Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder.

It's Wednesday the 24th of May and I'm reading a very interesting article actually in the BBC's website.

France has banned domestic short-haul flights where train alternatives exist in a bit too cut carbon emissions, I learn.

It continues. The ban all but rules out air travel between Paris and cities including Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux, while connecting flights are unaffected. What it doesn't do, actually,

is rule out air travel between Paris and cities including Nantes, Leon and Bordeaux,

and it hasn't banned short-haul flights where train alternatives exist. And my goodness me,

there's been so much stuff going on about this.

I thought a good way to test this would be to look online at airfrance.com and see what they are offering today.

Bordeaux, for instance, which is two hours, seven minutes from Paris.

Well, what times do you want to go?

6am, 9.15, 10, 10, 11.30, 5 to 2, quarter to 7 or 10 past 8, they're all available and they're all

available for one way flights, seven of them today. Lyon has six flights, the time from that great city to Paris, under two hours.

And Nort also mentioned two hours, 20 will get you to Paris, or you can get there much more quickly on a flight on Air France.

So, what hasn't changed is that Air France, despite all this fuss being made and this being part of the condition for a COVID bailout, they absolutely have not changed their plans.

Yes, there are some flights, for instance, short haul flights between Paris, Olli, which doesn't have intercontinental connections, and some

French points have been axed. But that was kind of going to happen anyway. If you look at

Strasbourg to Paris, the high-speed train, now takes about a couple of hours from the far east

of France, is now so good and has sufficient

direct services to the Paris-Cars de Gaulle that there are no flights between those two cities

Strasbourg and Paris anymore. Brussels, well Air France has done away with them. I mean the journey

time from the centre of Brussels to the centre of Paris is down to about one hour, 20 minutes. Actually, Brussels airline still has some flights. But what does this signify? Well, it actually is very welcome in the sense that it is indicating a willingness on the part of

governments to tackle carbon emissions and to put the burden on airlines to cut back their services.

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