Scotland-London - Highest level for 20 years

[Failed Unit]

As ever it all comes down to the precise nature of each journey, how close to the airport / station the start and finish is, and the hassle factor of airport security / airport experience which varies by individual preference.

What has happened is that with the advent of increased security checks, the time at the airport and hassle factor has tended to get worse. However on the WCML the journey time and frequency has improved considerably. Not so on the ECML.

Hence why there are now more flights between London and Edinburgh than there were in 2005, and fewer flights between London and Glasgow.

Agree end points are important. If you are doing say Stirling- Slough air will win hands down because of the motorway network and proximity to the airports.

Your east and west comparison is interesting.

Both routes now offer similar journey times end to end.
London to Edinburgh 4h20. (Improved as i recall a lot around 4h40 in past when many stopped at Doncaster, Peterborough etc).
London to Glasgow 4h30 which is night and day.

ECML was typically hourly WCML has caught up. (Although now ECML is nearly ½ hourly all day now)

So they are similar. Not sure why Edinburgh is getting more flights. Demand would be the simple answer but I always thought Glasgow had a bigger catchment are. Edinburgh is easier for both road and rail from most of the central belt. A lot of Glasgow can get to Edinburgh with not too much hassle so I suspect Edinburgh has the bigger demand hence better air coverage rather than the ECML is worse than the west.

Rail does badly for business travel going to Edinburgh. No arrival from London before 1100? (Would a 5am service arriving at 0920 work - who knows) the returns are not good either. The 1630 the last fast train. If the 1830 arrived at 2250 would it be attractive to business travel? A good news story but rail still has a lot it can do to improve.

Be interesting if First Stevenage stop will take people from Luton / Stansted.

 

[Bald Rick]

Have spent my lunch digging out some old data. Some of what I posted above is incorrect, albeit not by much.

In 2005 Air had:

Edinburgh - London 57 flights/day, 3.580m passengers, 82% air/rail market share

Glasgow - London 48 flights/day, 2.837m passengers, 90% air/rail market share.

London airports are LHR, LGW, STN, LTN and LCY.

The rail equivalent passenger numbers are those who caught a train from London and alighted at Edinburgh Waverley, Haymarket, Motherwell or Glasgow Central and vice versa, regardless of their origin / destination stations. I haven't put the numbers up, but you can work them out for yourselves. Glasgow in particular was pitiful, with an average of around 40 through passengers per train.

In 2016/7 the air numbers are, with comparison to 2005 (but no market share numbers)

Edinburgh: 48 flights (-15%), 3.390m passengers (-5%)

Glasgow: 33 flights (-25%), 2.605m passengers (-8%)

So basically, rail has taken all the growth, and a small part of the air market in the intervening years, with a bigger effect on the WCML than ECML.


Perhaps much more interestingly for this debate, the number of flights / passengers London - Manchester in the same time frame has reduced from 40 / 1.972m to 8 / 0.693m. Rail has destroyed the air market, and taken all the growth (which has been considerable). That shows what high frequency, high speed can do. Roll on HS2.

 

[Failed Unit]

That is interesting. No-one can argue that the TPE service improvement is impressive but it is still above that magic 3 hour mark.

 

[JohnR]

No they aren't - I fly budget a fair bit and I wouldn't say Ryanair's passenger demographic was "mostly relatively well off" at all.

Actually, some proper analysis shows that yes, people in the top 20% of income will benefit much more disproportionately than those in the bottom 20%, despite the odd, anecdotal incident to the contrary.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Eurostar South of France services vary between once and five times a week depending on the season. The Amsterdam service will be twice daily. DB suspended its plans for a London-Frankfurt service after the credit crunch caused oil prices to collaspe meaning the train couldn't compete on price with air travel. High speed services longer than 3 hours can be financially viable but they are mostly for a niche market not for the average traveller.

My comment about the end-to-end journey times was more about the ability of rail to replace air travel than the viability of rail itself. From Paris there are still flights to Lyon and Brussels but they are few in number whereas from Paris to Amsterdam and Marseilles there are still multiple flights each day. Between Madrid and Barcelona there used to be flights at least every hour through the day with peak time frequencies of every 15 minutes. Since the opening of HS rail between the cities the air service is much reduced and is geared almost entirely to business/commuting hours. I would suggest that for many leisure travellers a rail journey time above 3 hours can be very acceptable given the right price: the advantage of longer HS services is the ability to offer lots of capacity at relatively low price, certainly at off-peak times.

 

[route:oxford]

Precisely my take on it for business travel.

The problem with flying is that you can't settle to anything.

Here's what I did on a recent air trip I made from central Edinburgh to London via Gatwick:

Security queue (20 mins)
Shuffle round duty free (5 mins)

It took me 45 minutes to get through security at Edinburgh on Friday 18th. I also had to pay the outrageous 245% "departure tax" that is levied by Edinburgh Council on public transport users for the final 100 metres between the P&R and the airport terminal.

I'm also not impressed by the Duty Free Shuffle. A parents can choose to take a child down the booze aisle in a supermarket, no chance of avoiding the glamourisation of alcohol at EDI.

 

[InOban]

If you were at Ingliston Park and Ride, you only need to wait for the 35 bus. Standard fare, I believe.

 

[47271]

Yes, you can take the bus from Ingliston for £1.60, but the cost of a tram journey for any short distance to or from the airport is a disgrace. It's stifling use of Edinburgh Gateway, it really is time that TfE and CEC were sorted out on this one.

I'm surprised the media hasn't picked up on it more considering a lot of the other indignant drivel they write about rail transport in Scotland.

 

[SteveP29]

no chance of avoiding the glamourisation of alcohol at EDI.

and then people in authority in Scotland wonder why there's a massive alcohol problem in Scotland!!

 

[tbtc]

Rail does badly for business travel going to Edinburgh. No arrival from London before 1100? (Would a 5am service arriving at 0920 work - who knows)

I don't know whether there's enough of a market for that, but being able to run a five coach train (when 800/801s arrive) may improve the economics of those kind of marginal services, hopefully make it more attractive for the TOC to take a risk on improving services.

Plus there's the scope to add/remove coaches en-route. As a hypothetical example, you could run five coaches from Kings Cross (around 04:30) to join the five coaches of the current 06:15 Doncaster - Waverley service (arriving in central Edinburgh at 09:19) - though there'd be no need for ten coaches leaving London at that early hour.