French National Team Under Fire for Flight Behavior: Environmentalists Outraged by Short Distance Plane Trip

After the narrow 1-0 victory and the associated entry into the quarter-finals of the European Championship, the French national team caused irritation. The reason was the return trip to the team quarters.

After the round of 16 match against Belgium, the French national team used a plane to return from Düsseldorf to the team headquarters in Paderborn. Considering the distance, this is not entirely understandable.

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It is only 177 kilometers from Düsseldorf to Paderborn, and the journey would have taken just under two hours. Environmentalists are outraged by the behavior of Les Bleus.

Werner Reh from the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) told the German press agency dpa: “This is indeed unbelievable. This is one of the most absurd examples I have ever heard.” He believes that the French would have arrived even faster by bus.

EM 2024: Environmentalists outraged by flight behaviour

Although the flight time from Düsseldorf to Paderborn is only half an hour, the journey from the stadium to the airport and the journey from Paderborn airport to the accommodation in Bad Lippspringe would also have to be taken into account. Check-in and boarding would also take time.

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A flight is not necessarily faster than travelling by train or car. There is often no real time saving, especially on domestic flights, says Reh, who works as a transport consultant for BUND.

According to him, the reason why many people prefer to travel by plane even for short distances is because “we are trapped in an ideology that a flight is always faster than traveling by train or bus.”

DFB: First train, then bus – and now also the plane

Another flaw: Since the flight did not take place until 10.35 p.m., the French delegation even applied for a way to circumvent the night flight ban, as the NRW Environment Ministry confirmed to the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger.

During the knockout phase of the European Championship, teams can obtain an exemption from the night flight law. Germany also took advantage of this after the round of 16 match against Denmark and, after their 2-0 victory, flew from Dortmund to Nuremberg, and from there drove on to Herzogenaurach.

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After all, the distance between the Signal-Iduna-Park and the “home base” in Herzogenaurach is over 400 kilometers, and a trip with the team bus would have taken over four and a half hours.

The French quarter-final against Portugal on Friday (from 9 p.m. in the LIVETICKER) will take place in Hamburg’s Volksparkstadion. With a distance of around 285 kilometers between the northern German city and the camp in Paderborn, the choice of transport could once again fall on the plane.

2024-07-04 12:54:10
#France #irritation #unbelievable