Why is flying to your holiday destination often cheaper than taking the train?

The Eurostar. Photo: ANP

Choosing the right mode of transport for a city break can be quite a challenge: should you take the train or fly? Many people consider the train the most environmentally friendly option. Yet, those on a tight budget often still opt for the plane.

How is that possible? Why is a one-way flight to a European city often much cheaper than a train journey? Airline tickets are often considerably cheaper than international train fares.

The University of the Netherlands investigated why flying is often cheaper. With the holidays approaching , many people are taking a plane to a sunny destination. The train is often seen as the more sustainable alternative. Mobility expert Carlo van de Weijer of Eindhoven University of Technology: "You often hear people say that the lower prices are because the aviation industry pays hardly any taxes. There's some truth to that, but it's not the whole story," he explains.

"Even if you were to levy VAT on airline tickets and also introduce an excise duty on kerosene to compensate for all the social damage, a plane ticket would still remain very cheap. It would increase by at most twenty to thirty euros," Van de Weijer emphasizes.

"You do pay VAT on a train ticket," says Van de Weijer. "But what many people don't realize is that the train is heavily subsidized. This is mainly due to the costs of building and maintaining the track, which is incredibly expensive. These costs are currently largely covered by governments. If you were to tax that fairly, a train ticket would easily be two to three hundred euros more expensive. So the train isn't expensive because of the journey itself, but mainly because of the expensive infrastructure behind it."

He also points to the so-called system law, a mathematical principle that explains why train networks are so much more complex and expensive than air connections. "If you want to connect two points, you need one connection. With three points, that's three. But with five points, you already need ten connections to connect each point directly. That number grows increasingly rapidly as you want to connect more points."

The expert concludes why, if you want to keep a close eye on the price, it's better to fly. "If you wanted to connect fifty cities directly, you'd need around 1,225 connections," he explains. "Of course, you could combine some connections, but even then, you're quickly talking about a thousand railway lines. And that's lines of hundreds of kilometers, all of which need to be constructed and maintained."

He compares this to airports: "On the other hand, for those same fifty cities, you only need fifty airports. Their construction and maintenance are much cheaper than an extensive rail network. That's why flying is so efficient: you need less infrastructure to make the same number of connections."

The significant price difference between train and plane tickets also draws criticism. It often makes the train unattractive for holidaymakers, even if they're concerned about the damaging impact of flying on the climate. Greenpeace UK had previously investigated ticket prices and examined 121 routes on nine separate days. They discovered, among other things, that a train ticket from London to Barcelona is thirty times more expensive than a plane ticket. Only in rare cases is taking the train cheaper than flying, and on almost all routes.

Greenpeace is therefore demanding that governments introduce simple and affordable tickets for train travel. This is already happening in Austria, where you can travel throughout the country on public transport for just €3 a day. In Luxembourg, public transport is completely free. International travel, however, is a different, more complex issue.

"Airplanes cause much more pollution than trains, so why do we subsidize them?" said a spokesperson for the environmental organization. "The train journey usually takes longer. That makes it unattractive for holidaymakers to take the train, even if they're concerned about the devastating impact of flying on the climate," Greenpeace argues.

But the crackdown on cheap airfare has been going on for a long time. The Dutch air passenger tax has already increased significantly in recent years. While the air passenger tax was around €7.90 per person in 2022, every passenger flying from the Netherlands paid an air passenger tax of €26.43 starting in 2023. This tax will increase again in 2025, to €29.40 per passenger per flight.

The aim of this increase is to make flying more expensive and fairer compared to other modes of transport, such as the train. Starting in 2027, the government wants to adjust the tax again so that longer flights pay more tax due to their greater impact on the climate.