A new international report sheds light on how short-haul flights can be replaced by rail connections and shows the possibility of reducing CO2.

The climate issue is generally very sensitive and the most varied of views are represented. For this reason, Aviation Direct brings the information from Greenpeace and Flughafen Wien AG in two separate articles that appear at the same time. In order to be able to offer readers the greatest possible decision-making options, the articles were also edited by different editors of the Aviation Direct team. Flughafen Wien AG's point of view is read at this link.

The environmental protection organization Greenpeace published a new report today that examines how many short-haul flights in Europe can be replaced by trains. The surprising result: for around 30 percent of all short-haul flights there are train connections under six hours, for 18 percent there are direct night train connections.

The data for Austria are even more gratifying: in this country there are direct night train connections for 53 percent of all top 30 short-haul flights within the EU - an absolute record in Europe. Including some fast day trains and night trains with one change, there is even a good rail alternative for 80 percent of all Austrian short-haul flights.

"Together with the direct night trains in Europe, almost half of all short-haul routes could already be comfortably switched to the train," analyzes Greenpeace traffic spokesman Herwig Schuster: "We are therefore calling for these flights to be banned." However, Europe is also calling for improvements to the railways from Greenpeace. "The train has to be made much cheaper than the plane," says Schuster, "and especially in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the trains have to run much faster and more often."

Greenpeace also draws a climate balance

The organization also used the data from the new report for a carbon footprint. “Replacing all of the top 250 short-haul flights in Europe with trains would result in annual CO2 savings of around 23,5 million tons per year. That corresponds to the annual CO2 emissions of all of Croatia, ”says Schuster.

In Austria one could save 30 million tonnes of CO1500 annually by foregoing the 1,6 most frequently used flights under 2 kilometers. Across Europe, just foregoing flights for which there is a train under six hours would save over five million tons. In Europe, trains have an average of five times better carbon footprint than airplanes per passenger-kilometer. In Austria, trains are even more climate-friendly than the EU average due to the use of green electricity by ÖBB.