Spanish airlines reject domestic flight ban without rail replacements

Spanish airlines have rejected proposals to end short domestic flights that can be replaced by train links that are under two and half hours long, one of the pledges made by the left-wing PSOE-Sumar coalition as it attempts to be elected for Spain's national government for the next four years through an investiture vote. 

Opposing any possible 'prohibition', Spain's main airline association ALA has instead suggested that Spain's high-speed railway lines should be expanded to cover large airports with the aim of reducing the need for short-term flights.

Banning short domestic flights of under four hours has long been an aim of the acting left-wing coalition government in Spain (PSOE-Podemos), and is a key component of its 2050 climate action plan. Spain is not alone in considering this sort of legislation.

Back in May 2023, the French government officially banned domestic flights for journeys possible in less than two-and-a-half hours by train.

According to a new study by the eco confederation Ecologistas en Acción, around 35 percent of domestic flights in Spain - most of them from or to Madrid - could be cancelled, reducing emissions by around 10 percent. The environmental organisation assures that these changes would not in fact affect total travel times, since all "end-to-end" journeys would continue to be shorter by rail than by air.

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Yet Spain's Asociación de Líneas Aéreas (ALA) has chastised the proposals and instead argued that high-speed train services should be expanded to airports to offer passengers more flexibility and travel options, not take them away. Javier Gándara, ALA President, said in the Spanish press: "We don't believe in prohibitions. We advocate intermodality so that the passenger can choose." 

There is currently only a slower Cercanías train which reaches Madrid's Terminal 4, and no high-speed AVE link. (Photo by JAVIER SORIANO / AFP)

 

"We defend intermodality in the sense that the AVE [Spain's high speed rail service] goes at least to Madrid-Barajas airport or Barcelona-El Prat," he added, with the aim being that passengers can make combined train journeys to the large airports and then take a flight to other destinations at a greater distance.

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For years, Spanish airlines have called for better connections to Madrid-Barajas with the high-speed network.

According to estimates by Iberia, the largest airline based at Barajas, to comprehensively replace all the air routes potentially affected by the bans on short domestic flights, between eight and ten trains per hour passing through Barajas would be needed. This is a service frequency unlikely to be reached until some point beyond 2030.

But by 2025-2026, when high-speed rail is scheduled to go directly to Barajas (there is currently only a slower Cercanías connection), there is expected to be between one and two trains per hour, which the airlines consider insufficient to cover all the necessary capacity to replace the lost air travel.

Spain's Ministry of Transport also intends to connect Girona's airport via AVE in 2026, whereas the high-speed rail to the busier Barcelona-El Prat is still up in the air, as is the AVE train to Alicante's airport.

In Spain, high-speed train services have been gradually replacing shorter domestic flights for some time following the liberalisation of the rail system and the entry of private service providers such as Iryo and Ouigo into the market.

On many routes, private high-speed services have also begun to muscle out state-owned Renfe services.

"The transfer of passengers from plane to train is occurring naturally with the increase in the supply of high speed," Gándara states.

"But the majority of that 20 percent of passengers who fly from Barcelona or 10 percent from Valencia do so to take a connecting flight in Madrid and go to other destinations.

"If those flights are prohibited, it will only make those passengers fly to other European airports such as Frankfurt, Paris or Amsterdam to take long-haul flights, increasing air transport emissions and reducing Barajas's competitiveness as a large hub."