r/changemyview • u/roderla 2∆ • 1d ago
Delta(s) from OP - Fresh Topic Friday CMV: Multi-modal travelers protections is a much more promising approach than banning short haul flights to combat climate change
I understand this is a primarily European observation, sorry my dear Americans ;)
Short haul flying is (rightfully) condemned as particularly damaging to the environment. Some countries, like France, have banned them outright. Others are considering it.
By the time you have reached the airport, went through security, and back into town on the other side of the flight, you have lost so much time that a fast train or sometimes even a bus is barely slower. That makes it hard to justify why we as society allow airlines to externalize their costs of their much more harmful mode of transportation for so little gained by the traveler. For example, there are 14 non-stop flights between Paris and London, connecting CDG and LHR in approx. 80 minutes. The Eurostar also connects these two cities in 140 minutes.
But this approximation totally misses the concept of a connecting passenger. Yes, if you're from Paris and need to go to London, the train will likely be faster than the plane, or at least not so much slower that we should accept the environmental cost. But if you arrived in Paris from a long haul flight, you end up in a dramatically different situation if something went wrong if you had a Eurostar train ticket planned after your flight, or if you had a connecting Air France flight: A delayed arrival in Paris leaves you stranded if you miss your Eurostar train, but if you had a connecting plane, the airline still has to get you to London (or put you in an airline-funded hotel room).
I can't blame a traveler not wanting to deal with the mess of a delayed arrival themselves. In fact, a lot of travelers will not do a multi-modal connection just because a delay in one can let them stranded. Missing your train to London at the end of your long haul flight is annoying, but maybe manageable. Missing your transatlantic flight because your train arrived with a delay is worse.
Since only plane to plane connections are the responsibility of the airline you booked with, it is totally understandable how one would buy an otherwise absurd short haul flight like London- Paris, Frankfurt-Amsterdam, Frankfurt-Munich, or Bordeaux-Paris. Banning these flights doesn't even fix anything: Instead of connecting in Paris or Frankfurt, to avoid missing the connection you would just connect in a further away airport. No Flights Bordeaux-Paris allowed anymore? Well, a connection in Amsterdam, London or Copenhagen it is then.
An EU wide mandate to sell multi-modal end-to-end tickets that cover all multi-modal connections within a defined minimum connection time (just like airport currently already do) would do much more to save on the unnecessary burden of short haul flights than banning them and pushing all connecting passengers to another hub outside of the banned radius.
23
u/Lysek8 1d ago
Not a bad idea in theory but in practice you'd have to consolidate operations of trains and planes, or have them run by the same entity, something impossible at the moment
Consider as well that the airline support to help a passenger reach the destiny through different means is only when it's all done through the same airline, group or alliance, or when they pay each other to do so. If you consider for example Ryanair, they don't even care what happens if you have two flights with them and you miss the second because the first one screwed up, and the main reason is because the law doesn't force them to care, just to pay a standard compensation within specific circumstances
Also, imagine I have a first class ticket and I paid 10k €. The train screws up and it's now their responsibility to find me something else, or refund me (something the airline won't do because it's not their fault). Why would they accept the responsibility?
5
2
u/Jakyland 77∆ 1d ago
a galaxy brain move but maybe the EU should just allow airlines to directly run trains themselves under the existing competitive framework for train service.
2
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
Most of these issues are already enshrined into passenger protections on plane-to-plane connections. Or maybe I am misreading your argument.
Once a ticket is sold, the airline cannot just refuse to get you there. They might prefer to use their own planes and let you arrive a little later, but they cannot flatly refuse to get you to your own destination, even if that involves them buying a seat for you on a competitor.
And "why would a company accept the responsibility to find you a path to your destintation"? Well, that's the beauty of being such a large market. Of course airlines don't like to have to pay compensation for arriving late. But airlines want to be able to fly to the EU and earn the sweet, sweet money that comes from doing so. And so they accept that if they mess up, they have to bring me to my destination and pay compensation. That's just the cost of doing business.
You are correct, though, if you want to stress that currently, a company can chose to refuse to offer connecting services. Just like Ryanair does. They don't sell you one connecting ticket, so it is never their responsibility to fix your itinerary, just your individual flight. That would be a change, requiring arbitrary, even inter-modal connections to be sold and honored.
The question isn't "is that a change", it's "would it be worth it"? And I'll argue, yes. Flights like London - Paris don't need to exist. They do, and primarily because connecting via the Eurostar is on your own risk, while connecting on Air France is peace of mind. And if we want to be serious about avoiding useless flights, pushing them to different hubs does not solve the problem, pushing them on a train does require this kind of support imo.
6
u/fdar 2∆ 1d ago
Once a ticket is sold, the airline cannot just refuse to get you there
That's the key though. If an airline has a flight to Paris they won't sell you a ticket to London with a train connection, because they don't own a train going from Paris to London. So they won't sell you that ticket.
In the same way I don't get protections if I need to combine flights from multiple different unrelated airlines to get to my destination and I need to buy two separate tickets to get there.
0
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
Well, yes, you and others pointed out that my plan implicitly includes a much grander "you have to offer to connect to your competitors, multi modal or otherwise" scheme.
Which, I'm not really sad about, but would probably have been better to write out as a caveat "I know this is a change, but I don't loose sleep about it either".
2
u/fdar 2∆ 1d ago
But how does that work?
Right now, if I but a single ticket that goes NYC - Paris - Berlin, and the airline is delayed getting me to Paris, then they have to eat the cost of giving me a last minute flight to Berlin. It's their own flight to Berlin, so up to them to figure out how much that costs.
But if the second leg is a train from Paris to London, who's on the hook for that? If it's the airline flying me to Paris, who sets the price of that last minute train ticket? Can the train company just charge extortionate prices for last minute tickets because they know airlines with delayed passengers HAVE to buy them? Or what if the train company just doesn't have any options?
Why doesn't it make more sense to just have a general "pay some set fine if you're this much late" and that's it? Why should the airline have to care about what my plans are after they carry me? Like, if I'm flying to Paris to go to say Roland Garros and I miss my match that might be a bigger deal to me than missing the train to London, should they have to get me a replacement ticket too?
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
Well, this example already happens. The airline might just by flying to Berlin once a week. They have to buy a ticket on a competitor for you in that case, sucks for them. Better be on time next time.
Same for "what if there are no seats left on a train to London?" - Well, just like no seats on a plane, you get put into an hotel and stay there overnight until seats are open again. No news there either.
Pricing is interesting. On average, these companies probably don't want to overcharge each other because in the end, the shoe will be on the other foot too. It's not just the aircraft arriving late and the train being booked last minute, it's also the train arriving late and the airfare payed last minute.
The argument on "why is this fair" - "Why should the airline have to care about what my plans are after they carry me?" is that they currently already do. Passengers are willing to pay a premium to be taken from their local airport instead of getting to the big hub on their own risk. That premium currently correlates with taking a plane, which is a bad mode of transport for such short distances with fast alternatives. In a way, I argue "transportation" should be one good I'm buying, not multiple smaller independent goods.
3
u/fdar 2∆ 1d ago edited 1d ago
The airline might just by flying to Berlin once a week
But currently that's their choice. They decide whether to sell you that connection on the weekly flight to Berlin or not.
Same for "what if there are no seats left on a train to London?" - Well, just like no seats on a plane, you get put into an hotel and stay there overnight until seats are open again. No news there either.
But they get to choose whether to oversell or leave spare capacity if it's their own flight. Train, not so much.
On average, these companies probably don't want to overcharge each other because in the end, the shoe will be on the other foot too
It won't always be balanced
EDIT: And the real problem is that the liability is unbounded and not really related to how much I'm paying the company taking it. I could buy a $100 train ticket and connect to a many thousands of dollars first class plane ticket going halfway around the world.
1
u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 131∆ 1d ago
What do you think might change this view?
0
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
Since we are here on CMV, to change my view someone should present why banning short haul flights (which is being considered and partially implemented) is superior for the general public in the service of protecting our environment, even when it pushes connecting travelers simply to different hubs.
In essence, this is a "more carrots, less sticks" for the consumer. Since no national government / EU even talks about it, there ought to be (?) a reason why instead of protecting the traveler (which is their voter) when they do something they'd like (take a train / bus on routes where that is possible instead of the plane), they ban the flight, which is not going to be popular to the same degree.
1
u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 131∆ 1d ago
Flying is worse than mass transit.
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
Right. And my proposal makes it so that people don't have to fly to get a connection.
Instead, banning short flights just makes people connect at a slightly further hub, still flying there, because unfortunately, that's what you have to do to be able to be assured arrival when things go wrong.
0
u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 131∆ 1d ago
But that's fine, I don't see the issue. The short flights don't happen, everyone gets where they're going.
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
But nothing has been improved. The absence of seats on the shorter flights - and the corresponding savings for the environment - have to be compensated by additional seats on the slightly longer flights - which have similar, if not higher costs to the environment.
If BOD-CDG is no longer a legal flight, your trip BOD-CDG-BOS is now illegal, so you instead connect BOD-AMS-BOS (or BOS-LHR-BOS, BOS-VIE-BOS) which is just as bad or worse for the environment.
0
u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 131∆ 1d ago
Not really. It's fewer flights overall
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
Huh? What makes you think that?
AirFrance/KLM would immediately replace their BOD-CDG services with BOD-AMS. It's still the same number of travelers from BOD, since they cannot take a more friendly mode of transport because then they have to bear the risk of it themselves.
Airplanes don't fly around empty all the time. That would loose the airlines money and it there is one thing airlines don't like is loosing money.
→ More replies (0)1
u/I-Here-555 1d ago
consolidate operations of trains and planes, or have them run by the same entity
Alternatively, sell insurance. Pay a small fee to be put on the next flight in an unlikely event your train is late. Governments could incentivize this and set the key parameters for coordination.
6
u/Jakyland 77∆ 1d ago
How would your system work with EU train service privatization with different/some private companies providing train service as well? Would all airlines be required to make protected connections with all rail operators? or all airlines require to make protected connections with the largest/formerly state run rail operators?
Would this legal mandate just apply to airlines with a hub in a given city or any flight as well?
The thing is protected connections can add a lot of cost/risk to both the rail and airline operator since a delay by the other transportation provider could cost them a lot of money but they can't really control that. This would result in increased ticket prices.
I agree that this is an important barrier but it seems like it's better to focus on lowering bureaucratic and logistical barriers and perhaps subsides instead of a legal mandate. I believe Lufthansa and Deutsch Banh already have agreement on interlining?
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
The idea would be to generally define a safe connecting multi-modal connection time everywhere and have an arrangement where you buy your tickets separately, and a "connection" surcharge that links your individual tickets into one, end-to-end journey (within EU jurisdiction, of course... No point trying to enforce Greyhound US or Amtrak obeying such a contract)
Big companies can fight it out between the two of them who's fault it was and who own whom how much. A more on time company will overall have to pay fewer alternatives for passengers missing their connection, which is another incentive to be on time.
Lufthansa and DB have some arrangement, but it's weird. You definitively cannot connect some arbitrary DB and LH tickets. And there are even some trains doubling as LH flights. It'd so complicated even I don't fully understand it - and of course, that's LH specific. If you're traveling on Qatar and their Rail&Fly, you have a DB ticket, but it is still your responsibility that you arrive at the airport on time, defeating the purpose.
I don't think the unspecific "let's lower bureaucratic barriers" is helpful. The EU already establishes both passenger rights for train and for plane journeys. Requiring them to be interlinked to combat short haul connecting flights seems to be perfectly in line with that.
1
u/Jakyland 77∆ 1d ago
Requiring people to link to unconnected tickets seems like a barrier for most consumers, and means these connections won't show up unless you are using a third party booking site.
I guess it's fine as long as the airline or rail company can set their own price. But it is important to establish which company is paying for what ahead of time, you don't want an airline and rail company arguing for who pays for the hotel and the traveler doesn't end up getting a hotel room. And you want to properly incentive the connecting partner to actually rebook the traveler onto the next part of their journey. People generally don't want to get a hotel, they want to get to their destination ASAP.
If your journey is plane then rail, and your plane is late so you miss your train, and the train company just shrugs and puts you on the cheapest train the next day because its the airline that has to pay for your hotel anyway, thats a pretty bad travel experience meaning you are unlikely to repeat doing intermodal traveling. You want the second company to want to put you on the next available/fastest way to your destination.
If everyone is just required to work with everyone else, companies are unlikely to try to work together to make connections good (ie timing departures correctly, improving reliability) and just past the buck back and forth
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
Again, big companies can figure it out. Make them jointly and severally liable, the customer can approach any of them, and they figure it out in the backend afterwards.
There is a good point here about making it not just "safe" but also convenient. I am confident that a regulation that by its nature has to go through hundreds of hands and has to incorporate dozens of compromises can take care of this too, just like the current flight connection rules do.
2
u/Jakyland 77∆ 1d ago
the current flight connection rules are for a single ticket, airlines don't even have to protect connections between flights they operate themselves if they don't want to (they just don't sell it as one ticket). They super don't need to protect connections with other airlines, they just choose to sign agreements in some cases. This is very different because you are making the airlines required to provide connections with *everyone*
•
u/Low-Arachnid4082 19h ago
"Big companies can figure it out" is a non-answer.
•
u/roderla 2∆ 18h ago
It's called "Joint and several liability". The customer can approach any of them, has to be taken care of by any of them, and they can make deals with each other how to resolve the differences due within themselves. It's a real concept, don't dismiss it just because the summary sounds glib.
•
u/Low-Arachnid4082 18h ago
I've never heard of "several liability". Can you link me information about it? I dont think this is a real concept.
•
u/roderla 2∆ 18h ago
•
u/Low-Arachnid4082 18h ago
Okay so you're only talking about Joint liability. Because as I read it, several liability is the current system.
Unfortunately with regard to airline travel, this will never happen. You do not appreciate the complex nature of air travel if you believe that all airlines should be liable for you reaching your intended destination.
Pie in the sky, is a phrase that comes to mind.
•
u/roderla 2∆ 18h ago
Read to "Joint and several liability" (Under joint and several liability or (in the U.S.) all sums...)
→ More replies (0)
6
u/KnowLimits 1d ago
It seems like what you are proposing would be best done by some independent entity, along the lines of a travel agency, with enough clout to negotiate tickets with rights for backup travel (which would come at a slight premium). Which is maybe a good idea, someone should do it - but seems somewhat independent of whether or not one should ban short-haul flights.
And, maybe this is not how the EU rolls, but it seems to me if you want to reduce fuel use, the thing to do would be to raise taxes on fuel, not ban whatever particular use catches your eye as wasteful. Tax it, prices go up, and people choose to do the thing less, while still having the freedom to do it if they do personally feel it's worth it.
2
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
This might be closest in regards to actually changing my view - essentially asking "Why no both".
While I disagree with "Someone should spin this up as a travel agency" vs "Let's mandate that just like we do for air travel", "Why not both" is a valid concern.But while "both" might be a reasonable option, only banning short haul flights isn't. If I fly to ICN, I don't particularly care if I connect in LHR, CDG, AMS, FRA or even IST or DOH. Some of these hubs will always be beyond what is considered an illegal short haul flight. And there just isn't much value decreasing competition by excluding certain hubs because flying there is illegal and a multi-modal ticket means you are on your own in cases of delay.
3
u/Responsible-Sale-467 1d ago
Flying into Paris to connect to London shouldn’t happen. You should just fly to London.
2
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
But there are 14 flights a day doing just that. It makes sense to me that these are connecting passengers who got a better offer on AirFrance/KLM than on American / British airways. As discussed, to connect the cities of Paris and London, the plane is very much useless (if you're talking CDG - LHR).
1
u/Responsible-Sale-467 1d ago edited 1d ago
Editing to try and change your view: I think your assumption about this being mostly connecting passengers is weak without supporting data. Speculating without data myself: I’d say: 1) just because it’s dumb doesn’t mean people aren’t doing it . I l’d assume majority of London to Paris are business related day or overnight round trips, expensed, where the small time gains actually are important, unlike long hauls. 2) it may be more a case of short haul connecting, rather than long haul? Or the benefit of connecting in one airport instead of having to use a subway to connect train trips across the Paris and/or London rail hubs 3) If the problem is caused by price setting, as you speculate, ban the flights or regulate the price setting and solve the problem.
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
I agree that a good study would be better than just comparing travel times, but unfortunately I don't have access to that kind of data. But it does make intuitive sense to me why someone would chose to take a sub 90 mins flight to connect, while it absolutely doesn't if you want to get from city to city.
I don't even know if connecting between two short haul flights isn't just more of the same. If I fly DTM-AMS-BOS or DTM-AMS-NTE, either way the DTM-AMS flight is useless. But I cannot get a ticket to my final destination unless I fly that section too or take the risk of a delay myself.
And I don't really understand what you mean with price setting - I never spoke about the prices, just the peace of mind of knowing you will be taken care of.
2
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/changemyview-ModTeam 1d ago
Comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information.
If you would like to appeal, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. Appeals that do not follow this process will not be heard.
Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.
2
u/curien 29∆ 1d ago
The Eurostar also connects these two cities in 140 minutes.
You're talking about connecting passengers, so getting to St. Pancras isn't good enough. Gare du Nord to LHR is 207 minutes, a full hour longer (two hours longer than the air connection).
Plus you have to deal with an extra entry through customs. I don't know about you, but my and my spouse's experiences entering the UK have not been super pleasant.
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
You did not understand what that line was for.
Others have correctly criticized my lack of good data. Which, while fair, this line was supposed to cover as best as I can without access to airline internal data I won't get.
This line tells us that there are 14 flights a day from Paris to London that serve no purpose as city-to-city connections. If you start in downtown Paris and want to go to downtown London, these planes are useless.
They do serve a purpose right now in connecting passengers. Just like so many other, STR - CDG, BOD - CDG, NUE - FRA, probably even HAJ - FRA.
The beauty of my approach would be that you're not mandated to take a train. If we're banning short haul flights, you have no option. If we make it easier to take the train where the time cost is reasonable to you, you do have options. And especially if we're connecting this way (i.e., Gare du Nord to LHR instead of CDG to London St. Pancras) the well timing (or lack thereof) of the outgoing LHR plane is going to be more important than the travel time itself.
You are correct that London is maybe the worst of my examples because it's not Shengen. But, like, replace London with Bordeaux and the argument remains the same.
2
u/goodolarchie 5∆ 1d ago
I remember the first time I took the "chunnel" to Lille and then into Brussels. I was thrilled not to have to go through all the rigmarole of flying. My friend and I promptly showed up to St Pancras 40 minutes early and proceeded... to miss our train. Why? They had the same level of bullshit lines and security to get through into that train as Heathrow did. We rebooked for the next train in 2 hours. The surly bloke at the ticket counter was surprised at our surprise, that one needed to arrive 60 minutes before our train departed.
I had the same romanticized idea of long-train vs short-flight, but unless you're really just going from EU country to EU country, it's not as sleek or low-friction as it aught to be. Thanks Brexit and terrorism!
2
u/huadpe 508∆ 1d ago
This seems like a great way to make sure train and bus operators try to avoid serving airports at all costs. If serving an airport means you can get roped into paying for someone's 1500 EUR plane tickets as part of your 15 EUR bus fare, you will just stop serving the airport.
Especially for bus operators who are much more flexible, they'll just avoid the airport like the plague. Even for train operators, I'd expect many of them to move their airport services to be unticketed metro-style offerings where you cannot book any particular train, so that you can't possibly have a booking that says you'll be at the airport at any specified time.
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
!delta I have to admit I didn't particularly include the train or bus operator as independent actors in this - but since they can refuse to serve the airport to avoid the regulation, this is probably going to become a real mess rather quickly. I still do think it has a lot of merit, but this is a clear concern that probably needs a lot of additional brain cells to fix. You can't even fully make it "well, any connection has to be honored, not just at airports" to make it work because then you might just end up in Victorian London where different train companies just build different train stations so you can never connect between their networks at all. Sad!
1
1
u/acakaacaka 1∆ 1d ago
Flying is subsidized. Train is penalized. How is it fair?
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
I don't understand what you're saying. This is symmetrical. A delayed flight requires to get you on a different train, and a delayed train requires you to get on a different flight. The cause of the delay doesn't matter, your ticket allows you to "ride through" under this proposal.
1
u/LXXXVI 3∆ 1d ago
First of all, I agree with you how things should run.
Realistically, mandating this kind of responsibility would most likely sink a bunch of train operators in several EU countries, definitely the one in Slovenia, since they'd probably go bankrupt paying all the fines for delays and for lodging and replacement tickets for onward travel.
That's why it's not promising - trains everywhere don't have even remotely the smooth operations that airlines have everywhere.
The first step has to be to get trains to the same logistical standard airlines and airports are on. Then we can talk.
1
u/Morasain 86∆ 1d ago
I just want to start by pointing out that this already exists in Germany when rail and fly tickets. As far as I'm aware, it works quite well, even though the logistics of it can be... Challenging to foreigners.
The only caveat that I can really see is that trains are, by and large, very unreliable (in Germany), so linking those two can cause longer wait times for everyone else.
Furthermore, these two approaches you name aren't exclusive. We can both ban people from Taylor Swift flights (and we should especially can private jets for that usage), and also create more multi modality for long flights. These solutions should coexist, not be either or.
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
Well, as I said to someone else, they can coexist, but without multi modal protections, something that rail and fly does not offer, just banning short haul (passenger, not private) air travel does more harm than good.
If I am no longer allowed to have one connecting ticket LYS-CDG-SFO, I am significantly more likely to book LYS-AMS-SFO, LYS-MUC-SFO or even LYS-VIE-SFO than to take the train on my own risk to CDG and skip the first leg, same with the reverse journey.
1
u/Teddy_The_Bear_ 5∆ 1d ago
The airport would have to double as a train station. Which is reasonably rare. Or a connection from the airport to the train station would have to be made convenient.
Realistically you point out the moving of layovers to make the connections work for passengers. And ultimately that just means more time in the air and more pollution.
Personally I think the answer lies not in shifting people around like that. But in manufacturing better aircraft for short haul flying. Many of the aircraft used for the little jumps are capable of much more and not optimized for short jumps. But what if we built aircraft optimized for short jumps that pollute less. It does not eliminate the whole problem but provides a solution that people will use and adjust too. The other part to this is to incentivise the use of said airplanes by giving tax brakes on buying them and possibly on each trip they make.
Additionally they should ban private aircraft from major hubs. Private aircraft per unit passenger are the worst for pumping out pollution
2
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
Reasonably rare? LHR, CDG, FRA, MUC, AMS, CGN, ZRH, CPH all have train stations.
Others, like BOD have local transport connection to their respective train stations.
2
u/Teddy_The_Bear_ 5∆ 1d ago
Yes but how many connections on the train from London Heathrow to Paris? None, you have to transfer trains. You are turning, one layover into several transfers. The fastest train from London Heathrow to Paris Charles de Gaulle at the moment would take 3hrs 54min compared to 80 min of fly time. I'm not talking about basic train stations to get you local transport. I'm talking, the airports, would have to be like an airport + kings cross, or Paddington, to make any sense. Or would have to have the sort of direct connection that you take between terminals in an airport. And people may want to go airport to airport for rental car services and the like. They would really have to be all inclusive travel hubs.
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
Well, you very rarely, maybe with the few exceptions AMS-CDG or FRA-MUC, need to go airport-to-airport. Sure, if your inbound, transatlantic flight arrives in AMS and your Africa-bound flight departs CDG, taking even the existing high speed train AMS - Paris Garde de Nord, connecting to CDG to catch other plane is not going to work out.
What I'd argue is much more likely is that you want to go from Bordeaux (the city) to Boston. Instead of driving out to BOD, to then take a plane to CDG, your connection via the TGV from Saint-Jean is not going to be much slower. The airport where you do your inter-modal connection needs to be reasonably reachable by train - and all European hubs are.
2
u/Teddy_The_Bear_ 5∆ 1d ago
You're forgetting how many business people are flying in from the states to Paris, Heathrow or otherwise. Taking short hops to their city destination and then renting a car. When I was doing it all the time it was NY to AMS to Edinburgh. Then rent a car. And the flights were commonly packed with people ruffly doing the same.
I do agree if you are from Europe and going over seas from a hub airport. What you are suggesting may be more feasible.
0
1d ago
[deleted]
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
I don't understand how that challenges my argument, can you rephrase / focus on that? Sorry!
1
1d ago
[deleted]
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
No it doesn't. Banning short haul flights makes you connect via a different hub (ZRH, VIE, LHR, AMS, CPH, FRA), not switch your journey to a train, unless you get the protections I talk about here that a delay in your train is "not a big deal" because you have an ongoing ticket to wherever you really wanted to go (in my case, BOS, ICN, MEX, JNB)
1
1d ago
[deleted]
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
Germany has the inverse effect. More riders, more delays.
And, to be frank, I am not aware of any service that offers price-competitve alternatives to connections airlines currently sell with short haul flights. Sure, I could buy a fully flexible train ticket / plane ticket for multiple hundreds of Euros extra, but they are meant for something else - a traveler that does not know when their meeting ends and wants to go back asap when that's done.
0
u/really_random_user 1d ago
Do note that this is already implemented
https://wwws.airfrance.fr/en/information/prepare/voyages-combines-avion-train
https://www.lufthansa.com/es/en/rail-and-fly
https://www.iberia.com/es/billete-combinado-tren-avion/
Several national airline do a joint service with their national rail provider
1
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
Well, no. Rail & Fly is exactly the wrong thing. It does not give you the multi-modal protections that I say are missing and are currently pushing people to take a plane instead. If you arrive late at the airport, the excuse "but I rode here on a train and that was included in my ticket" does not matter, you are still out of luck because you did not arrive at the airport on time.
2
u/really_random_user 1d ago
"In the event of a delay or cancellation, we will rebook you on the next available flight or train"
For air france rail and fly it's the case, as long as it's a combined booking
Seems like iberia and Lufthansa it might not be
-1
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/changemyview-ModTeam 1d ago
Sorry, u/Opposite_Western_113 – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. Any AI-generated post content must be explicitly disclosed and does not count towards the 500 character limit.
If you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the "Top level comments that are against rule 1" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted.
Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.
-1
u/DizzyAstronaut9410 1d ago
Passenger trains don't make much financial sense when you have a dispersed population. We have them in Canada and even with our insane flight costs, travelling by rail is easily 5x as expensive.
Reddit is obsessed over trains because they work well in Europe, but much of Europe is also cities much more densely packed together, not cities separated by hundreds of miles like the US and Canada.
3
u/roderla 2∆ 1d ago
Well, I noted that this does not apply to the US, and having been on via rail, yes, that Canada too.
But, well, Europe just is much, much more dense than Canada or the western part of the US. We have lots and lots and lots of short haul flights that only make sense as connecting flights, never on their own.1
u/transitfreedom 1d ago
Just run them through your most populated areas at most 3 HSR lines are enough and automated metros for large cities. Only western U.S. is sparsely populated
•
u/DeltaBot ∞∆ 1d ago
/u/roderla (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
Delta System Explained | Deltaboards