Killing Poor Aviation - No domestic flights on routes that can be serviced by trains in less than two-and-a-half hours - French Draft Bill !

Pandemic  Battered  Aviation  to be smashed to dust  by the Bill !

The never seen before condition of French aviation is going to face another hurdle in ban of short haul flights .

When poorest state of  aviation is busy doing overtime to persuade their respective goverments to open summer travel , French lawmakers have other ideas ! 

On saturday, French  National  Assembly  supported  a draft bill that aims a  ban on domestic flights on short  routes that can be serviced by trains in less than two-and-a-half hours.

The carbon Foot Print .

France  is  following  the  national  agenda  of  carbon  emissions  control  and  bring  the  foot  print cut  by  40%  in  2030  from  levels  recorded  in  the 1990s.

Green efforts and demonstrations are not new in France !  Last month, on 5th march - Nine Green peace activists, climbed the outer fence of the CDG airport  and applied green paint to a Boeing 777 Air France aircraft parked on the tarmac, as  a  part  of  broader protests.

The Reactions and Criticism !

The legislation has evoked harsh criticism from the aviation industry that says,  a period of post-pandemic recovery is not the right  time to halt domestic flights.

On the other hand, environmental activists want more such bans and they criticized the measure for being insufficient.

The Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat (CCC) Forum !

A citizens’ climate forum established by French President Emmanuel Macron to help shape climate policy had reportedly called  for scrapping  flights  on  routes  where the train journey is under four hours.

The Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat (CCC), had earlier outlined a series of  eco-measures  for  the  aviation sector .

The CCC had  suggested  environmental eco tax on aviation to a scale that would discourage air travel and raise around €4.2 billion in taxes annually.

►  The eco-Tax proposal on economy class tickets was proposed :

• €30 per ticket for flights under 2,000 km.
• €60 euros for flights of over 2,000 km.

►   And eco-Tax proposal for business class was :

• €180 per ticket for flights under 2,000 km.
• €400 per ticket for flights of over 2,000 km.

►  Other Aviation specific measures suggested by the CCC include:

• Banning on the new airports and expansion of existing ones.
• Banning domestic flights of under four hours, if  a low-carbon alternative mode of transportation found by 2025.
• Recreational flying to be taxed.
• Financing “carbon sinks” (projects that extract C02 from the atmosphere and absorb more carbon than they release).
• Supporting the development of biofuels

The recent vote followed a french government's  €4 billion ($4.76 billion) recapitalization of the country’s flag carrier Air France, in an effort to increase its stake in the national airline.

The Government Stand !

The reproaches voiced by the aviation sector were strongly dismissed by the country’s Industry Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher, who stressed that there was no contradiction between the bailout and the climate bill.

“We know that aviation is a contributor of carbon dioxide and that because of climate change we must reduce emissions. Equally, we must support our companies and not let them fall by the wayside,” the minister told Europe 1 radio.