Brits opt for planes over trains this Christmas due to sky high ticket prices
Brits travelling home for Christmas are being forced to fly rather than take the train due to sky high prices.
Travelling by train during the festive period costs more than three times as much as flying on average, despite the latter being around five times more polluting, a study into UK and European ticket prices has found.
Flying is cheaper than taking a train on four-out-of-five popular routes while an average train ticket is 3.4 times the cost of flying, or over eight times on certain routes, Greenpeace analysis showed.
This week is one of the busiest times to travel in the UK, as millions of Brits head home for Christmas or out of the country on festive breaks. Despite the fact that flying so much more polluting than taking the train on average, airlines continue to benefit from hugely generous tax breaks that are not given to railways.
Have you had to fly instead of taking the train home for Christmas because of the cost? Email us at [email protected]
Baroness Mone's £20m London home owned by offshore firms linked to tax avoidance
Planes continue to be cheaper than trains on most major routes (Getty Images/Westend61)This year the UK Government decided to slash domestic aviation duty by half, which coincided with a surge in the number of routes flown from UK airport to UK airport. Despite the potential raise billions of pounds in extra tax revenue each each, jet fuel is not taxed in the UK.
By contrast, train operators have to pay energy taxes, VAT and high rail tolls in most European countries - although no VAT in the UK. Some airlines also save on staffing costs by employing the legal minimum of employees on low pay and poor conditions.
Paul Morozzo, transport campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: "Unless you own a herd of reindeer and a magical sleigh, the cheapest mode of transport this Christmas is likely to be a polluting flight. But it doesn’t have to be this way. A lack of investment in railways and ticketing, and a failure to properly tax carbon emissions, have created a nightmare before Christmas where consumers are effectively being rewarded for polluting."
Researchers found that taking the train on seven of the most popular UK routes was 1.7x the average cost of flying. But the average price of a train ticket soared to 4.2 times that of a flight for 15 popular destinations in Europe, including Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, as well as the Christmas market cities of Prague, Budapest, Copenhagen and Cologne.
Some of the biggest price gaps
London to Barcelona: The average cost of a train ticket was 8.7 times that of a flight. Shifting the 3.36 million annual flights to rail would save approximately 461,000 tons of harmful greenhouse gasses - equivalent to the annual emissions of all the cars in Glasgow.
London to Prague: At eight times the average price of a flight, rail operators can’t compete with low-cost airlines. A train journey to the Czech capital on 21 December costs €307.60 (£267.80) - almost 18 times as much as the polluting Ryanair flight (€17.57/£15.30).
Bristol to Newcastle: While taking the train was consistently more expensive on more than half (four out of seven) of the UK routes, the biggest difference was between these two cities where a rail journey cost almost 2.8x the price of an equivalent flight.
As well as the price gap, the research showed that booking a flight was often simpler and more flexible than buying train tickets - particularly on trips outside the UK. While there are direct flights to all 15 popular in Europe, only three of them have a direct rail link - Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris.
Most rail journeys also require travellers to buy at least two separate tickets from different train companies - or three if not starting from London.
Morozzo added: "For the sake of the climate we need to get people out of planes and into trains. We need to level the playing field by bringing in a frequent flyer levy and by ending the unfair subsidies and tax exemptions enjoyed by the aviation sector. This needs to happen in parallel with an increase in capacity on our rail network to facilitate more demand."
Greenpeace is calling on the UK government to increase the costs of flying regularly through a frequent flyer levy, as well as demanding the phasing out of tax exemptions on kerosene as well as subsidies and indirect support for airlines and airports such as new infrastructure. The organisation also recommends the introduction of climate tickets which they say could reduce the cost of train travel and boost convenience and interconnectivity.
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