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.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_of_the_European_Parliament_in_Strasbourg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_of_the_European_Parliamen...</a>
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.<p>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.
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).
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?<p>[1] <a href="https://www.rome2rio.com/map/Brussels/Strasbourg#r/Train/s/0" rel="nofollow">https://www.rome2rio.com/map/Brussels/Strasbourg#r/Train/s/0</a>
Lufthansa will do everything to be profitable, except selling cheaper tickets and taking more passengers. Strategically they are the opposite of Ryanair.
Some American Carriers have a lot shorter routes flying a lot more often [1].<p>Frankfurt <-> Strasbourg (220km)
San Francisco <-> San Salito [2] (90km)<p>The point of these are connections. If you are already at the airport, checked-in, luggage registered, you can just as well take the flight closer to your destination. Not saying the makes ecological sense, but I don't understand the outrage towards Lufthansa. Blame the MEP paying for these flights with your tax money and being bad role models contradicting the policies they are voting for.<p>[1] <a href="https://thepointsguy.com/news/longest-shortest-united-flights/" rel="nofollow">https://thepointsguy.com/news/longest-shortest-united-flight...</a>
[2] <a href="https://www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2017/09/29/new-san-francisco-santa-rosa-flight-shortest-us/" rel="nofollow">https://www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2017/09/29...</a>
This flight seems very slow. I’ve just compared it to some short haul flights locally - 1hr 10 mins gets me 650km.<p>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.
The EU should adopt this idea from Sweden from the 90's^W 80's, an office in a train carriage: <a href="https://youtu.be/3HbrI3refig" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/3HbrI3refig</a> (first 4.5 minutes)
All reasonable until we slide over the custom plane config with extra business class...<p>I hope thats not a literal, we moved the seats for the aristocrats type of flight.
It seems EU politicians believe in climate change, until they have to catch a bus for a couple of hours…<p>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.
> 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<p>Do MEPs really qualify as <i>high ranking government officials</i>?
I didn't really understand the significance of this?<p>Does it only make sense if you believe what the top commenter believes:<p>“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."
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.