There may have been a boom in night trains for travel in recent years – but there is no evidence that air travel will be pushed back. One reason: Train tickets are in many cases simply more expensive than plane tickets. This is now also underlined by a new study by Greenpeace from Austria. The prices of flights and trains were analyzed for 112 one-way routes in 27 European countries over 9 days within 3 time perspectives.
Flights have been found to be up to 79 percent cheaper than trains for the same route; on average, train tickets are twice as expensive as plane tickets. Only 23 of the routes analyzed are almost always cheaper by train than by plane, according to Greenpeace’s findings. However, half of these routes would have bad or slow train connections. Countries like the UK, Spain, Belgium, France and Italy have the most expensive train tickets compared to flights. In Central and Eastern Europe, trains are often cheaper compared to flights, but train connections are generally worse.
Price drivers are mainly low-cost airlines such as easyJet, Ryanair, Wizz Air, or Volotea. The cheapest ticket Greenpeace found was only 10 euros. It should be noted here, however, that these lure offers are often accompanied by the fact that you often pay extra for luggage, choice of seat, etc., which means that the prices quickly reach three digits.
Night trains are often cheaper than day trips
Although some train services such as Amsterdam-London, London-Edinburgh and Toulouse-Paris are effective, flights on these routes remain much cheaper. Low-cost airlines dominate the European market, operating 79% of the routes analyzed. Transfer flights from these companies are the cheapest flight option, but produce up to 10 times more greenhouse gas emissions than direct flights. Train journeys become more expensive as more different train companies and tickets have to be purchased for different parts of the journey. Night trains are often cheaper than day trains, but still more expensive than low-cost airlines. Some train companies only offer tickets for a limited time in advance, which gives airlines another advantage.
Of course, one thing is clear: If you want to travel as ecologically as possible, take the train. This causes the fewest CO2 emissions per person and kilometer, aircraft the most. On average, airplanes cause 4.84 times more CO2 than trains, as calculated by the International Energy Agency:
Even though air travel collapsed in 2020 and 2021 due to the corona pandemic, the industry is recovering. According to the International Civil Aviation Organization ICAO, the number of passengers in 2023 will be three percent higher than in 2019, and in 2024 even four percent.