[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_of_the_European_Parliamen...
In what world is maintaining multiple headquarters cheaper than one?
As to why the plane does not take passengers on the return flight: it's a 30 minute flight and it's probably more efficient for the airline to send the plane in that configuration back to Frankfurt as there is no demand for a business class only flight on that day out of Strasbourg. A plane that does not fly is losing money.
There's your problem. Put them in economy. That adds 50% more seats to the flight AND saves money.
Or rather, reimburse them for economy and let them decide whether they want to pay more.
There is a train station at Frankfurt Airport, but a plane connection would be airside, and for connections having to travel to city center possibly with bags is a minus.
These days there is onboard wifi on most planes.
[1] https://www.rome2rio.com/map/Brussels/Strasbourg#r/Train/s/0
Frankfurt <-> Strasbourg (220km) San Francisco <-> San Salito [2] (90km)
The point of these are connections. If you are already at the airport, checked-in, luggage registered, you can just as well take the flight closer to your destination. Not saying the makes ecological sense, but I don't understand the outrage towards Lufthansa. Blame the MEP paying for these flights with your tax money and being bad role models contradicting the policies they are voting for.
[1] https://thepointsguy.com/news/longest-shortest-united-flight... [2] https://www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2017/09/29...
The flight in the article takes 55 minutes to go 178km. Short flights will have proportionally more time taxing etc, but this alone wouldn’t appear to explain it.
The shortest commercial flight I ever took was from HOU to IAH†, a flight distance of 24mi/39km. I was surprised how long it took. At first I thought it was because of traffic, but a member of the flight crew told me, "We go low and slow."
†This was back when Continental was all mad about the parking situation at IAH, and so if you had an outbound flight from IAH, it would let you park for free at HOU and then add on a free HOU→IAH segment. At the time, you used to get 500 frequent flyer miles just for getting into the air, so it was an option I exercised as often as I could.
Rules about on-timed-ness and passenger compensation for delays mean that airlines now add buffers to their flight times, so most of the times it's "Wahey, we're early!", when they do experience delays they end up landing at the advertised landing time, saving them from those compensation payments.
No. Thanks for the explanation.
I hope thats not a literal, we moved the seats for the aristocrats type of flight.
This means they can dynamically adjust the size of business class on a per flight basis. So "a huge business class cabin" is misleading here.
I'm not looking for asceticism here, my hope is to minimize pollution. Of course, a bus would probably allow 200%-300% the space for less pollution and similar travel time.
BTW, I am a EU citizen worried about climate change and tired of recycling at home to sometimes see this kind of hypocrisy of some politicians.
I believe consistent messaging from leaders regarding climate action does actually make a difference to the people they are asking to think and acting responsibly regarding their impact on on our fragile climate.
The EU just last year promoted "2021 the European Year of Rail."[3][4] And Adina Vălean, the European Commissioner for Transport has been very vocal about this promotion of long-distance and cross-border passenger rail travel across the continent.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-europe-travel-night-...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/12/france-ban-...
[3] https://www.reuters.com/article/sponsored/connecting-europe-...
[4] https://transport.ec.europa.eu/news/end-european-year-rail-b...
And the silly fact of the EU having:
Brussels, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Strasbourg
as seats of the Government makes this shameful and, yes, scandalous.
As they say, no snowflake thinks it's responsible for the avalanche.
Then don’t try to convince me to separate my waste at home, because when you ask what is the true impact of it they say it is small but the sum of small efforts is what matters. Or is it that some are exempt of it?
Yes! That would show everyone that dealing with climate change is going to reduce your quality of life. I'm sure that's a good idea.
I wonder if part of the reason they're flying is that they don't want to be in public transport with the plebeians.
Frankly, wherever there are fast alternatives, I wonder if the days of airlines are numbered.
Push through rail opportunities like maybe more runs with smaller trains, better synchronization of schedules, quick connections, faster trains etc..
It would be nice if they replaced these monthly sessions with Zoom meetings or similar. It's almost as if they are completely oblivious to corporate remote meetings revolution of the last 2+ years because of the pandemic.
I have a mental image of one of these bureaucrats sitting in business class working a Powerpoint presentation about energy policy.
Edit: oops, this is about Frankfurt-Strasbourg. (Sorry, I mixed it up with some other fairly recent reporting.) That's really hard to justify: there are high-speed trains doing that route in 1h50, and a non-stop one could do it even faster.
No need for hypocrisy. Those of us who see flight shame as a bit silly can fly. Others can not. I assume the same applies for EU politicians.
It is not hypocrisy in the sense you state, certainly. It is the governmental one (do as I force you, not as I do with your money).
Do MEPs really qualify as high ranking government officials?
Leave out that High Ranking government officials travel with security, press, aides, etc. Yes it's wasteful, but it's likely the safest, fastest and easiest method to gather decision makers. It's such the long tail of carbon output on the climate emergency.
Additionally, these ministers _should_ be representative (Yes, I am aware that is abstracted in the EU). It doesn't matter who they are personally, they are representing their constituents.
Do I wish that each official would show up by bicycle, sailboat, carbon neutral balloon, train, etc? Indeed I do - and the more whimsical the better. Because it would be theater, but theater is an important part of governance. Having the ministers sacrifice sends a message.
But much more important is what they vote for, what they advocate, what policies they affect - as that is what will move the needle on a better or worse world.
But the real reason I might wish they take the bus is that it just provides this fodder for doing nothing. For other blowhards to point and use this as just another excuse to twiddle our thumbs until the extreme crisis arrives.
Until Al Gore personally delivers organically grown sustainable vegetables to every human on the planet, let's not change industrial policies, taxation, energy plans or researching funding. Let's concentrate on the theater and hypocrisy first, and leave the attainable, sustainable long term profitable policy changes for our grandchildren (fingers crossed there is still a democratic institution around as the world's greatest migration and refugee crisis encircles the planet).
Btw - Google tells me blood boils around the same as water - 100 C. I don't quite see those temperatures occurring, but it will sure feel like it on, say the Indian Subcontinent. Good thing no one lives there!
But there is a definite problem with a demand for personal action, it is both ineffective and usually hypocritical like in the way you suggested.
We absolutely need to demand that all companies and institutions get to carbon neutral or negative status in the products or services they offer.
Every individual can do their part if they want but that’s mostly to feel good, any real progress can only come from the goods/service providers fixing their offers (and that might need all sorts of legislation and incentives to get going, whatever it takes).
(Or check expense claims if they have that detail public.)
Does it only make sense if you believe what the top commenter believes:
“So when I see stories like this, it confirms that all this climate change nonsense is just that - nonsense. If it was really an issue, these flights wouldn't exist."
We live in this imperfect world. If we wait for it to become "perfect" top down, we'll just wait forever. And the climate emergency does to care about our partisan concerns.
I feel so for those with children. It's clear we're leaving them a world already condemned.
Why is European business class so absolutely terrible?
