Following a partial ban in France approved by Brussels in December, officials in the aviation sector have said that the airline industry plans to invoke EU rights to freedom of movement to push back against environmental restrictions on short-haul flights which they fear could set a precedent for wider limitations across Europe.
French, European airports and regional airlines are laying out a new strategy to counter the ban on three French short-haul flight routes that have been in place for three years.
Although they think a formal legal challenge is unlikely, they plan to invoke freedom of movement which is one of four basic freedoms enshrined in European law as they pursue informal reviews of the law expected to take place twice a year and to lobby the government.
“We have the principle established by the EU of an open, liberalized market with the freedom to provide air services for any European airlines between any point within Europe. And that’s basically to support the freedom of movement, people and citizens across Europe,” one senior industry official was quoted to have said.
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The ban impacted far fewer routes than environmental groups had hoped and it is ultimately ineffective in significantly curbing emissions, industry bodies claim.
SCARA, a group representing regional French airlines that lobbied aggressively to water down the original ban, said it would also use review periods to prove that the ban has no real impact.
“We’ll embarrass people with the data,” global airlines head Willie Walsh said on the sidelines of the Airline Economics conference in Dublin.
“If we banned all flights of less than 500 km in Europe…it would be less than 4% of the CO2 in Europe, right? I think there’s a perception that it would be 80%. It’s not a solution,” he told Reuters.
According to the Union of French Airports, which plans to complain to France’s Council of State about the ban, likely by the end of this month, the routes that will be banned represent only 0.23% of France’s air transport emissions, 0.04% of transport sector emissions and 0.02% of the air transport sector’s emissions.
Green lobbyists want wider restrictions and are preparing to counter the industry’s efforts to reverse the ban. However, Henrik Holole, director-general for mobility and transport at the European Commission told Reuters the EU would stick to the ban for now.
Story was adapted from AP.
