Air France\u00a0must slash domestic flights and agree to work towards becoming the world\u2019s \u201cmost environmentally friendly\u201d airline, if it is to satisfy the conditions of its government bailout.<\/p>\n
French finance minister Bruno Le Maire detailed the conditions to a parliamentary economics committee on 29 April, and has posted a video on Twitter in which he summarises the government\u2019s expectations of the airline.<\/p>\n
The French government wants\u00a0Air France\u00a0to halve its overall carbon-dioxide emissions per passenger-kilometre by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. This is in line with plans already set out by the airline. The CO2 reduction target for domestic flights, however, is even more stringent: the finance minister is calling for a 50% reduction by the end of 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as there is a rail alternative to domestic flights with a duration of less than 2.5h, these domestic flights will have to be drastically reduced and limited to hub transfers,\u201d says Le Maire.<\/p>\n
The French government is also calling on\u00a0Air France\u00a0to renew its fleet with more efficient aircraft, and to commit to sourcing 2% of its fuel requirements from sustainable sources by 2025. The airline announced in December that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with World Energy and Shell to begin using a blend of conventional and sustainable aviation fuel on flights out of San Francisco from 1 June.<\/p>\n
France\u2019s government said earlier this month that it would provide a state-backed loan of \u20ac4 billion ($4.4 billion) to\u00a0Air France-KLM\u00a0and\u00a0Air France, in addition to a direct shareholder\u2019s loan of \u20ac3 billion to the Franco-Dutch airline group.\u00a0KLM\u00a0is also in line to receive \u20ac2-4 billion in financial support from the Dutch government, but the country\u2019s finance ministry has said the airline must contribute environmentally, by reducing the number of night flights, as part of the deal.<\/p>\n
Climate campaigners have been calling for coronavirus-related state support packages to come with green strings attached, and the conditions set out by the French and Dutch governments signal a move in this direction by certain countries.<\/p>\n
However, these moves do not go far enough for some environmental groups, which argue that the conditions set out thus far are non-binding.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrance\u2019s green requests are a first but we had non-binding commitments for years and airline pollution ballooned,\u201d says Andrew Murphy, aviation manager at Brussels-based lobby group Transport & Environment.<\/p>\n
He adds: \u201cMarginally more efficient planes won\u2019t put a dent in emissions if airlines still burn fossil fuels that they buy tax-free. Governments should require the industry to take up greener fuels and pay taxes like the rest of us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Air France\u00a0must slash domestic flights and agree to work towards becoming the world\u2019s \u201cmost environmentally friendly\u201d airline, if it is to satisfy the conditions of its government bailout. French finance minister Bruno Le Maire detailed the conditions to a parliamentary economics committee on 29 April, and has posted a video on Twitter in which he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5571],"tags":[5838,10744,10617,10743],"supplier":[638,643],"class_list":["post-75092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-co2-based","tag-bioeconomy","tag-carboncapture","tag-jetfuel","tag-useco2","supplier-air-france","supplier-klm-royal-dutch-airlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75092"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=75092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}