Aiming for fewer domestic flights: getting passengers on trains

With an optimal implementation, according to BDL calculations, around 4.3 million previous flight passengers could be brought onto the rails every year, announced those involved. That would be around 18 percent of the passenger volume of 23.9 million domestic passengers in 2019. A precise time frame for achieving this goal was not given, but the plan contains elements for the next ten years. In the short term, the airlines are expecting significantly lower passenger numbers and an only slow recovery in the business travel segment due to the corona pandemic.

The pre-crisis total includes around 8 million transfer passengers for international flights, which, according to BDL President Peter Gerber, could not simply be referred to the train. In the case of long-haul flights in particular, the customer can always switch to foreign hubs, so that nothing is gained for the environment. The BDL expects that there will also be long-term demand for air traffic on long domestic German connections with train travel times of more than three hours. A ban on domestic flights is the worst way, said rail board member Ronald Pofalla. Ultimately, it’s about customer decisions.

In addition to well-known new and expansion projects for the Deutsche Bahn, the action plan also includes a growing range of feeder trains to Frankfurt Airport. Lufthansa and Bahn had already announced in March the expansion of their joint offer “Lufthansa Express Rail”, which will be expanded by five to 22 take-off stations. From December there will also be additional sprinter trains to the largest German airport. There, the partners want to make the change easier for travelers with better routes, signage and easier baggage handling.

So far, five larger German airports (Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Cologne-Bonn and Leipzig-Halle) are connected to long-distance and local rail transport. Another seven can be reached by local trains. The lack of long-distance transport connections at the second largest German airport in Munich is particularly painful. Here, a commissioned feasibility study should examine variants of an additional connection. “We hope for new knowledge,” said Pofalla.

The Pro Bahn passenger association welcomed the initiative. “It is a step in the right direction to use market economy mechanisms to get more customers out of the air and onto the rails,” said honorary chairman Karl-Peter Naumann of the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”. Bans like in France could only be a last resort. It is expedient to exempt domestic air traffic from all tax advantages and to impose an eco-tax on it. The left-wing member of the Bundestag Jörg Cezanne also called for a kerosene tax for domestic flights in order to increase the pace of the relocation.

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