More and more often you hear in the news that countries are working on limiting CO-2 emissions from aviation. They want to reduce air pollution caused by aviation. The Netherlands is also working on this. Last March, KLM airline canceled one of the five flights between Amsterdam and Brussels and replaced it with a Thalys train journey. 

Tour operator TUI also announced last year that they will stop flying to Paris from autumn 2020. This is to limit CO-2 emissions. Like Austria, France wants a ban on short domestic flights whenever possible. This as a part to reduce air pollution. This is what Jean-Baptiste Djebbari (French Deputy Minister for Transport) said on French radio. He believes that traveling by train is a good alternative to flights that can be traveled by train within two and a half hours.

'We are currently investigating, in collaboration with KLM, Schiphol, ProRail and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, how promising such cooperation is in more destinations, such as Düsseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt, Paris and London.' told Hessel Koster of the NS at the end of March opposite NU.nl.

The French government wants the ban on short domestic flights as a condition of the support package to airline Air France-KLM. Sustainability requirements were attached to the aid package of 7 billion euros from the French government to the airline Air France-KLM. By prohibiting these short domestic flights, they also want to prevent the arrival of prize fighters on these routes. 

Jean-Bapiste Djebbari wants to consult with the regions and wants to come up with a bill soon. There are some exceptions, the prohibition does not apply to domestic flights that would take longer than 2,5 hours by train and the prohibition does not apply to flights with a lot of feeder traffic.

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