A demonstration will be held at Frankfurt airport on Saturday to ban short-haul flights. In their opinion, flights below 500 kilometers should no longer exist.
Frankfurt – France has shown the way: short-haul flights within the country are prohibited there – whenever the destination can be reached by train within a maximum of two and a half hours. If this rule of thumb applied in this country, all flights from Frankfurt to Düsseldorf, Hanover, Stuttgart and Nuremberg would be omitted. These cities can be reached from the central station by train in one hour and 26 minutes, two hours and 19 minutes, one hour and 18 minutes and two hours and 16 minutes.
And so also in Germany there is talk of the future of short-haul flights. The Greens have included the topic in the federal election campaign. The coalition agreement between SPD, Verdi and FDP states: “We want (…) to promote the rail link of the hubs and reduce the number of short-haul flights through better rail links”.
Frankfurt Airport: “Noise and pollution levels are already too high today”
The joint action plan of the Federal Association of the German Aviation Industry and Deutsche Bahn AG also provides for the ever-increasing replacement of short-haul flights by rail. But: “We still don’t notice anything”, says Wolfgang Heubner of Sachsenhausen of the Alliance of Citizens’ Initiatives (BBI), who today calls for a demonstration at Terminal 1 of Frankfurt airport against short-haul flights and for prohibition of night flights from 22:00 to 6:00
“Already today, in the summer of 2022, the noise and pollution levels are too high,” says Heubner. Air traffic must therefore be “drastically reduced” and reduced to “an absolutely necessary level”. “Air travel is the most climate-damaging means of transport,” says Heubner. According to the Federal Environment Agency, a plane emits 214 grams of climate-damaging greenhouse gases per passenger-kilometer on a route within Germany, a car 154 grams and a train 29 grams.
Aircraft noise opponents at Frankfurt airport: switch to the railway
According to Heubner and his colleagues, minimization of flight movement can be achieved “relatively easily” by banning short-haul flights up to a distance of 500 kilometers. “Most short-haul flights can be moved relatively easily by rail,” says Heubner. “The time advantage is on many train routes.”
The Sachsenhausen citizens’ initiative took a closer look at travel times by train and plane to a city less than 500 kilometers from Frankfurt. In any case, the time needed to go from one main station to another was taken into consideration: once by plane, once by train. This included an hour and a half of stay at the airport before departure and waiting times at the baggage claim.
Consequently, the train to Düsseldorf, Hanover, Stuttgart and Nuremberg has a clear advantage: it takes more than an hour less to reach these destinations by train than by plane. This also applies to the trip to Berlin. The train journey takes four hours and 13 minutes. By plane it takes four hours and 46 minutes. Brussels can also be reached by train in three hours and 18 minutes. It takes three hours and 27 minutes by plane.
Frankfurt Airport: The share of German domestic flights in 2019 was around 14% in Frankfurt
However, if you take the train to Hamburg, you need 13 minutes longer than the plane. Also in Bremen (plane: 3:19 hours, train: 3:53 hours), Friedrichshafen (plane: 3:24 hours, train: 3:33 hours) Amsterdam (plane: 3:45 hours, train: 3:59 hours ), and Zurich (plane: 3:23 hours, train: 4:10 hours) takes longer by train, albeit slightly.
Wolfgang Heubner of the Alliance of Citizens’ Initiatives is certain: “If only short-haul planes bound for destinations that can be reached more quickly by train were eliminated, a lot would have been achieved.”
According to the airport operator Fraport, the percentage of German domestic flights in the pre-Crown 2019 year in Frankfurt was around 14%. In August of this year, the share of domestic traffic decreased by 43.9% compared to August 2019 and is currently at 6.5% for 2022. “Especially against the backdrop of climate protection, we continuously deal with the use of synergies between different modes of transport, “Fraport spokesman Dieter Hulick said when this newspaper asked him.
Short-range opponents: Frankfurt-Cologne route removed from the program ten years ago
“Here in Frankfurt, with direct connection to the Deutsche Bahn ICE network, we have been pioneers in Germany for years in terms of intermodality, ie the networking of different modes of transport.” No other airport in Germany offers a better connection solution. That is why the Frankfurt-Cologne route was excluded from the program more than ten years ago and is only served by ICE.
A “possible prospective partial renunciation of German domestic routes” should be designed in such a way as not only to lead to a migration of flights to other European countries. “We have been dealing with the requirements for new transport concepts for a long time and are working together with our partners Deutsche Bahn and Lufthansa to expand the strategic transport mode network,” says Hulick.
Frankfurt: A blanket short-haul ban is considered wrong at Frankfurt airport
“In this regard, we see ourselves well positioned in the competition to be able to move feeder flights to rail in an environmentally friendly and service-oriented perspective.” A total ban on short-haul routes is considered wrong at Frankfurt airport. Hulick: “Relocating feeder flights to overseas hubs is also not appropriate in terms of climate protection. (Juliet Lorenz)
For today the alliance of citizens’ initiatives is calling for a demonstration against short-haul routes and the ban on night flights from 22:00 to 6:00 at the airport, Terminal 1. It starts at 12.
A short-haul ban could also prevent future scenes like a few days ago at Frankfurt airport: there, an influx of passengers led to the chaos of suitcases. The lack of staff was just one of the reasons.
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