Flying in Europe can be up to 30 times cheaper…
Europe’s cheap flights and pricey train tickets promote high carbon forms of transport, campaigners say, with “outrageous” tax breaks encouraging people to emit more CO2 as they head on holiday. Train tickets are double the price of flights for the same routes, on average, according to an analysis from Greenpeace. They compared tickets on 112 routes on 9 different days, and found train travel was more expensive than flying, on average, on 79 of the 121 routes they studied. On many routes, there were individual days where the train was cheaper than the plane, even if the average cost was greater. Trains beat planes on eight or nine of the nine days tested on 23 of the routes. Half of these were deemed “great” for having regular and reliable connections, a good speed and tickets below €150. eg. Lisbon-Porto and Madrid-Barcelona, Berlin-Prague, Zurich-Vienna and Prague-Budapest. None of the best routes involved the UK, France, Spain or Italy. In Europe, airlines pay no taxes on kerosene and little tax on tickets or VAT. Their emissions are only priced for flights within Europe – at a level below the social cost of carbon. These are effectively subsidies for air travel. .Tweet Flying in Europe up to 30 times cheaper than train, says Greenpeace Campaigners say cheap flights, made possible by tax breaks for airlines, are encouraging people to heat the planet By Ajit Niranjan Europe environment correspondent (Guardian) Thu 20 July 2023 Europe’s cheap flights and pricey train tickets promote dirty forms of transport, campaigners say, with “outrageous” tax breaks encouraging people to heat the planet as they head on holiday. Train tickets are double the price of flights for the same routes, on average, according to an analysis from Greenpeace published on Thursday. The campaigners compared tickets on 112 routes on nine different days. To get from London to Barcelona, they found, the cost of taking the train is up to 30 times the cost of jumpi
