In front of the deputies of the economic affairs committee of the National Assembly, Wednesday, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire revealed part of his expectations vis-à-vis the Air France company, in particular as regards respect for 'environment. In particular, it requests that the supply of flights to French cities well served by high-speed trains be significantly reduced.
"Drastic" reduction
"The plane should no longer be a means of making in 1 hour or 1 hour 15 minutes the journeys which could be made by train in 2 hours or 2 hours and 30 minutes. It must be the rule and we will make it respect", he affirmed thus .
The Minister of the Economy calls for a "drastic" reduction in these domestic flights whose CO2 emissions no longer make sense when the same train journey takes barely longer. Bruno Le Maire then cited the example of certain Strasbourg-Roissy flights. Because for this same distance, the TGV journey takes two hours.
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The only exception which, in the eyes of Bruno Le Maire, can justify the maintenance of a flight, is during a connection with an international service via a hub. If the Strasbourg-Roissy flight allows the passenger to embark immediately on an Air France flight to New York, it would be counterproductive to remove them. Air France could then lose the passenger in question who would rather choose Lufthansa to fly Strasbourg-Frankfurt then Frankfurt-New York.
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A big cleaning
It is therefore not Air France's domestic flights to Roissy that are threatened. The big cleaning will rather concern those who serve Orly. Air France reminds us that this cleaning has already started.
Air France will therefore have to make efforts in return for the aid of seven billion euros that the State is providing to enable it to weather the Covid-19 crisis.