Rail is very expensive to build, operate, and maintain. Rail is far more heavily subsidised in Europe than air travel and it’s still more expensive. It also doesn’t respond well to changes in demand. Tracks can’t be easily moved. Flights can easily be redirected. As technology and efficiency improves, flights become cheaper every year. Not rail, however, because most of the cost of operation and maintenance has nothing to do with energy efficiency. This gap will continue to widen. Further, rail has an inherent logistical limitation: all cars share limited lines. They are all limited by the slowest car. They are all stopped when an issue occurs with another car (or tracks). Planes can fly around damage to the network.
Direct flights between airports that don’t serve as hubs for any airline are generally focused on business travel. If you fly via some airlines hub airport you can get cheaper tickets as the flights are more focused on stuffing as many people into a plane as possible.
Cheaper maybe, but I don’t bet on faster for the passenger. Train station normally are in the city center (or really near), airport are relatively far from the city.
Hell, it’s cheaper and faster to fly from Zurich or Munich to Hamburg via Barcelona, London or Dublin.
But why though?
Air travel is heavily subsidised, especially through very very very favourable tax rates on aviation fuel
Rail is very expensive to build, operate, and maintain. Rail is far more heavily subsidised in Europe than air travel and it’s still more expensive. It also doesn’t respond well to changes in demand. Tracks can’t be easily moved. Flights can easily be redirected. As technology and efficiency improves, flights become cheaper every year. Not rail, however, because most of the cost of operation and maintenance has nothing to do with energy efficiency. This gap will continue to widen. Further, rail has an inherent logistical limitation: all cars share limited lines. They are all limited by the slowest car. They are all stopped when an issue occurs with another car (or tracks). Planes can fly around damage to the network.
Direct flights between airports that don’t serve as hubs for any airline are generally focused on business travel. If you fly via some airlines hub airport you can get cheaper tickets as the flights are more focused on stuffing as many people into a plane as possible.
You can actually read the study. Hamburg-Munich was in nearly all cases cheaper by train. Zurich-Hamburg they did not look at, but Zurich-Berlin was mostly cheaper as well.
Cheaper maybe, but I don’t bet on faster for the passenger. Train station normally are in the city center (or really near), airport are relatively far from the city.