KLM’s CE has encouraged passengers to take the train rather than fly on some short-haul journeys to help cut carbon emissions, saying the airline sector should stop viewing rail as a competitor. “If [you] have a good alternative, you should really use it,” Marjan Rintel told the Financial Times in an interview. “If you’re serious on reaching your sustainability goals, the train is not a competitor. We need to work together.” She also said she used the train when she travelled from Amsterdam, where KLM is based, to the Paris headquarters of parent company Air France-KLM. National governments in Europe have been taking action to get people on to high-speed trains instead of short-haul flights and cut the carbon cost of flying. Air France, the French carrier which comes under the same holding company as KLM, stopped flying domestic routes where there are rail or coach alternatives that take under two-and-a-half hours in 2020, as part of measures it agreed to with the French government in exchange for aid during the Covid-19 pandemic. French parliamentarians later passed a bill formalising the ban on short flights, a measure approved by the EU last week. Effectively, however, the changes only affect three routes from Paris, with connecting flights for instance exempted. In June, the Dutch government announced plans to slash flights from Schiphol airport by more than 10% to 440,000 a year. The move is likely to lead to a sharp reduction in short-haul flights from the airport and could put a brake on national flag carrier KLM’s future growth.<br/>