Train Travel Still Mostly More Expensive Than Flights

For the analysis, the environmental NGO compared prices for 142 travel routes within Europe, 109 of which were cross-border. It was found that for international travel, train travel was more expensive than flying in over 60 percent of cases. However, for domestic routes, the train was the cheaper travel option in 70 percent of cases.

Significant Contribution to Global Warming

Passenger airplanes make a significant contribution to global warming. According to the German Aerospace Center (DLR), around 3.5 percent of global warming worldwide is attributed to air traffic. In addition to pure CO2 emissions, aerosols, nitrogen oxides, and to a very large extent, the well-known contrails also burden the climate.

Train Travel in Austria Slightly Cheaper Than in Other Countries

For Austria, 14 routes were analyzed, including one domestic route. Domestically, between Vienna and Innsbruck, the train was always the significantly cheaper alternative. Traveling by train was also predominantly cheaper to and from Germany, such as from Salzburg to Düsseldorf or from Berlin to Graz. Train travel was also cheaper to Zurich, Ljubljana, and Warsaw.

However, travelers had to dig deeper into their pockets for train travel on routes to Paris, Copenhagen, Venice, Bucharest, and the EU capital Brussels. "All these routes are served by the low-cost airline Ryanair, which uses Vienna Airport as one of its home airports and benefits from very low airport fees there," writes Greenpeace in the analysis. The largest price difference found by the environmental organization was on the London-Vienna route, where the train journey cost 267 euros, almost 13 times as much as the flight.

Flying in France Almost Always Cheaper Than Train Travel

Traveling by train is particularly expensive in France: Here, 95 percent of all routes were more expensive by train than by plane on at least six out of nine days examined. Train travel was also mostly more expensive than flights in Spain, the United Kingdom, and Italy. On the London-Barcelona route, the train ticket cost up to 390 euros, 26 times as much as the flight on the same day. In contrast, train travel in the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) was always cheaper than flying, and in Poland and Slovenia, train travel was usually cheaper.

"The aviation industry benefits from unfair tax privileges, while train travelers have to foot the bill. We finally need laws that make climate-friendly mobility the cheapest choice," said Jasmin Duregger of Greenpeace according to the release. The environmental organization calls for additional taxes on business and first-class flights as well as on the aircraft fuel kerosene. Meanwhile, international train tickets should be exempt from VAT according to environmentalists. Train travel would also be simpler and cheaper with a Europe-wide unified train ticket system, says the environmental NGO.

(APA/Red.)

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