Goodbye to environmental protection?

Excitement over Turkey national team’s 150 km flight!

The Turkish team

(Bild: AP/Associated Press)

Almost unbelievable, but true: for their final European Championship preliminary round match in Hamburg's Volkspark Stadium on Tuesday, the Turkish team chose to fly rather than take the bus or train for a journey of just 150 kilometers!

It is significant that a connection from Hanover, where the Turks - Austria's opponents in the round of 16 at the European Championships - have set up their headquarters during the tournament, to Hamburg is not even offered as a scheduled flight due to the short distance.

"But the return journey will be by bus ..."
The reason for this, according to tournament boss Martin Kallen from UEFA: "For security and time reasons, the Turkish team made the outward journey by plane. But the return journey by bus ..."

(Bild: flickr.com/papasdos)

"This is completely nonsensical and unnecessary!"
In Germany, where the European Championships have always been advertised as sustainable, the short-haul flight is still causing annoyance. "It's completely nonsensical and unnecessary," says Werner Reh, transport spokesman for the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND). The CO2 balance is 10 to 20 times worse for the former when comparing air and rail travel.

Of course, as the "Krone" reporters covering the European Championships in Germany experienced first-hand, traveling by train can be frustrating. Regardless of the better environmental balance ...