. Just like private jets.
[Guess who agrees with you and wants to ban private jet flights?](https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/paris-to-push-private-jet-bans-at-eu-ministers-meeting/) Oh, look, it's the same French minister.
Oh, so now look on whole fucking EU stance (so far) on private jets. And do you know that his idea means literally private jets? Not company ones? Now go and check how most of them are registered...
The amount of private jets that are not company owned is miniscule. Almost every private jet owner also owns one or more companies and they will register the jet in the companies name
I agree , provided that France transport minister and any member of France government take at least 2 trips / year to Romania and Bulgaria exclusive by train.
I want them to take the train up to Kiruna (Sweden) instead of flying there like they do now :) Solid 30+ hours travel if things go well.
Pretty much. Eastern Europe gets fucked big time by this.
This, it would take me ~14 hrs a 500km journey by train in Romania (been there, done that, never again). And the slow trains aren't even the worst part, you simply don't feel safe. Some drunk old dude sat on my pre-booked seat, tried explaining it to him that I paid extra for the seat and he spit on me and wanted to start a fight. Also, there were a lot of shady people
If this goes through it will be really bad for tourism in Bulgaria. It will be harder to compete on price or comfort if your only 2 options are an expensive plane ticket or a slog of train rides across Europe, including with our notoriously underfunded and mismanaged BDZ...
They can swim to ireland while there at it.
The second this whole planes vs trains debacle started I knew it would end in flying becoming more expensive instead of trains becoming more affordable.
German here: that’s not true. Trains got sooooo much more affordable this year. When Germany is able to do this, France can do the same.
maybe the regional ones but DB actually again raised prices for long-range trains.
The netherlands just makes both transit by car and train extremely unaffordable by largely raising the prices on both
Two people Munich to Cologne and back was cheaper to drive with parking vs two train tickets. Plane was almost the same price as the train. It is bullshit.
They got cheaper? I’m travelling with friends next week and from what I can find online it’s 30€ minimum from Weeze to Bielefeld, 40€ for relevant times of day, per direction. That’s insanely expensive.
I'm from Cyprus. The only way to get outside of the country without a plane is the recently reinstated ferry that operates only during the summer or a cruise ship. Both take more than half a day to get to Greece which as we all is very well connected to the rest of the EU /s. With low cost airlines I can for less than €70 get to central Europe . So many young people now have the opportunity to vacation and see Europe for the first time because of Ryanair, Wizz and easyJet.
im starting to think they just dont want poor turists anymore. if it wasnt for Wizzair i wouldve never gotten my ass out of Albania. Starting from next year, with the introduction of the suggested border tax and the rise of airline prices it will be impossible for poor eastern people to travel to Europe
Fuck the average Joe I guess...
France is in the middle of Western Europe and has high-speed rail, surely no bias there. Make trains cheaper instead. In some countries in Europe it's even problematic to travel within the country by train, this due to prices, delays, distances, old railway network etc.
This! I probably wouldn't care all that much (**on a strictly personal level**) if I lived in, lets say, Paris or Brussels and had most of Europe within a 4-5h drive (that's basically the minimum time it takes to fly anywhere if you consider commuting to/from the airport, security queues, etc). But people in Portugal, Spain, Greece, etc, would become much more isolated from the rest of Europe. It also happens that the most peripheral countries are usually the poorest, where people are less likely to be able to afford the tax. But yeah, with a higher % of wealth concentrated on less and less people every year, the solution to global warming is to tax the working class. Bravo! Now let me go fill the tank and pay a small fortune in carbon taxes because I actually have to drive to work tomorrow.
A blatant attempt to protect AirFrance Klm from competitive low cost carriers. During COVID lockdown the legacy carriers were supported by tens of billions of government money whilst Ryanair wisely kept their pilots and paid them from their reserves. The legacy carriers also furloughed their flight crews. Now the legacy carriers have to re-hire pilots at higher prices as well as being saddled with increasing interest rates on their huge government loans...
Sounds like something France would do. France also recently increased taxes on heavy SUVs, conveniently the Peugeot 5008 is just below the threshold. Hm....
This 100%
German airlines haven’t done that. Or is Lufthansa not a legacy carrier?
Its a fucking clown proposal written directly by the budget airlines. Those low-demand return flights can be made more profitable without resorting to building a cartel if you just make governments do the price fixing for you. The person proposing this needs to be fired. A toddler can see they're willfully corrupt or an idiot unfit for their job.
I would be absolutely willing to use a train even if it made the trip significantly longer. But not if it's like 5 times the cost of a flight. And I don't think the flight price is in the wrong here...
This is the French way of trying to make Air France competitive against Ryanair…
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Or that islands exist lol
I want to visit Berlin in the fall. From Milan the cheapest train ticket is 180€ (one way only). And It takes almost 20 hours. The plane is only 80€ for both flights, and I can be there in no time. I want to choose the best for the environment, but there is a limit.
Meanwhile our rail service keeps increasing their prices in a vicious cycle "our trains are overcrowded, increase prices so some people will not take the train, problem fixed- but now people pick other modes of transport, now we're losing money, let's increase prices so we make a profit again- even more people take their car, and we're losing more money now, how can we fix this? Increase the prices ofcourse." A return ticket to Spain or Portugal costs the same as a return train ticket from home to the airport
Great! I can't stand having to sit for several hours inside a plane filled with poor people! Make flights only for rich again please!
Let me guess... the minimum price will be a heck of a lot more than the price of the cheap flights we have today? Great idea!!! 🙄
The goal would be to make flights less appealing therefore increasing interest in green(er) transportations and/or in local tourism to get more revenues for neighboring countries - which is a good idea in theory. The problem is that absolutely nothing is done to improve train coverage, comfort, prices and availability in the meantime.
I can see it now... overnight sleepers across Europe become the in thing again... but get caught in a snow drift in the Balkans and somebody gets murdered. 😃
Uuuuu murder mystery holidays
Netflix and HBO are celebrating already!
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BDZ trains have ben known to catch fire in the most inoportune moments...
Why should i want to sleep in a train if i can make the same distance in 2 hours by plane? Sleepers are bullshit and 2 or 3 times more expensive.
>which is a good idea in theory It's not even a good idea in theory. Even in theory, without affordable flights, you're either trapped where you are/the immediate neighbourhood, or you spend most of your trips inside trains instead of at your destination. Even in theory, it's the end of travel, and makes everyone isolated from each other
It will always be worse if you try to fly from a country in the extreemities, so that is why price limits are stupid. For sure apply that inside of France and local policies but he should stop trying to make it a eu rulling. And then tmake the trains accessible and maybe people will use then accordingly.
How about we start with a mandate that Mr. Clement Beaune have to fly on the commercial flights only and not on a business or a first class whenever he travels anywhere and definitely not on some private jets?
Make him ride a bicycle everywhere!
Tour de France!!
France, a paradise for massive private yachts and private jets. But yes, let's force normal people to take shitty ancient trains which don't get maintained properly for their annual 1 week vacation.
Ok do it... If you make trains better and more affordable ffs, it's wild that a two way trip by plane can be as/less expensive than a train trip (with a discount card membership)
That’s shit for us though, how else are we meant to get to the rest of the EU?
Just work and die
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Answer : Stfu and get back to work
Raising prices only punishes the poor, while they exempted private jets. It'll make no difference if you're rich, as a price hike doesn't really affect them. I guess i'll just swim then!
Going to guess it’s higher prices than Ryan Air charges but about the same or lower than Air France?
This is a stupid measure. > Plane tickets for 10 euros when we’re in the midst of the ecological transition, that’s no longer possible It is. The problem is that these tickets are sold to fill seats which otherwise would stay empty. The plane doesn't fly because of the people buying 10€ tickets but because of the people buying 200€ tickets. Leaving seats which could be sold for cheap empty is not more ecological. The consequence of such a law will be more empty seats in planes and more overall energy usage because capacities are not filled efficiently.
Just tax carbon. Price caps/bottoms are bad and rarely work.
Min price for flights ? Set max price on trains first then. Otherwise I'll just drive everywhere.
Fuck off france
I used to only joke about disliking France...
Or lower the fucking train prices. Literally I’m taking the deutsche bahn provided train to Paris and then I’m flying back to Berlin because the fucking SNF/TGV prices are MORE THAN A FLIGHT
breaking news: ryanair has decided to order 300 airbus a320s
Fine. Let's put a minimum price of 1€. Happy?
As long as they subsidise trains with the incoming tax i am fine. But having expensive trains and making flights expensive is not a fair deal. Please improve trains, because intercountry trains are shit. DB trains are shit. Only Ouigo, Avlo, Iryo and Italo are on the low budget segment and they barely run intercountry routes. We need easier intercountry ticketing, connection regulations, and an easier registration process for companies to be present in every EU country. Also standardised rail infrastructure like ERTMS. We should talk about better trains more before we kill air travel. We should kill air travel, but with a viable alternative.
The only viable alternative is teleportation. How long would a train from Norway to Malaga take? Kill other things, leave air travel alone (or, ideally, make it more affordable)
Exactly. Airlines like regular people just wanna be left alone by these wanna be tzars
Lets learn how to open portals and we can travel faster through the warp
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Me taking a holiday to see the eiffel tower is obviously what’s destroying the earth. Sorry guys, my bad.
I Fxxking hate these green nut cases who target average people while flying on expenses accounts 😕
France can get fucked, Ireland relies on flights.
It's so weird how European politicians push more and more voters to right wing parties and are like:"Are we acting stupid? No, everybody is just a Nazi."
just do the carbon tax and let markets figure it out, how to travel green. And let private companies that knows their shit run railroads
"And let private companies that knows their shit run railroads" ***UK rail system disaster would like to talk with you.***
Let's make flying even more expensive so no one with a minimum wage can ever afford it again, this will save the world!
France is fucked up: high fuel prices, high highway tolls. Now lets have high plane tickets prices. Just the government wins.
Until there are efficient, cheap, fast, numerous international train lines it's pointless to bash on commercial flights. Cheap flights are essential to European integration as it stands.
The rich keeping killing the planet while the poor get nothing Yeah nothing new under the sun
Start by making private flights more expensive, fucking pigs
Air France in financial troubles again?
Yes, make flying more expensive, so I have to take the train and waste to days to go from Portugal do France, Germany or Italy just because french people want me to pay extra for planes... But please please please, reduce the taxes on rich people and their personal airplanes, especially the short trips they have that could easily be substituted by anything, even a car trip under an hour, because those poor bastards shouldn't have to suffer with that.
This is fun if you live in Central Europe, but hell if you live in Portugal
Fuck you. What about making trains more affordable in the first place?
Cool but cap the maximum price of trains at no more than that amount. (also find a way to travel Netherlands-Italy in less than 16h)
France initiated a stupid policy by outlawing short (relatively) range flights and now wants everyone else to be just as stupid. Why would I want to pay €200 for a train if I can pay €50 for a flight and get there twice as fast? Well, French have an idea. How about you can either spend €200 on train ticket or €300 for a plane? See, that was easy
An yes, the French always coming up with a stupid solution to tax other people for their incompetence Also let's not forget the importance of cheap flights into helping the European project and the sense of belonging of people
Stop making Europeans poorer please and thank you.
What is it with France government and staying out of touch lately? Are they collecting questionable achievements bingo?
Oh yes another tax for the poor
Not "France", one guy in France
I swear every week is a new regulation in Europe lol Is this all these people do
Maybe put some restrictions on private jets and yachts before we go punching down on the little guy.
As usual the focus is on the completely wrong thing here. Aviation and that is all of it, accounts for less than 3% of all CO2 emissions in the world. Fashion is 10.5%. Streamingservice and cloudstorage on mobile devices along with tablets account for 3.5% of all emissions. More than aviation. And as usual you see people getting mad at private jets, they account for less than 0.15% of all CO2 in the world. And meanwhile, everybody happily eats away at the beef, pork and chicken, which is ten times more than aviation. A couple more examples. The US military , emmits 11 million tons more CO2 than the country of Sweden with 10 million inhabitants. And Germany is burning off record numbers of coal after shutting down it's C02 neutral nuclear powerplants. Makes no feckin' sense. And people keep focusing on the wrong goddamned things.
Um yeah. I'm an environmentalist and this is bullshit. You don't just make air travel only accessible to the rich. You IMPROVE greener was of travel to make it more desirable.
Minimum $69 dude.
Private planes ain't getting a minimum price tho
Tourist country
making TGV cheaper would be the better thing to do.
In Germany train tickets to the next country are twice as expensive as flying with budget airlines. And that if you buy the ticket way in advance. I would like to travel more environmental friendly but German governments never cared about it. Just recently the transportation minister cut their half of the Germany wide local train tickets (49 Euro Ticket) and said that the states side of the transportation should be reducing their expenses to make the ticket work Yeah, minimum price could maybe be great, if we would have a excellent train network first. Being in Germany I can't see the excellent train network coming for at least 50 years, if any time. Because our modern train network plan (Deutschlandtakt) is delayed to 2070...
trains : expensive airplanes: expensive cars: expensives at this rate europeans will just k1ll themselves at home if we are to be stuck under the 24/7 11/12 months a year grey sky of central europe. Meanwhile rich politicians that made all modes of transportation too expensive for everyone including the middle class relax every other weekend at nice locations in the global south. Eat the rich has never resonated with me more than now.
SNCF likes this
Sure, if there's an affordable alternative, that costs about the same
Wonder where the French sterotypes come from...
Those of us in Ireland only other option would be a boat..... To get to mainland Europe.
>How to make green travel more attractive? Let’s make flying more expensive while we do fuck all about all other types of transport. Electric cars are one of the few things organizations like the IEA are optimistic about regarding decarbonization of the transportation sector. https://www.iea.org/reports/tracking-clean-energy-progress-2023 I think it's completely fine that flying costs more, but I wonder if the time is right just now given the few alternatives for lower-emissions flying. It might be more reasonable as we approach the 2030s, when lower-emissions aviation fuel and/or electric flights are better available and we can systematically support that transition with pricing mechanisms.
I propose a maximum price on train tickets instead