Brits priced out of green travel: Flying is cheap as chips–but new report says train is up to 26 TIMES more expensive
https://www.ourfairfuture.org/p/brits-priced-out-of-green-travel
by JayR_97
Brits priced out of green travel: Flying is cheap as chips–but new report says train is up to 26 TIMES more expensive
https://www.ourfairfuture.org/p/brits-priced-out-of-green-travel
by JayR_97
33 comments
It’s actually insane that you can fly to most parts of europe for the same price as a 2 hour train journey across the country.
I’d love to travel by rail more often, but for me and my gf to take a train (even with the couples rail card) it costs FAR more than driving, and it’s almost always impacted by delays and cancellations.
>Brits priced out of green travel: Flying is cheap as chips–but new report says train is up to 26 TIMES more expensive
Greenpeace slams “rigged system” as Brussels lets budget airlines keep fares rock-bottom while rail passengers foot the bill
>British families hoping to do their bit for the planet by taking the train instead of flying are being priced out by a “rigged system” that makes the most polluting travel option the cheapest, a damning new Greenpeace report has revealed.
>The Europe-wide study, covering 142 international routes across 31 countries, found that flying is cheaper than taking the train on more than half of all cross-border journeys. And when it comes to the UK, the situation is among the worst in Europe: trains are more expensive than flights on a staggering 95% of routes to and from Britain.
>Low-cost carriers like Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz Air dominate the skies with fares that often come in at less than the price of the bus to the airport. Greenpeace points out that this is only possible because aviation fuel is tax-free and airline tickets escape VAT—while rail operators are clobbered with full VAT, rocketing energy costs and sky-high track access charges.
>The result? Families hoping to make climate-friendly choices are effectively punished for trying. As the report highlights, a flight from Barcelona to London can cost just €15—while the train on the same route is an eye-watering €389.
>“Even as the climate crisis worsens, Europe’s tax system continues to favour the most polluting way to travel. It is absurd that a flight from Barcelona to London can cost just €15 while the train on the same route is up to 26 times more expensive”, said Herwig Schuster, transport campaigner at Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe.
>The environmental stakes could not be higher. Flights emit on average five times more CO₂ per passenger kilometre than trains, and up to 80 times more compared to railways running on 100% renewable electricity. Yet passengers are funnelled towards cheap flights, regardless of the climate cost.
>Greenpeace says that while there has been some progress since 2023, with a small rise in routes where trains are cheaper, the system remains fundamentally broken. Night trains, which could offer a greener alternative to short-haul flights, remain priced out of reach for many.
>The group is demanding radical action from Brussels and national governments: scrapping aviation subsidies, investing in public rail, and introducing simple, affordable cross-border “climate tickets” so that ordinary people can make the greener choice without being penalised at the checkout.
>“Every route where a plane is cheaper than a train is a political failure. We can’t keep rewarding the most polluting form of transport. Europe must make trains the cheapest and easiest option—not the last resort”, said Schuster.
I guess part of the reason why fuel is VAT free is because operators could choose to refuel instead in countries that don’t charge it? We’d need a mechanism to force them to pay VAT on all fuel used to get the plane to the UK?
I do think we should be charging repeat flyers additional fees. Within a moving 12 month window every flight after 3 should add extra duties?
Maybe require internal flights to also use passports and we use the ID numbers across airlines to track additional duties?
“trains are more expensive than flights on a staggering 95% of routes **to and from Britain**.”
Amazing it’s almost as if there’s a bottleneck between europe and the UK that restricts the no of trains compared to air travel.
My train from Sheffield to London St Pancras was £250 for an anytime return and zone 1 tube travel the other day.
I don’t pay it myself but that’s multiple times more expensive than the petrol and parking would cost for a round trip.
They want to force people to stop using cars but they don’t want to provide an alternative, public transport in the UK is shite outside of London.
My missus has to use the train to get to work and back in Leeds and the service is shockingly bad.
That’s what happens when you have privatise core public services.
The fact that travelling through the Eurotunnel is more expensive than trains in the EU which in most cases cross invisible land borders shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
” the most polluting travel option the cheapest, a damning new Greenpeace report has revealed”
It’s hardly ‘revealed’ it has it? This is something everyone has known for years.
It’s currently cheaper for my family of four to drive to London and park overnight than it is for a return train ticket.
Timings are about the same and the risk of train delays are about the same as the risk of traffic delays
Absolutely bonkers
Anytime I want to travel up north from london it is so much cheaper driving then it is getting two train tickets. it really should be the other way round.
We flew to Scotland over the summer. A train cost several hundred pounds each way, and we got a return flight for £30 each way.
Had the pleasure of sitting near AEW World Champion Jon Moxley.
Got to the airport at around 7am and was in our hotel by 10.45.
10/10. Fuck trains.
[this springs to mind](https://share.google/iImxOG0vZgqCsmFCH)
Why don’t the government do anything about this? It’s a disgrace
I bought a car and now drive to the airport.
Its the frugal decision. Especially when you have 4 in the car.
Getting a train to Europe is only comfortable if you live in London or the South-East. For the rest of us it means taking several hours and hundreds of pounds just to get to London for the transfer.
This is a great example of when privatisation works and when it’s doomed to fail.
The argument for privatisation is that the competition it allows brings prices down for customers. But that’s only true in industries where multiple companies can operate independently at the same time.
Privatisation has worked for air travel because there’s plenty of room in the sky for many flights making many different routes. The only things planes need take turns using is the refuelling points (when they can’t use their own) and airport gates/runways.
**Train companies have to take turns sharing everything!!** The tracks, the routes, and the stations. It doesn’t take a genius to see there’s very little room for competition to be gained from sharing the rail network.
I go to a LOT of trance and dance music nights. I fly to Helsinki and the Netherlands for these more than I go to places in the UK, especially London – the flights are that much cheaper. Its madness.
People are always surprised that planes can be cheaper, but there’s no reason to be surprised.
Planes don’t need as much infrastructure, they can utilize empty skies, but trains need track, cables and land to work.
A plane can make a journey in 5x as fast as a train, meaning it can make more journeys in a day.
Air travel makes you go to them for the starting point and then they organize the masses of people all into one plane. Train stations are everywhere And that all costs money.
Last year the wife and I fancied a long weekend in Brighton. After pricing everything, we ended up taking a 9 night, all inclusive trip to Mallorca instead. It was £200 more expensive than just the trains and hotel for 3 nights in Brighton, not counting food etc.
Privatising the English trains was such a mistake.
In Edinburgh £45 with a Railcard gets me to London or fort William.
Manchester to Brighton, a similar journey costs over double that.
Multiple rail ticket price rises a year, combined with almost every train company having increasingly supernormal profits “yeah it’s the costs of run in the trains lol”
Tried to book a random day out using trainline to places I’ve never been, think, nowhere special just basically anywhere scenic, going from Hull. It wanted £170 for my partner and I to travel to Shropshire for the day. This county is broken. I travelled from Rome to Milan for a third of that.
It’s cheaper for me to fly to Amsterdam than it is to get the train to London or Birmingham from Bristol, let alone somewhere further afield.
Hahaha I wrote my Bachelors thesis on this very topic, what a coincidence.
I commute from the north West of England to London maybe once twice a month for work depending on the ticket it can cost upto 350. I went Monday it cost me 275 and the train was dead. It’s daylight robbery
Booked a train from London to Norwich on Friday. Booked it yesterday. So a few days ahead. Still cost £40 single. Mental. About a month ago, I booked the same trip and it cost £50, at which point I realised I’d booked it for the week after I wanted to go, so immediately went to change it and they charged me a £20 “admin fee”. Admin fee for what? What admin? It’s totally web based. Fuckers.
It’s infuriating. I don’t drive so if I’m travelling to see family from North Wales > Essex a return train journey is usually over £100.
I actually really like train travel when it works, and my yearly train tickets are still cheaper than if I had a car, but I wish train travel was more accessible. It shouldn’t be this expensive.
Private train companies. Profit over service and investment. A tale as old as time.
Anyone who regularly commutes knows full well how bloody awful trains are. And you get to pay astronomical amounts for the priveledge.
My monthly pass is £250! How the hell people on minimum wage can afford to commute is beyond me.
I’m headed up to Stoke to run the half marathon this weekend. My train tickets cost me just short of £100. A few months ago I flew to Copenhagen for a few days. My plane tickets cost me a little over £100.
It’s utterly ridiculous that this is the state of things.
I did analysis for the government recently (only at a company level) which showed that despite the vast cost difference. It is effectively equivalent in costs and carbon emissions for each mile travelled.
It’s still stupid that rail costs the same equivalent to air travel though.
It’s crazy how we have contracts with JR and MTR but we can’t get a big enough brain to just copy their business models. There is a reason while they are not perfect they are definitely in a better shape than our railways.
We read reports like this but I’m not sure they’re comparable.
Flights: Huge restrictions in luggage, time wasted waiting for the flights, few airports, crappy service for the cheap airlines (which no doubt has been used in the comparison).
Trains: City centre – city centre, as much as you can carry luggage, increasingly turn up and go whenever.
I’m not protecting the railways – they are stupidly expensive and complicated, but this is not a fair compairson to continually make.
I live in north Scotland.
Next month, I have to travel from London to my home without a car.
I looked at trains. On a Sunday, it would cost £150 (minimum, for standard class) and take eleven hours to get home, with five changes and two coach services.
I then looked at flights. £39 and takes one hour.
Yeah, I went with the flight.
I wanted to take the train, but it didn’t make sense in terms of money/time/effort. It’s my first time flying on my own and I’m a little nervous!
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