- This Tuesday, The Shift Project publishes its proposals for compensation for the public aid that is about to receive the air sector to recover from the crisis linked to Covid-19.
- The think tank on energy transition requests that the French State take the opportunity to ask the aviation sector to accelerate its energy transition.
- For the think-tank, this can only be done at the cost of strong measures of sobriety. Including that of eliminating, by 2022, the overhead lines for the connections that the train already provides in sufficient frequency and in less than 4:30.
Remove the overhead interior lines that shade the train… The idea is in the wind. Even more at a time when states are preparing to inject billions of euros in aid in the air sector, which was undermined by the Covid-19 crisis.
Even the government talks about it. On BFMTV, Monday, Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, thus indicated that these aids would be conditional on the removal of domestic lines, except for connecting travelers, when there is an alternative by train of less than 2 h 30 .
Eye powder? The scope is too small, regrets Jean-Marc Jancovici, president of The Shift Project, a think tank on energy transition. “2 h 30, it theoretically allows flights between Paris and Lyon, Paris and Bordeaux or Paris and Nantes. Furthermore, over these distances, most of the passengers are actually connecting. In other words, the government's proposal is to do nothing. "
Remove airlines that the train operates in less than 4 h 30
However, for the Shift Project, the idea is good. It is even the main measure that the Think Tank puts forward on Tuesday in its "proposals for compensation for public aid to the aeronautical and aviation sector". This report, produced in collaboration with around thirty experts, including the Supaero Decarbo * collective, aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from air traffic operated on French territory by 4.2 million tonnes by 2025.
Not only does The Shift Project take up this idea of eliminating the airlines which overshadow the train, but outbids it by asking that this be done "by the end of 2022, for all the air connections departing from Paris that the train connects already in less than 4:30 ”. With a little more flexibility for connecting flights. "We suggest that they be deleted when there is an alternative train that takes less than 2 hours 30 minutes," says Romain Grandjean, engineer at The Shift Project, coordinator of the report.
This measure would leave little more than Paris-Nice as an active line. "But not Paris-Toulouse, the first domestic link in Europe," says Jean-Marc Jancovici. We would apply the same logic on intra-European connections, which would then remove Paris-London, Paris-Amsterdam, Paris-Geneva… ”.
Against the backdrop of a strong increase in traffic
Brutal? For the Shift Project, there is no other choice than to go through sobriety measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation sector. According to estimates, it is responsible today for 2 to 3% of global CO2 emissions. “To this are added other effects of air, excluding CO2, on the climate, in particular the contrails that are rejected by planes at high altitude and which also create intense global warming, adds Romain Grandjean. Air traffic would contribute much more to around 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. "
With a worrying prospect: that of the sharp increase in global traffic, at least before the coronavirus pandemic occurs. "In passenger per kilometer, it has increased by 6.8% per year over the past five years and by 4.1% in France," explains Jean-Marc Jancovici. We are facing a sector whose emissions, in absolute value, are taking the exact opposite path from what it would take to comply with the Paris climate agreement. "
✈️ D-1: Tomorrow at 6.30pm, the Shift will present by video conference its analyzes and proposals for the future of the air sector. Hosted by @JMJancovici and R. Grandjean, the project manager!
💻 Meet at 6.30pm on Zoom or live on our Facebook page 👉https: //t.co/tub8Owp7Pz
Indispensable sobriety?
Lighter, more aerodynamic planes, optimized trajectories… Put end to end, technological progress has already led to savings in CO2 emissions per passenger in recent years. "They have fallen by 25% in France over the past fifteen years," recalls Paul Chiambaretto, associate professor of strategy and marketing at the Montpellier Business School and director of the Pegasus chair, dedicated to the economy and management of air transport.
In its report, The Shift Project relies on a few technological developments available immediately to further nibble C02 emissions from the aviation sector **. While noting that they will only allow limited gains. "Air transport is one of the few sectors for which there is no" low-carbon "technological alternative (in the short or medium term) (unlike automobile transport, for example)", notes the report.
It then comes back to the proposal to delete the airlines for which there are train alternatives. The Shift Project expects C02 gains of 0.9 million tonnes by 2025 on this measure alone. "In France, for the same journey, a train journey emits on average almost 40 times less CO2 than a journey by plane", recalls the report.
Deletions "with undesirable effects"
Paul Chiambaretto however warns against these line deletions, an idea which may seem attractive on paper but which can translate, in its implementation, into unwanted effects. "We must already have in mind that it is foreign companies - low cost in particular - who are taking the brunt of the growth in French air traffic," he begins. Removing our domestic routes could further increase this phenomenon, while, paradoxically, these foreign companies are often less concerned with the environment than the French. French passengers could be tempted to take their long-haul flight from other major European cities, by joining them by plane.
"This is the whole paradox of environmental measures," continues Paul Chiambaretto. We rarely compare the economic impact they can have, especially on individuals. We are betting here that people will actually take the train to get to Paris airports take their planes. This is to forget that this option train + plane is in many cases more expensive and complicated. How will a Montpellier resident, for example, have to take a plane at 10 a.m. in Paris? Should he leave the night before and sleep one night in Paris or take the train at night? Not to mention that until further notice, a health crisis requires, only one seat out of two is today usable on French trains. This correspondingly reduces the passenger capacity of the rail network.
Also attacking the "miles" system
The removal of airlines competing with the train is just one of the restraint measures put forward by The Shift Project. The think tank also recommends banning business aviation flights for private reasons. "The average occupancy rate is only five passengers per plane, so that emissions per passenger are at least twenty times greater than those of an economy class," says Romain Grandjean. Another request is to limit the benefits of loyalty programs, including the mileage system . "We can consider that 5% of the traffic of large airlines is linked to the use of miles and that 50% of this traffic is opportunistic", estimates The Shift Project.
The think-tank still recommends imposing a decrease in the average annual fuel consumption for all flights touching French territory. Several levers can be mobilized, the report says, from the accelerated renewal of fleets in favor of more recent aircraft to the increase in aircraft filling rates. By reducing, for example, the ratio of luxury classes. "Here again, an idea which is not without consequences for the cost of tickets. The upper classes in an airplane overpay the price of their flight, which makes it possible to subsidize economy class tickets, ”recalls Paul Chiambaretto.
"There will be losers"
So not simple. The Shift project does not in any case avoid the consequences of the measures it recommends for the aviation sector, including on employment (airlines and airport services represent nearly 100,000 jobs in France).
"We are aware that these measures will make losers, admits Jean-Marc Jancovici. But to think that the attempt to keep the situation as it is is an illusion. It depends on parameters that are not sustainable, starting with the future supply of oil. In other words, it will make losers too. Much more than if we do not anticipate it. "
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* Collective hired by former students concerned about climate change at ISAE-SUPAERO, a school of engineers specializing in aeronautics.
** Like eco-roll-off (the fact of towing planes on runways by electric vehicles) or even the optimization of flight paths, or even the very strong limitation of fuel tankering (a practice that is consistent for airlines to take away excess fuel on planes from the airport where fuel is the cheapest).
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