• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska March 14, 2023
U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse March 14, 2023
$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’ March 14, 2023
UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’ March 9, 2023
Biden Cuts Fossil Subsidies, But Oil and Gas Still Lines Up for Billions March 9, 2023
Next
Prev

Italy’s National Airline Folds as High-Speed Rail Takes Flight

January 10, 2022
Reading time: 2 minutes

Mood 101/pixabay

Mood 101/pixabay

11
SHARES
 

Italy’s national airline Alitalia shut down in October, and the country’s efficient, extremely comfortable, and broadly affordable high-speed rail network is being identified as one of the causes.

While other factors were doubtless involved—competition from cut-rate airlines like Ryanair and Alitalia’s legendary insouciance about passenger satisfaction, for example—Italy’s high-speed rail system (HSR) clearly played a part in the permanent grounding of the 74-year-old airline, says Not Just Bikes in an early December video posted to YouTube.

  • Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
  • Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
  • The Weekender: The climate news you need.
Subscribe

“Domestic flights made up an unusually high percentage of Alitalia’s flights and Italy’s HSR has seen significant growth in the past decade,” says Not Just Bikes founder and content creator Jason Slaughter, drawing a correlation between the upsurge of train travel in Italy and the airline’s demise.

Certainly, policy headwinds were not in the company’s favour, with countries like France and Austria introducing legislation to “eliminate short-haul flights where trains are available.” Not Just Bikes adds that where HSR does not exist, there are serious plans afoot to bring it in as an alternative to shorter flights.

Citing an October TransEuropa report for Greenpeace, the video adds that “one-third of the top 150 short-haul flights in Europe have train alternatives that are less than six hours in duration, and those alternatives could be improved significantly with more EU investment in high-speed rail and night trains.”

This is certainly a case of “build it and they will come,” Slaughter opines. “When good quality alternatives are available, people will take trains over planes,” he says, citing his own recent experience taking a high-speed train from Verona to Padua and on to Napoli.

While not all of Italy’s trains travel at the plane-competitive speed of 300 kilometers per hour, there are other serious perks: comfort to the point of luxury (at least when compared to sardine-can economy flights); a mere €24 difference between business class and riding with the plebs; and, as one might expect in Italy, “an extensive coffee menu.”

While it took five hours to travel from Padua to Napoli, the time passed pleasantly with lovely scenery, “reasonably” dependable cell service, and great coffee—as compared to the “five hours of hurry up and wait” that now generally characterizes short-haul flights, Slaughter reports.

A further perk: whereas airports are generally located at a purgatorial, and climate-unfriendly, distance from city centres, high-speed rail is almost universally routed through the beating heart of urban life, allowing passengers easy access to most of what they likely came for.

For travel distances of 150 to 800 kilometres, HSR is the best option hands down, Not Just Bikes concludes, and certainly far better than air travel for both passengers and planet.



in Air & Marine, Cities & Communities, Ending Emissions, Legal & Regulatory, Transit, Travel, Leisure & Recreation, UK & Europe

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

U.S. Bureau of Land Management/flickr
Oil & Gas

Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska

March 14, 2023
59
David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr
Community Climate Finance

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
84
EcoAnalytics
Media, Messaging, & Public Opinion

Canadians Want Strong Emissions Cap Regulations, Not More Missed Targets

March 14, 2023
59

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Behrat/Wikimedia Commons

Hawaii Firm Turns Home Water Heaters into Grid Batteries

March 14, 2023
244
U.S. National Transportation Safety Board/flickr

$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’

March 14, 2023
107
David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
84
Rebecca Bollwitt/flickr

Fossils Stay ‘Oily’, Gibsons Sues Big Oil, U.S. Clean Energy Booms, EU Pushes Fossil Phaseout, and Fukushima Disaster was ‘No Accident’

March 14, 2023
63
EcoAnalytics

Canadians Want Strong Emissions Cap Regulations, Not More Missed Targets

March 14, 2023
59
U.S. Bureau of Land Management/flickr

Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska

March 14, 2023
59

Recent Posts

Raysonho/wikimedia commons

Purolator Pledges $1B to Electrify Last-Mile Delivery

March 14, 2023
46
United Nations

UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’

March 10, 2023
87
Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

Biden Cuts Fossil Subsidies, But Oil and Gas Still Lines Up for Billions

March 10, 2023
164
jasonwoodhead23/flickr

First Nation Scorches Imperial Oil, Alberta Regulator Over Toxic Leak

March 8, 2023
360
MarcusObal/wikimedia commons

No Climate Risk Targets for Banks, New Guides for Green Finance as 2 Federal Agencies Issue New Rules

March 8, 2023
232
FMSC/Flickr

Millions Face Food Insecurity as Horn of Africa Braces for Worst Drought Ever

March 8, 2023
240
Next Post
dunktanktechnician/flickr

Massachusetts Energy Efficiency Plan Reaches Out to Residents of Colour

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}