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Shall we say goodbye to short flights? PSOE and Sumar have closed this Tuesday, October 24, a programmatic agreement to form a coalition government after in the last hours their leaders, Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz, have closed the details of the pact. This agreement includes some measures such as the reduction of the working day to 37.5 hours per week without reduction in salary, the increase in the SMI or the regulation of dismissal..
Thus, it also contemplates a commitment that has caught the attention of citizens and has sparked controversy: the reduction of short national flights in the event that there is an alternative by train of less than two and a half hours, except in cases of connection. with airports that connect with international routes. The objective is to reduce CO₂ emissions caused by aviation, much greater than those caused by trains, a more ecological means of transport..
According to calculations by Ecologistas en Acción, in Spain around 50,000 short flights can be eliminated annually from 11 air routes that have train connections of less than four hours.. In this way, between 30% and 40% of the emissions of domestic peninsular flights and close to 10% of the emissions of all air transport in Spain could be saved.. In total, it is estimated that this measure would save more than 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to this study.
Candidate routes to disappear
Although the acting Government has not specified which routes would be affected, the document prepared by the environmental group details which are the plane routes that currently have at least four daily frequencies in each direction and that could be replaced by train trips. less than four hours:
- Alicante–Madrid / Madrid–Alicante
- Barcelona–Madrid / Madrid–Barcelona
- Barcelona–Valencia / Valencia–Barcelona
- Madrid–Málaga / Málaga–Madrid
- Madrid–Pamplona / Pamplona–Madrid
- Madrid–Santiago de Compostela / Santiago de Compostela–Madrid
- Madrid–Seville / Seville–Madrid
- Madrid–Valencia / Valencia–Madrid
Other candidates to disappear are routes with less than four daily frequencies:
- La Coruña–Madrid / Madrid–La Coruña
- Granada–Madrid / Madrid–Granada
- Logroño–Madrid / Madrid–Logroño
However, this project comes up against an issue that does not encourage the use of the train among the population, and that is that, in most cases, it is more expensive than using the plane.. Specifically, train tickets are twice as expensive in Europe as plane tickets on average, and up to four times more in Spain, according to a Greenpeace study.. The NGO highlights that citizens are encouraged to fly, favoring airlines and asks the European Union (EU) and national governments to encourage trains instead..