Short-haul flight ban

A short-haul flight ban is a prohibition imposed by governments on airlines to establish and maintain a flight connection over a certain distance, or by organisations or companies on their employees for business travel using existing flight connections over a certain distance, in order to mitigate the environmental impact of aviation (most notably to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions which is the leading cause of climate change). In the 21st century, several governments, organisations and companies have imposed restrictions and even prohibitions on short-haul flights, stimulating or pressuring travellers to opt for more environmentally friendly means of transportation, especially trains.
A portion of air travelers in short-haul routes connect to other flights at their destination. A blanket ban would have a significant impact on these travelers, as inadequate rail connectivity between airports and main railway hubs of cities generally result in longer overall travel times and disruption to travellers overall.
There is no consensus on what constitutes a 'short-haul flight'. In public discourse such as debates and surveys, the term is often not explicitly defined. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) defines a short-haul flight as "a flight with duration of 6 hours or fewer", and a long-haul flight takes longer than 6 hours. In practice, governments and organisations have set different standards, either according to the absolute distance between cities as the crow flies in hundreds of kilometres, or in terms of how many hours it would take a train to cover the same distance. As one example, the University of Groningen set limits according to both standards, namely prohibiting its personnel from flying distances shorter than 500 kilometres, or shorter than can be travelled by train in 6 hours. There was some confusion on how to calculate and reconcile both limits: as the crow flies, the distance between Groningen and Berlin is 465 km, but the road connection 577 km; moreover, the train travel time varies from 5.40 hours to 6.30 hours.
Governments generally impose short-haul flight bans on all citizens and businesses operating within their territory. Some exceptions for emergency situations are granted.
Organisations, including government organisations and NGOs, as well as commercial companies, sometimes impose short-haul restrictions on their own employees for work-related travelling, usually recommending or ordering personnel to take the train instead. Some exceptions may be granted for emergencies or destinations that are difficult to reach by train. If an employee's flight does not comply to the rules set by their employer, the travel costs will not be reimbursed.
During a televised debate ahead of the 2019 European Parliament election in May 2019, European Commission presidential candidate Frans Timmermans proposed banning all short-haul flights in the European Union, with his opponent Manfred Weber partially agreeing that they should be reduced. Analysts pointed out that there was no agreed definition of the term 'short-haul flights', and that it could pose far-reaching implications for smaller regional airports that primarily serve domestic flights. In a September–October 2019 poll conducted by the European Investment Bank (EIB) amongst 28,088 EU citizens from the then 28 member states, 62% said they were in favour of banning 'short-haul flights'; the survey did not define the term.
In August 2010, activist group Wiloo (Werkgroep rondom de Impact van de Luchthaven van Oostende op de Omgeving) demanded a short-haul flight ban and a domestic kerosene tax in Flanders, similar to the ones imposed in Wallonia in 2006 and the Netherlands in 2005 respectively, due to the rapid increase of pollutive domestic flights. A spokesperson said 700 flights (20%) in or out of Ostend were only 300 kilometres or less, adding that it was 12 times more expensive to transport passengers from Ostend to Brussels by airplane than by bus.
On 9 June 2020, during a lull in the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium, Flemish Transport Minister Lydia Peeters [nl] participated in a short-haul flight of ASL Group from Brussels via Knokke to Antwerp, claiming she wanted to promote regional airports such as Antwerp, Ostend, Kortrijk during the aviation crisis, because she was "convinced that regional airports have a future in Flanders because of their economic importance." For several days, her action was fiercely criticised by citizens and environmental organisations, who argued regional airports were "not economically essential at all, but a source of damaging and perfectly avoidable CO2 emissions". Groen politician Imade Annouri remarked: "This is utterly sending the wrong signal. Several countries around us are abolishing short-haul flights and investing in high-speed rail instead. (...) Businessmen can perfectly take the train to European destinations." In light of the climate crisis, the Minister's decision was alleged to be "irresponsible to society". Peeters felt the need to apologise on three different occasions, first explaining she had accepted the proposal "to take part in a press flight because business flights are an essential pillar of our regional airports", eventually expressing regret and declaring she should not have embarked on the flight.
Timmermans' proposal triggered a fierce debate in Germany about banning short-haul flights (meaning shorter than 1,500 kilometres), with some politicians agreeing with him, others saying it went too far, and others supporting measures they deemed more appropriate. In mid-October 2019, the German Finance Ministry announced that it would not restrict short-distance flights, but would almost double the short-haul air passenger taxes instead, from 7.50 to 13.03 euros; medium-haul taxes would increase from 23.43 to 33.01 and long-haul taxes from 42.18 to 59.43 euros. Meanwhile, train tickets would become 10% cheaper.
By July 2019, most political parties in Germany, including the Left Party, the Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Christian Democrats, started to agree to move all governmental institutions remaining in Bonn (the former capital of West Germany) to Berlin (the official capital since German Reunification in 1990), because ministers and civil servants were flying between the two cities about 230,000 times a year, which was considered too impractical, expensive and environmentally damaging. The distance of 500 kilometres between Bonn and Berlin could only be travelled by train in 5.5 hours, so either the train connections required upgrading, or Bonn had to be abolished as the secondary capital.
Although in March 2019 almost all Dutch parliamentary parties agreed that train travel should replace short-distance aviation, there were also some practical problems to be solved before trains could become a viable alternative, such buying a combined train/plane ticket, the lack of a direct Thalys connection from Amsterdam Central and Paris-North to Brussels Airport (forcing passengers to switch trains in Brussels-South), and the fact that the Benelux train (which does directly connect Schiphol and Zaventem) takes over 2 hours (mostly due to the lack of a high-speed rail between Antwerp and Brussels). In November 2019, a Qatar Airways Boeing 777 cargo flight line from Doha to Mexico City with stopovers in Maastricht and Liège sparked controversy over "the most bizarre flight ever", as the distance between the latter two is only 38 kilometres and takes just 9 minutes, merely because a single Dutch customer requested their weekly package to be delivered in Maastricht rather than Liège. In response, two of the four Dutch government parties suggested prohibiting all flights shorter than 100 kilometres.
In September-October 2022, research by RTL Nieuws revealed that Dutch ministers, state secretaries and the royal couple Willem-Alexander and Máxima were increasingly making short business flights on the Dutch government aircraft PH-GOV (a Boeing 737-700), private aircraft or commercial airliners (a 38% increase compared to 2019), even though this was contrary to the January 2022 coalition agreement to discourage short flights. Moreover, many aircraft flew empty back and forth in inefficient and environmentally polluting ways, and most distances could in principle have been covered perfectly well by train, or, if necessary, scheduled flights. This was evident in part because some ministers such as Dijkgraaf (education) and Harbers (infrastructure) travelled by official car or train from The Hague to Luxembourg or Paris in the first eight months of 2022, but Prime Minister Rutte and Minister Hoekstra (foreign affairs) together made 8 out of 12 flights to Luxembourg or Paris, mostly by government aircraft PH-GOV. Aviation experts were critical of the needlessly polluting and expensive travel behaviour of the ministers who were supposed to set a good example, and private aviation was also unhappy with the many short flights because of the high costs. In response to RTL's findings, coalition parties D66 and ChristenUnie reacted critically to the cabinet. and coalition party CDA also raised parliamentary questions about short and environmentally polluting empty flights, for instance between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, for a limited gain of time for a minister. Opposition party GroenLinks wanted to field a motion to force the cabinet and the king to travel by train for trips shorter than 700 kilometres. The Ministry of Infrastructure confirmed that the climate impact of aviation needed to be reduced, although ministers also needed to be able to do their jobs efficiently. The Interior Ministry also said that short flights were often unnecessary: "The time savings with flying are very limited, flying has more logistical challenges and is less flexible in terms of time than a train connection." However, according to the State Information Service and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, alternative transport was not possible for all trips by commercial private jets, "because the government plane was not available and other means of transport did not fit agendas."
In response to the 8 October 2018 IPCC report, more than 650 Danish academics from various disciplines published an open letter on 19 November 2018, calling on the managements of (Danish) universities to lead by example in combating climate change. Item number one on their five-point priority list was "drastically reducing flights and supporting climate-friendly alternatives". On 4 February 2019, 55 Dutch scientists, referring to the Danish initiative, published a similar "Climate Letter", including item no. #2: "Drastically reducing flights, with insightful targets, including through exercising critical consideration before travelling, using alternative modes of transport, and investing in climate-friendly alternatives and behavioural change to enable remote participation at academic consultations, conferences and exchanges." By 7 March 2019, all 14 Dutch universities (united in the VSNU) had expressed their support for the Climate Letter, which had been signed by almost 1,300 members of staff at that point. VSNU President Pieter Duisenberg stated: "The academic community can and must play a leading role in addressing climate change. This not only involves knowledge, but also whatever we as universities can do ourselves." Many Dutch universities were inspired by Ghent University's sustainable travel policy. In July 2019, Technische Universität Berlin professor Martina Schäfer similarly initiated a "Commitment to renounce short-haul (business) flights' (described as "travelable without flying in below 12 hours", or 1,000 kilometres), which was signed by over 1,700 German academics by 20 September 2019. The day before, Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development became the first Germany university to make the voluntary commitment to avoid flying distances shorter than 1000 kilometres or 10 hours train travel mandatory for all employees.
Aside from advocating for more sustainable short-distance travel and arguing that the scientific community should lead by example, some academics have questioned the necessity and thereby justifications for many international flights in order to attend scientific conferences or researchers' meetings. Liesbeth Enneking (Erasmus University Rotterdam) stated that congresses have little added value, as researchers can already access their colleagues around the world through the online publication of their papers, and meeting peers in real life and speaking to them face to face is rarely important for their work. "Attending congresses is sometimes mostly just stimulating your ego, and a nice trip, (...) but for the planet's sake, this is a privilege that we can no longer afford on this scale", Enneking stated; she stopped flying in 2017. Cody Hochstenbach (University of Amsterdam) narrated how many short (for example, two days) international research meetings are:
Referring to arguments made by other academics, he added that this behaviour was a form of socioeconomic injustice towards many people with lower education and income who could never even afford such long flights. Individual scientists should take their responsibility and fulfil the burden of proof to demonstrate that their flights to such conferences are really useful, and cannot be replaced by trains. Climate lawyer Laura Burgers said: "Some scientific conferences abroad are no doubt useful, but we should be honest: often it's just fun to make a trip. Such advantages do not outweigh the environmental damage, however," recounting her experience of a conference where scientists discussed research that had already been published and thus "a waste of time and flight CO2 emissions".
While acknowledging that the current intensity should be reduced, other academics partially disagree, saying that, especially for young researchers, getting and staying in touch with their international colleagues in real life can really help to establish their network and advance their career, and make interactions easier and more complete than via video. Astrophysicist Ralph Wijers pointed out that his research projects, including trips he needed to make for them, were funded by several different organisations who required him to travel with the fewest expenses possible, often forcing him to take generally cheap plane tickets rather than relatively costly train tickets: 'We should address this on a larger scale: the more pollutive for the environment, the more expensive I think it should be.'
Some universities have consciously decided not to impose a formal ban on short-haul business flights, but instead encourage their employees to consider alternative modes of transportation, or to fully offset their carbon emissions, or to consider videoconferencing instead of flying to conferences and meetings, judging that such an alternate approach would still be sufficient to meet set environmental goals. For example, the University of Copenhagen's prorector stated in February 2020: "We're very keen to limit climate changes and we intend to reduce our total CO2 footprint even more. (...) The University's new travel policy does not impose a ban on air travelling, but sets out recommendations and suggestions for how to change travel habits. It is a matter of choice of transportation and providing alternatives to air travel. For example meetings and video conferences via digital platforms like Skype."
Leiden University has not introduced short-distance restrictions on flights, but set train travel as the norm for personnel journeys shorter than 6 hours or 500 kilometres since 2017. The university aimed to restrict thus-defined short-haul flights below 10% of all flights; since this was 5.7% in 2017 and further decreased to 4.5% in 2019, the policy was hailed as a success. In 2018, 90% of flight CO2 emissions were compensated by payments to, for example, the Fair Climate Fund.
In November 2019, Utrecht University chose not to impose a flight ban, but use various other measures, such as providing employees with information about alternatives, investing in better video conferencing facilities, a train zone map that calculates travel times, and compensation for train ticket purchases, to halve its number of flight kilometres by 2030. A flight carbon offset requirement was already imposed in 2018.