Short-haul flights are the dominant form of air travel in the UK and are a highly profitable business for low-cost operators such as Ryanair and easyJet. While British Airways is struggling with falling demand for long-haul destinations that pushed it into a record loss of £401m last year, Britain's two largest short-haul carriers are expanding aggressively in Britain and continental Europe.
There are 1.9m domestic and European flights to and from the UK each year, carrying a total of 169 million passengers. Even with a high-speed rail network that touches all corners of Europe, it is unlikely that destinations such as Barcelona and Vienna will be shut out of the British airline market altogether.
This has prompted a bullish response to repeated calls from the environmental lobby for tougher curbs on short-haul flights, through heavier taxation and greater investment in the rail network.
Nonetheless, Lord Adonis's vision of better rail links within the UK and from Britain to Europe could make a serious dent in short-haul travel. Of those 169 million passengers, around 45% are domestic travellers or are passengers on flights to and from France, Germany, the Netherlands or Belgium, all markets vulnerable to a government crackdown on short-haul flights. There is mounting evidence that a resurgent rail market is eating into domestic air travel. According to BAA, owner of London's three largest airports including Heathrow, domestic air travel fell by 10% in the first six months of this year, a decline greater than the reduction in long haul and European flights at the same airports.
The Department for Transport has an important role to play if the UK is to meet its target of an 80% cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Transport is the second largest emitter in the UK behind the energy industry, accounting for 21% of domestic greenhouse gas emissions.
Within that transport segment, domestic aviation accounts for around 1.6% of the total. Green campaigners admit that it is a small number but argue that domestic aviation should be targeted because it is a major driver of airport expansion, accounting for a third of all commercial flights in the UK.
It is likely that the government will have to rely on taxation as well as high-speed trains to cut permanently the number of short-haul flights to and from the UK.
Air passenger duty, nominally an environmental tax on all travellers departing UK airports, raises around £2bn per year and will rise from £10 a short-haul flight to £11 this November. There is speculation within the green lobby that the Tories are actively considering heavier aviation taxes to help fund a high-speed network.
