[HN Gopher] Lufthansa's European Union Strasbourg "shuttle"
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Lufthansa's European Union Strasbourg "shuttle"
Author : elmalto
Score : 85 points
Date : 2022-05-07 14:53 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (onemileatatime.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (onemileatatime.com)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| durnygbur wrote:
| Lufthansa will do everything to be profitable, except selling
| cheaper tickets and taking more passengers. Strategically they
| are the opposite of Ryanair.
| macinjosh wrote:
| These same people want to take away affordable heating from their
| constituents including the poor in the name of the "climate
| emergency". Yet, they can take a plane (that pumps huge amounts
| of CO2 directly into the sky) twice a week for the distance some
| people commute by ground _everyday_ for work. Then they only work
| for two days a week. I've never seen a more disgusting display of
| elitism.
| netsharc wrote:
| Ah, populist anger, populist anger everywhere. You don't even
| know who are taking these flights, just that they're offered by
| Lufthansa. But sure, in your mind they're "[the] same people".
| simongray wrote:
| They do not only work for two days a week, come on. The
| European Parliament is for nearly all intents and purposes
| located in Brussels, the Strasbourg one is considered more of a
| spinoff. I seriously doubt that the parliamentarians enjoy this
| unnecessary monthly commute, they would certainly prefer
| staying in Brussels the whole time.
| rbehrends wrote:
| The actual waste here is that while the European Parliament
| normally meets in Brussels, it is still bound by a 1992 decision
| to have a monthly session in Strasbourg [1]. This creates a huge
| and unnecessary overhead (shuttling 705 MEPs back and forth,
| maintaining separate offices in Strasbourg and other unnecessary
| duplication of efforts), of which this additional flight is just
| a small part. This could be fixed by deciding that the European
| Parliament meets in Brussels year-round.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_of_the_European_Parliamen...
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Or just keep adding more capitals into the rotation, until the
| overhead of any capital is negligible. I'm actually rather
| happy to have a moving capital / parliament seat. Would
| probably do with the fancy buildings and architecture, though.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _keep adding more capitals into the rotation, until the
| overhead of any capital is negligible_
|
| In what world is maintaining multiple headquarters cheaper
| than one?
| hammock wrote:
| The more capitals you have, the less you need to
| proportionately increase your budget to add another one.
| jules-jules wrote:
| This guy bureaucrats.
| dmurray wrote:
| They do that for the European Council, but it's probably not
| feasible to do so for all seven EU "houses of Parliament".
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| The French will never agree to that, sadly. It's a prestige
| thing for them
| Proven wrote:
| sofixa wrote:
| I don't get the point of this flight. A train between the two
| will be around two hours, so an hour slower than the plane, but
| when you add travel to airports, it's probably faster, and the
| trains are more comfortable (and you can work from them).
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Frankfurt is a major Lufthansa hub.
|
| 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.
| kzrdude wrote:
| The ICE train going south towards Basel stops at the
| Frankfurt airport. The minus is that there is probably no
| train connecting directly to Strasbourg, but it's also not
| far away - take the stop at Offenburg and a train or shuttle
| bus to Strasbourg would do it.
| mike_hock wrote:
| What about the 10x worse carbon footprint per passenger mile?
| At 2 flights per month it's a drop in the bucket so who
| cares. But replacing the trains with flights would be
| extremely wasteful.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Ultimately, it seems like the price of carbon is not high
| enough to offset an entire cabin of business class seats of
| EUR1K+ each.
|
| If you want the behavior to stop, increase the price of
| carbon. It's all about the money in the end.
| dmurray wrote:
| The consumer in this case is the European Parliament.
| It's hard to think of anyone who would be less price-
| sensitive.
| jen20 wrote:
| I've seen many references to "business class" here as if
| it were something special and thus worthy of additional
| scrutiny. On Lufthansa short haul flights, business is
| economy with the middle seats blocked.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I mean, what it is doesn't really matter if people are
| willing to pay EUR1k each, however silly it may be.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Frankfurt is probably the closest international hub airport for
| people flying in from other countries.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| I didn't really understand the significance of this?
|
| 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."
| smitty1e wrote:
| This is the modern equivalent of a Royal Road.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Road
| IAmEveryone wrote:
| I guess it's a bit of a curiosity. The charge of hypocrisy is
| to be expected, and not entirely wrong, although it suffers
| from the usual problem, namely that a doctor telling you that
| smoking is dangerous with a pack of Marlboros on his desk isn't
| necessarily wrong.
| amalter wrote:
| So much better said then my rambling screed above. People
| pick up on any excuse to avoid the diagnosis. Yes, the switch
| to plastic straws was stupid. Yes, the rich and powerful fly
| on planes and own yachts.
|
| 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.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| rob_c wrote:
| All reasonable until we slide over the custom plane config with
| extra business class...
|
| I hope thats not a literal, we moved the seats for the
| aristocrats type of flight.
| United857 wrote:
| In most European airlines short haul business class is just
| economy seats with the middle blocked off and slightly better
| food.
|
| 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.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| You're directly saying that business class seats on these
| flights take 150% more space than economy class. I think
| you're trying to argue that it's not actually as comfortable
| as business class, but the objectionable thing about business
| class is not that people are more comfortable, it's the
| wasted space. And the wasted space seems equivalent.
|
| 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.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bogomipz wrote:
| It looks like there is a rail option between Brussels and
| Strasbourg which is just under 4 hours[1]. That's four hours
| where you can work the entire time. With the boarding, flight
| time and travel time to and from the airport what is the actual
| time savings here 1 hour? And if you could work the whole time on
| a train it sounds like a non-issue since this schedule seems to
| factor in two of the 4 days as travel days. Also why Frankfurt? I
| realize Frankfurt is an airhub but why would this be a convenient
| location?
|
| [1] https://www.rome2rio.com/map/Brussels/Strasbourg#r/Train/s/0
| nikanj wrote:
| Because frequent flier points get you nicer things than
| frequent rail points
| dewey wrote:
| For a short flight like that you'll get almost no points and
| you'd get more by booking a hotel room with a credit card.
| netsharc wrote:
| The EU should adopt this idea from Sweden from the 90's^W 80's,
| an office in a train carriage: https://youtu.be/3HbrI3refig
| (first 4.5 minutes)
| t_mann wrote:
| Don't blame Lufthansa, blame the EU institutions and the French
| government for creating this bizarre nomadism of EU
| parliamentarians.
| sendfoods wrote:
| It makes my blood boil to think these frequent flyer
| politicians are the same people demanding action against
| climate change.
| waffleiron wrote:
| There are plenty of European politicians not demanding action
| against climate change, how are you so sure the ones on this
| plane are the ones demanding action against climate change?
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Action against climate change is urgently needed, so please
| don't get angry at anybody trying to bring it about.
|
| 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).
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I agree with this, but that's what makes this hypocrisy so
| particularly galling. These politicians _are_ in the unique
| position to write legislation (or at least influence
| legislation) that could prevent shit like this, like
| requiring a longer minimum flight distance, or prohibiting
| schedules like this where one leg is empty.
|
| Totally agree, appealing to personal action (beyond voting
| really) is largely a "feel good exercise", but that's not
| the case for politicians in their official capacity.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I doubt it's the same ones, but it would be good for a
| journalist to take the flight and see if there are any
| hypocritical Green politicians, etc.
|
| (Or check expense claims if they have that detail public.)
| amalter wrote:
| I just really don't get this. It's "gotcha" thinking and "if
| they don't live perfect austerie lifestyles they cannot
| change climate policies".
|
| 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!
| bogomipz wrote:
| How exactly is an expectation of consistent messaging
| regarding policy "gotcha" thinking? I also don't see
| anywhere where it's being suggested that politicians need
| to live "perfect austere lifestyles." This is a false
| dichotomy. There is no reason they couldn't book business
| class on the train.
| durnygbur wrote:
| > 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
|
| I don't understand this. I'm accustomed that the
| conditions, environment, the supervisors make it more
| difficult for me to perform my work tasks. Why this worry
| to enable the officials to do they job?
| sendfoods wrote:
| The only reason the parliament even meets in Strasbourg is
| because France was upset. Because Brussels was chosen as
| the seat of the EU instead of Paris.
|
| > safest, fastest and easiest method
|
| Many thousands of companies had to move their
| communications online due to the pandemic, which is the
| safest, fastest and easiest method to communicate.
| durnygbur wrote:
| My blood boils on receiving the bamboo or papper drink straw,
| which immediately soaks and becomes useless. Wonder if they
| use them on these flights that would surely help limiting the
| carbon footprint.
| IAmEveryone wrote:
| How often do you use straws? Maybe it's a cultural thing,
| but as far as I'm concerned, straws are for ages 1-10 and
| 75+.
| durnygbur wrote:
| It's climate change passive aggressiveness. You are
| provided with a tool which turns useless the moment you
| start using it. Oh, and nearby there is magazine with
| ranking of the most expensive yachts in the world, and of
| airlines by most comfortable first class.
| midasuni wrote:
| Our local cinema removed plastic straws before any ban came
| in, it was a market led thing thanks to public concern,
| politicians eventually followed what the market and public
| already demanded. Difficult to blame them.
|
| I have a bag of 1000 plastic straws, at current consumption
| that will last me about 200 years.
| unmole wrote:
| > it was a market led thing
|
| It was a virtue signalling thing.
| jen20 wrote:
| Perhaps you could just drink out of a cup and be less
| sensitive to minor inconveniences?
| [deleted]
| unmole wrote:
| > In many cases these are high ranking government officials, and
| presumably if this flight didn't exist, they might travel on
| private jets, which would be even worse; in order words, these
| people probably wouldn't otherwise take a bus
|
| Do MEPs really qualify as _high ranking government officials_?
| SirHound wrote:
| Yes?
| gunnarmorling wrote:
| Members of the parliament (legislative power) are not the
| government, which is the European Commission in this case
| (executive power).
| raverbashing wrote:
| And by a comment on the page, the flight also takes not
| only MEPs but members of the EC as well
| jen20 wrote:
| One assumes that since it has an LH flight number, anyone
| who wants to pay for it could book the flight.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Possibly, but not necessarily (based only on the flight
| number).
|
| Fun fact, all flights (from commercial airlines) have a
| flight number, but those are not always sold. They might
| be charters or ferry/repositioning flights. (And while it
| might make sense to sell a repositioning flight -
| sometimes it's done on short notice or the airline
| doesn't want to assign cabin crew to those flights)
| unmole wrote:
| The kind that typically travel by private jet? I really don't
| think so.
| [deleted]
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| So while this flight sounds a bit ridiculous it's not really. It
| takes of in Frankfurt and which is a big hub. You can buy a
| ticket VIE->FRA->SXB for 1000 EUR in Business class. It takes you
| three hours to get there. The cheapest ticket not involving a
| train in business class is 850 EUR so barely cheaper and takes
| 5.5 hours.
|
| 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.
| anamax wrote:
| > You can buy a ticket VIE->FRA->SXB for 1000 EUR in Business
| class.
|
| 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.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Nearly two-thirds of the plane is business class
|
| Why is European business class so absolutely terrible?
| Symbiote wrote:
| It's a 50 minute flight. Long flights have a better business
| class.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Even 50 min hops in the US have something better.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| kurupt213 wrote:
| I don't understand how airforce one got thrown out as another
| example of waste
| lostlogin wrote:
| This flight seems very slow. I've just compared it to some short
| haul flights locally - 1hr 10 mins gets me 650km.
|
| 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.
| netsharc wrote:
| Did you compare to a local flight within the EU?
|
| 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.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Did you compare to a local flight within the EU?
|
| No. Thanks for the explanation.
| netsharc wrote:
| Then again, it's not just a EU thing:
| https://www.cntraveler.com/story/airlines-are-padding-
| flight...
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| This will be the block time; gate-to-gate. It's exactly the
| same time that United blocks for e.g. the LAX-SAN flight, which
| is actually ever so slightly shorter.
| maximilianburke wrote:
| Aircraft are limited to a speed of 250kts below 10,000ft unless
| they're in an airport's control zone and then they're limited
| to 200kts. So, given the time to navigate Frankfurt's complex
| airspace, as well as balancing how much gas needs to be burned
| to get high to go fast, when you will shortly need to come off
| the throttle and descend anyways, versus just staying low and
| within the speed limits, I can see 55 minutes being well within
| the realm of reason.
| reaperducer wrote:
| This makes sense to me.
|
| 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.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| https://flightaware.com/live/flight/SCM25/history/20220504/
| 2...
|
| 15 minutes in the air and doesn't go over 3500ft
|
| What were they flying back on that route back then?
| melenaboija wrote:
| It seems EU politicians believe in climate change, until they
| have to catch a bus for a couple of hours...
|
| 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.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| It's not even a couple of hours, that's the best part. There
| are direct trains (ICE/TGV) that take around two hours, some
| even a bit less. The flight can't possibly be faster if you
| factor in getting to the airport and going through the security
| theater. Which, if we want to talk about beliefs is another
| ridiculous policy that hasn't demonstrably saved any lives.
| Instead now people simply get shot up in theaters and run over
| at Christmas markets. But thank god they're taking everyone's
| lighter and water bottle.
|
| I wonder if part of the reason they're flying is that they
| don't want to be in public transport with the plebeians.
| jollybean wrote:
| If there are direct trains there is simply no excuse.
|
| 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..
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Sure, but just to add a bit to it there were multiple
| terror attacks on trains in Europe in recent years. In
| Germany there was this knife attack just a few months ago,
| as an example. You also run into some annoying folks on
| public transport from time to time even if they're not
| trying to kill you. In those pricey plane seats they're
| among themselves.
|
| This is the best explanation I can come up with why they're
| doing it, there isn't really any advantage flying this
| route. It's not true that people choose the most ecological
| mode of transport as long as speed is equal or faster, they
| often have other priorities.
| jen20 wrote:
| The advantage is you can fly from wherever your
| constituency is in the EU to Frankfurt and then connect
| on to Strasbourg, and do the same on the way home.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I would imagine this is a connection flight, in which case
| the passenger is already airside and doesn't need to go
| through security or to travel to the airport.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _seeing this kind of hypocrisy of some politicians_
|
| 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.
| pfortuny wrote:
| It is hypocrisy because these trips are official ones, so
| they are essentially paid by us (the citizens). And these are
| the bureaucrats telling us to use clean vehicles.
|
| 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_ ).
| gpvos wrote:
| There used to be some good intercity trains from Brussels via
| Luxemburg to Strasbourg (Iris and Vauban), but they were
| cancelled in 2016 because of the TGV Est Paris-Strasbourg. It's
| a bit long for a bus ride really, especially when you'd want to
| work during the ride.
|
| 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.
| axl7777 wrote:
| Air transport account for less than 4% of the 51 b tons of CO2
| we send every year. These politicians aren't going to make any
| difference. We could ask them to be role models, but with what
| finality? Again air transport is not the most urgent problem. I
| understand this is a topic that can be used to raise awareness,
| but the most useful thing these politicians could do is to
| rethink the way (EU) businesses are leading China and India to
| use coal for energy. Why no one proposes to handle this topic,
| I do not understand. And if someone would handle it, then it
| would be time to use your next vote wisely.
| pfortuny wrote:
| They are "not going to make a difference" but _we the people_
| (I am a Spaniard) are paying for their jobs and they are
| constantly pressing us to use less polluting means of
| transportation. That is the shame.
|
| And the silly fact of the EU having:
|
| Brussels, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Strasbourg
|
| as seats of the Government makes this shameful and, yes,
| scandalous.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Multiple locations makes sense politically. Different
| countries reduce the likelihood of anyone claiming
| favouritism (perhaps very slightly, but still) and makes it
| feel more democratic, even if it is more inefficient.
| bogomipz wrote:
| You realize that the individual EU countries that those same
| politicians represent are promoting rail travel over air
| travel for short haul flights for their own citizens.[1]
| France themselves actually passed legislation regarding
| this.[2]. And I know the Netherlands has made a similar
| attempt at legislation.
|
| 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 Valean, 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...
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Air transport account for less than 4% of the 51 b tons of
| CO2 we send every year. These politicians aren't going to
| make any difference._
|
| As they say, no snowflake thinks it's responsible for the
| avalanche.
| melenaboija wrote:
| That is exactly my point.
|
| 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?
| plandis wrote:
| Some countries are starting to ban short haul flights. Seems
| a bit hypocritical to ban flights that would benefit your
| average citizens but then utilize the type of flight that's
| convenient for politicians.
| lawl wrote:
| > We could ask them to be role models, but with what
| finality?
|
| 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.
| d0mine wrote:
| As I understand recycling at home is just a red-herring (it
| ends up somewhere in Turkey anyway and even if it didn't it is
| just a bucket in the ocean compared to the actual reasons for
| the climate change (natural resources industry). If we won't
| discount the consequences on the climate then nuclear energy
| becomes even more price competitive (real non snake-oil
| solution)).
| [deleted]
| bogomipz wrote:
| Indeed. The political class increasingly have lost touch with
| just how regular people live. A regular person would be on the
| 4 hour train or the Flix bus. They seem to believe in lots of
| things mostly for "other" people though.
|
| 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.
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