Despite the increasing number of passengers, the economic situation at German airports remains tense. In addition, in order to protect the climate, the airlines are threatened with additional burdens – possibly also restrictions. The Greens had already announced during the election campaign that they would work towards the complete abolition of short-haul flights after the general election.
In the exploratory talks and later in the coalition talks, the topic should come back into focus, especially since the Greens would co-govern in the event of a three-party coalition. How realistic is an end to short-haul flights? Is it conceivable to make flights more expensive for climate protection?
If the Greens have their way, there will be no more short-haul flights in the foreseeable future. In their election manifesto, they call for such flights to be gradually reduced and made superfluous by 2030 through better rail services. The Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock had justified this with climate protection and declared: “In the future, there should no longer be short-haul flights.”
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The Greens program does not reveal which flights would actually be affected. A position paper of the parliamentary group from 2019 names flights up to a distance of 1000 kilometers. In theory, this included all domestic flights. The EU air passenger rights regulation defines short-haul flights more generously. Accordingly, this would be all connections up to a maximum of 1500 kilometers. This would also apply to flights from Munich to Mallorca, for example.
CDU and FDP want to get short-haul flights
The Green initiative does not convince representatives of the CDU and FDP, who would be partners of the eco party in a possible Jamaica or traffic light coalition (here only the FDP). “We do not want any flight bans, that is also inconceivable in the EU context, because that would also affect a lot of European holiday destinations,” said the traffic expert of the Liberals in the Bundestag, Oliver Luksic, the Handelsblatt. “That would be flights like Frankfurt – Rome or Berlin – Belgrade and thus massive travel and vacation restrictions.” That would be “neither practical nor useful”.
The federal government’s commissioner for small and medium-sized enterprises, Thomas Bareiß (CDU), warns that the German airport hubs Frankfurt and Munich would “suffer massive damage and further lose market share” if domestic flights were to be canceled.
The idea behind this is that domestic flights are used by many passengers who change to another flight at the destination in order to fly abroad. “In these cases, the domestic German flight is part of an international flight connection in which travelers fly from Hamburg via Frankfurt to Singapore, for example,” said the chief executive of the Federal Association of the German Aviation Industry (BDL), Matthias von Randow, the Handelsblatt.
The FDP transport politician Daniela Kluckert therefore urges the Greens to be more realistic: “Mobility is not suitable for black and white thinking,” said the Bundestag member of the Handelsblatt. “Short-haul flights can partly be replaced by good rail connections, but they will continue to play a relevant role for feeder flights in the future.” And beyond that there will still be a need on some routes.
Aviation industry: fewer domestic flights with better rail connections
In this context, Bareiß also emphasizes the importance of regional airports for the German economy and small and medium-sized enterprises. “Our hidden champions are not in the big cities, but spread out across the country,” said the CDU politician. “This regional strength would be seriously jeopardized by a domestic flight ban, because these companies in particular need fast connections.”
However, many flight connections have already been canceled in recent years after many passengers have switched to fast train connections, says BDL managing director of Randow. Today, domestic German flights are essentially only flown on longer routes, for example Berlin – Stuttgart or Hamburg – Munich. “Here, the plane is the only means of transport that enables travelers to arrive and depart in one day and to make appointments at their destination,” said von Randow. Business travelers are particularly interested in this.
In the past year, more than every second flight that took off or landed in Germany covered a short distance of less than 1000 kilometers. This is evident from figures from the Federal Statistical Office. According to this, short-haul flights in 2020 had a share of 53 percent of all passenger flights that took off or landed at the main German airports. There were around 313,000 in total. This means that despite the sharp drop in passenger numbers due to the corona, the proportion is as high as before the pandemic, it said. In 2019 it was 54 percent.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), passenger flights in Germany in 2020 were responsible for a total of 9.75 million tons of CO2 emissions. Of this, 740,000 tons were accounted for by purely domestic flights, which corresponds to a share of almost eight percent.
The Extinction Rebellion group protested against short-haul flights in August 2020.
(Photo: dpa)
If the aviation industry has its way, even more of these flights could be shifted to rail. To do this, however, the railway must provide better train connections and a better luggage service, said von Randow. In addition, the train travel time should not be significantly more than three hours. “If all of the above requirements are met, then we see the potential of around 4.3 million more passengers per year who could opt for rail instead of air.”
Flights are getting more expensive
The industry also firmly assumes that flying will become more expensive for reasons of climate protection. “Basically, we expect prices to tend to rise,” said von Randow. “There will be less extreme low-cost prices, and that’s right, because after all the airlines need adequate income.”
The airlines bear the costs of organizing flight operations and paying employees. In addition, they would need “considerable funds” for investments in service quality and the renewal of the aircraft fleets.
In order to make cheap prices such as 29 euros for Mallorca flights more difficult in the future, Green boss Baerbock pleaded for climate-friendly taxation of flights. However, the aviation industry is critical of this. “Where flight prices rise due to taxes and climate protection measures, these can only be effective for climate protection if they do not distort international competition,” said von Randow. “Unilateral surcharges that can be avoided by providers outside Germany and Europe do not reduce emissions, but merely shift them to foreign airlines and their hubs.”
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