Rail V air

[102 fan]

From the Daily Mail

'It's cheaper to FLY across the UK than it is to take the train: How air travel is a third of the price of going by rail

• Cheaper to fly than take train on 90% of popular long-distance routes
• EasyJet plane from Glasgow to Bristol will cost £53 - but £141 by train
• Big gaps also on Bristol to Newcastle and Glasgow to Cardiff routes
• Only exception is London to Manchester - £26 by train and £111 plane
• Train passengers get less space than livestock when being transported'

Expensive railway fares mean consumers are paying up to three times more to travel around Britain on trains than planes, it was revealed today.


Advance air fares are cheaper than train prices on nine out of ten of the most popular long-distance routes between major cities - with the only exception being London to Manchester.


For travelling in five weeks’ time on September 23 and returning one week later, flying with EasyJet from Glasgow to Bristol will cost £53 - but the cheapest train ticket is a whopping £141.

• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-mean-times-expensive-train-fly-Britain.html

Surely the TOC's are missing out? I know there are waiting times at airports and there still is travel to the airport - but still?

 

[yorksrob]

There undoubtedly are times when it's cheaper to do an InterCity journey by air than rail (though on the one occasion when I did have to buy a ticket from Leeds to London on the day, I ended up getting the coach, which was cheaper, I suspect than both, and a lot easier to get to than the airport).

Train versus plane, I still prefer the train. Most InterCity trains aren't as uncomfortable and crowded as is made out (and those which are can often be avoided with planning and going a different route).

Rather get a train than being stuck in a row of people on a bench seat in one of those flying buckets any day.

 

[AlterEgo]

Why should the train be cheaper than flying anyway?? The train:

- Is more frequent

- Picks you up from your local town and delivers you to the city centre

- It's usually more civilised

- It's more environmentally friendly

- There's better compensation if you're delayed

- No need to carry ID or check in

- No airport hassle with security screening

- Better ability to just turn up and go

Unless you're a bit of a buff like me, flying sucks.

 

[Qwerty133]

daily fail seems to think Paris is in the uk...

The routes with similar train and plane prices were London to Edinburgh, London to Inverness, London to Glasgow, Birmingham to Edinburgh, Birmingham to Glasgow and London to Paris.

 

[HST Power]

As the new East Coast adverts argue, Wi-Fly?

We've done this topic before but as far as domestic travel goes I will use the train all year round. I think in essence it depends upon the needs of the individual. Nonetheless, air travel is just too much fuss and too much bother. I would sooner spend three hours in the comfortable surroundings of a First Class East Coast service, with a bit of free food and a paper, than go through all the fuss of having to drive to the Airport, having to check in, having to pay £400 more because your luggage is 1g over the limit.....

I think part of the problem is that people don't get enough information on the cheap fares they can swing using the train, such as Advance fares.

 

[507 001]

I'm going to Paignton next week, by air it would have been £180. By train without railcard it would have been £120, with a railcard= £80 quid. The plane didn't even get me the whole way, just as far as Exeter, and without baggage!
There's just the small matter of the 4 and a half hours longer that the train takes!

 

[island]

Well for me flying gets access to the airport lounge and helps re-earn the silver BA card, but that's not going to be many people's reasoning.

 

[edwin_m]

I use the train whenever I can. For an early start I'd much rather travel the evening before and get a hotel than get an early flight. I will then arrive reasonably awake and immune from all but the most unreasonable of delays.

Including the hotel it may cost a little more, though Advances for evening travel can be quite cheap if booked a few days ahead. However I can justify the extra cost by doing several hours work on the train whereas with a short-haul flight if I'm anywhere spacious and quiet enough to open up the laptop then I'm probably going to have to shut down and move somewhere else within a few minutes.

 

[radamfi]

I haven't read the article (I don't click on Daily Mail links, as they make money each time you click) but I expect that a lot of the expensive train fares involve Cross Country, who are severely lacking in capacity, so cheap Advance fares are scarce.

 

[neilmc]

Air travel comes into its own on the Scotland routes especially from provincial English airports - most of the cost of a flight is incurred getting the plane up and down and once it's up in the air there's no infrastructure costs involved, and the train journey is pretty tortuous and not cheap. This isn't just a UK thing, try a comparison between any two centres in Europe connected by a budget airline and the same is likely to apply.

I think however that for journeys such as Manchester to London off-peak the train wins hands down on cost, frequency and timing. And I gave up flying Manchester-Bristol when Cross Country improved the timings, in fact I think those flights have ceased now so the train can compete successfully on some journeys, maybe ones less than 250 miles?

 

[rdwarr]

It's cheaper to FLY across the UK than it is to take the train

So what? It's cheaper to eat at McDonalds than have a nice Sunday roast at home with a decent bottle of wine.

Anyway, even I could beat that quoted £141 fare without even bothering to look at splits.

 

[starrymarkb]

I pretty much always Fly SW-Scotland. 40 mins with Easyjet vs 8-9 hours on a Voyager. Get to the airport about 1 hour before STD if flying from a small airport (I usually try and get to the station 30 mins in advance) brief security palava and then that's it for fuss

And yes it costs £60 by air (+parking) vs £180 advance when I cross checked XC. Easyjet are making their money on the Business travellers booking flexible tickets (which were similarly priced to the Off Peak XC fare) or close to departure.

Oh and I couldn't do a day trip by rail

 

[HST Power]

A relative of mine used to do Glasgow-London two or three times every month. He would be up at 04:00am and then out to London on the 06:00am flight. He would stay in London during the week then go home on Thursday or Friday evening. I think he used to coin the phrase 'red-eye flight' because many a passenger would look like a zombie at such an hour!

Now we have the provision of East Coast's flagship service - 'The Flying Scotsman', starting in Edinburgh and calling Newcastle only whilst en-route to London King Cross, arriving at 0945.

Are there any faster trains into London from the North of England or Scotland?

 

[bb21]

Ah the monthly bloat from the tabloids.

When they have nothing new to write about it does the perfect job of filling the column inches.

I am so bored of rebuking this sort of nonsense.

 

[flymo]

Looking at the various statistics available for the airports around UK it always amazes me at the numbers of passengers on some of the routes. This time it is Southampton airport that grabs my attention with the flights to and from Glasgow and Edinburgh taking the better part of 400,000 passengers in 2012. Add to these the 115,000 to/from Manchester and 85,000 to/from Newcastle then I just find these figures absolutely staggering and I had never expected them to be so. Well done Southampton...
Taking Edinburgh and Glasgow, these would equate to about 100,000 each way per route per year or average at about 270 passengers every day of the year to both Edinburgh and Glasgow. That is almost the capacity one train per day, every day. Even if the prices may be higher when flying then there must be a fundamental reason for people choosing to fly over taking the train and I can only imagine it is time.

Of course there will always be some who will never fly and some who will always fly if possible but budget airlines certainly can offer interesting journey opportunities that would only ever have been possible by train before.

Each to their own of course. Happy flying or riding..

 

[Goatboy]

I haven't read the article (I don't click on Daily Mail links, as they make money each time you click) but I expect that a lot of the expensive train fares involve Cross Country, who are severely lacking in capacity, so cheap Advance fares are scarce.

They do, yes. Infact all of the cases where even booking in advance the train costs significantly more involve XC.

The non XC routes - ie London to Manchester - show the train as being quite competitive.

Sadly for those of us who rely on XC, long distance rail is very much not cheap.