Cheap flights became popular in Europe two decades ago. With the rise of low-cost airlines, people with limited resources were able to access trips that were previously unavailable to them, so they took advantage of the low prices by traveling and exploring new countries under the idea of free movement between the countries of the European Union. However, this increase in flights began to attract the attention of environmental activists. In fact, there is a European environmental movement called "Flight - Shame" that encourages people to stop using flights as a means of transportation and replace them with less polluting ones such as trains. The Flight - Shame movement was popularized by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and promotes the idea that people should be ashamed to use airplanes because of the negative impact they have on the environment. Now, European governments and groups are doing everything they can to get people to abandon their habits and stop using airplanes. An increasing number of countries have plans to eliminate short-haul flights that could be made by train. For example, France has become one of the first to do so; it banned short-haul domestic flights of less than 2.5 hours when there is an alternative by train. So the questions are: What is the European Union's plan to replace air travel with rail? What are the main obstacles to this plan? And, why does it risk ending up failing like the high-speed rail network in China?

Some sources of interest:

- The Economist (2023). How trains could replace plans in Europe
https://www.economist.com/europe/2021...

- The Washington Post (2023). Would you give up plans for these trains?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climat...

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