He debate on ban on short-term flights The fact that they can be replaced by train trips for environmental reasons comes from a long time ago, but it had only been a purely theoretical option. France’s step forward in becoming, last May, the first European country to implement it has fueled debate in several countries, has been accompanied by varied studies for and against its effects, and has made the Spanish air sector has already been put on alert preventively.
The Ecologistas en Acción platform published this week a study that argued that the veto of eleven air routes with alternative train journeys of less than four hours would allow a 10% reduction in CO2 emissions from Spanish domestic connections (but equivalent to only one 1.4% of emissions from all national air transport, compared to the commercial aviation sector).
Since the airlines completely reject the application of flight bans and it is committed to advancing the combination of different means of transportation, particularly by bringing high-speed rail lines directly to large airports with the aim of reducing the need for these short-duration air routes.
AVE to major airports
“We don’t believe in prohibitions. “We advocate intermodality so that the passenger can choose,” he stressed this Thursday. Javier Gándara, president of the Association of Airlines (ALA), in a meeting with the press. “We defend intermodality in the sense that the AVE reaches at least the Madrid-Barajas airport or also Barcelona-El Prat,” with the aim that passengers can make combined train journeys to the large airports and then take a flight to other destinations at a greater distance.
Airlines have been defending the need to connect Barajas with the high-speed network for years, but they warn that it is not enough to simply have the intermodal connection in place. According to estimates by Iberia, the largest airline at Madrid airport, to replace the air routes potentially affected by the bans on short flights, an offer of between eight and ten trains every hour passing through Barajas would be needed. A number of high-speed frequencies that could not be reached until sometime beyond 2030.
In 2026, when the high-speed train is scheduled to arrive directly to Barajas (currently there is only connection with the Cercanías network), and during the first years afterward the offer will foreseeably be between one and two trains per hour, which the airlines They consider it insufficient to cover all the capacity necessary to completely replace the aircraft.
The train already controls the major routes
The high-speed train has progressively taken over the airplane on the major Spanish routes and the railway liberalization and the entry of private rivals (Iryo and Ouigo) versus Renfe has accelerated market capture. In it Madrid-Barcelona train already controls almost 80% of passengerson the Madrid-Valencia route it rises to 90% and on the routes between the capital and Alicante, Malaga and Seville it already exceeds 75%.
“The transfer of travelers from plane to train is occurring naturally with the increase in high-speed supply,” Gándara explained. “But the majority of those 20% of passengers who fly from Barcelona or the 10% from Valencia do so to catch a connecting flight in Madrid and go to other destinations. If these flights are prohibited, it will only make those passengers fly to other European airports such as Frankfurt, Paris or Amsterdam to take long-haul flights, increasing air transport emissions and reducing the competitiveness of Barajas as a large ‘“air hub,” stated the general director of easyJet in Spain.
“We have to achieve intermodality between train and plane and that this allows an experience as similar as possible to the current connection flights. “For a passenger to leave his suitcase at the Valencia train station, arrive at the Madrid airport, take the flight to New York and pick up that same suitcase in New York,” said Gándara, who defends options such as boosting fuel even more. (SAF) or the implementation of the single European sky, to promote direct or zigzag flights as required by the current management of airspace by countries, to move towards the decarbonization of the sector, in the face of measures that are “more effective than effective.” such as, in his opinion, prohibiting short flights.
A record 2023
Airlines cling to tourism boom to achieve the total recovery of the sector after the collapse caused by the pandemic. The ALA employers’ association anticipates that this year the Spanish airports will exceed the historical record of 275 million passengers which was reached in pre-covid 2019, despite the uncertainties due to the geopolitical tensions unleashed by the war in Ukraine and the Middle East.
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During the summer season (from April to October) pre-pandemic passenger traffic has exceeded by 1.2% and the flight offer that companies are preparing for the next winter season (from November to March) exceeds by 12%. .8% pre-covid levels, with more than 127 million places.
During the summer, both passenger traffic on domestic and intercontinental flights are already above pre-covid levels, with increases of 8% and 2%, respectively, while intra-European flights are still 2% below due to that the two main issuing markets of Spain, the United Kingdom and Germany, still show decreases of 6.5% and 11.5%. With almost the same number of flights as in the summer of 2019 (1% less), passenger numbers are higher thanks to higher occupancy, with 87% of seats sold compared to 85% before the pandemic.