Aviation sector’s latest analysis of transport modes is unreliable

Berlin. The analysis of transport modes presented by the aviation sector on Thursday in Berlin has been met with vehement protest by the German Pro-Rail Alliance. “According to the latest figures, aviation is allegedly the least subsidised mode of transport. Unfortunately, the calculations are not reliable,” said the managing director of the Pro-Rail Alliance, Dirk Flege. In the evaluation carried out by the research institute Infras, an extremely low price per tonne of CO2 was used, leading to a reduction in the impact of flying on the environment. “According to the aviation lobby, flying causes less damage to the environment than travelling by train. That is a joke,” said Flege. He pointed out that the Infras study commissioned by the Pro-Rail Alliance in 2007 calculated that the external cost of flying to the environment was 5 cents per person-kilometre, whereas for rail travel the cost was calculated at just 2 cents per person-kilometre.

The myth that airport infrastructure was free of subsidies was also reiterated. “Every year, the states and local authorities pay out over 100 million Euros for regional airports. These subsidies are conveniently forgotten,” said Flege. In contrast, other calculations belong in a box of accounting magic tricks. A case in point: the aviation sector books the cost of new rail links to airports, for example Cologne, Bonn or Frankfurt, as subsidies for the railways. Air travel is presented as being free of subsidies. “Obviously the sector is panicking about its market share because of the long overdue tax on plane tickets,” said the Pro-Rail Alliance managing director. “There is no other way of explaining this creative accounting.”