Spain Short-Haul Flight Ban: Which EU Country Will Be Next?

18.03.2024 - 13:49 / forbes.com / Airlines

Spain is proposing a short-haul flight ban for routes where a train journey is possible under 2.5 hours. It's a similar proposal to the one that France has enshrined in law. As many EU countries try to reach ambitious 2050 climate targets, many are making similar moves to discourage flying and encourage train travel.

Euronews reports that the Spanish government has been considering a similar plane ban to France since 2021. The French ban stems from the pandemic when the government bailed out the national carrier Air France, in return for the cancellation of some short-haul routes to meet the country's environmental targets. Environmentalists are asking for the ban to go further and the French government has also talked about asking Europe to agree to bring in a minium price for low-cost airline tickets.

As is the case with France, there would be an exception for connections with Spanish hub airports that link with international routes and the original plan had been much more expansive, banning flights where train routes of less than four hours exist.

So Spanish environmental campaigners are unhappy because it doesn't go far enough—arguing that the ban is ineffective because it doesn't include Madrid—while protesters argue that it would cause considerable damage to the air transport industry while not achieving any of its aims.

Spain accounts for 9% of Europe's greenhouse gases and this bill would target flights operated by Iberia, Vueling and Air Europa between Madrid and Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante and Seville.

The Spanish plan to ban short-haul flights still needs to go through the amendment stage and then pass the Senate.

In regard to the climate crisis, there are mixed messages for the European travel industry—while governments need to meet increasingly tough climate goals, there is a big demand for new destinations and economic growth. In Italy, the Salerno Costa d’Amalfi Airport is reopening again after being closed since 2016. It originally opened as a military airport in 1926 and then became a training airfield and while it will reopen with a state-of-the-art, carbon-emission-saving building, it still expects 3.3 million passengers in the next three years.

Likewise, there are many new routes planned in and out of France. Transavia is opening a route between Paris Orly Airport and the Estonian capital Tallinn in April 2024. Spanish carrier Volotea will open a new base in Brittany at Brest airport, running 13 new routes to Athens, Barcelona, Faro and Palermo, Italy, amongst others. In May, Norse Atlantic Airways will start flying between Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) six times every week. From June, Nice airport in the south of France will get two