France moves to ban short-haul domestic flights

[amcgrath]

18. Rail is fantastically flexible

With tracks maintained properly, trains are faster than planes. Most cities have existing stations, and all of them downtown. Neither passengers nor freight have to drive to an airport on the outskirts of a town or city. They don’t have to deal with check in or security. They don’t get delayed or rerouted by fog or wind.
They don’t have to be loaded with tugs and scissor lifts through small tight doors. A shipping container, loaded at the shippers leisure can simply be put onto a rail car.
A plane whether half or fully loaded must fly to its destination whole. To avoid space shortages, air freight carriers need enough planes with enough capacity for the busiest days. On the days a train may have less freight, it simply takes less cars. On busy days it adds extra cars rather than add a whole new train as planes must.