LONDON – After today’s news from French lawmakers surrounding domestic flights being banned, will ALL of them be affected by these changes?
In short, the answer is no. The ban has only been placed on domestic flights that can be covered by train in under two and a half hours.
When this ban is fully passed by all sides of the French legislature, it means that only five per cent of domestic flights will legally not be allowed to run.
The image above shows two versions of the country’s current connectivity by air. The image on the left shows the routes that will not be allowed to operate, with the image on the right highlighting which routes can still run.
Whilst some routes look short in distance, they are still allowed to run because of the limited connectivity by rail. For example, Paris to Toulouse, which is one of the many popular domestic routes, will be allowed to operate as it is outside of the two and a half hour train distance.
As via rail company SNCF, this would take four and a half hours instead of the hour it would take by aircraft.
That diagram also shows that just five per cent of domestic routes would be affected, which wouldn’t necessarily instigate a heavy level of loss produced by the likes of Air France and others.
Either way, its pretty clear that the actions taken by the French Government may not be as effective as what the environmentalists would like.
But again, it doesn’t seem to be that much of a damaging aspect when the government has invested more into the carrier as a potential way to offset any losses.
