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In Europe, flying is cheaper than taking the train.
It's an embarrassment, and a major problem: we have to stop flying for silly short distances. Realise that the overheads of flying (reaching the airport, awaiting 2 hours, the flight, the unloading, reaching the destination) largely cancel out any time gains of flying. And the carbon costs are utterly untenable. Not to speak of the modern, dire conditions of the whole flying "experience".
Another embarrassment is that train connections can't be guaranteed when across countries or companies. They aren't even coordinated. As if those who commission and set the schedules didn't travel by train themselves, at least not internationally. In considering how tiny most European countries are, it's frankly bizarre.
There are so many destinations one could travel by train to, yet in practice, it's not sensible. A disgrace.
The upside is that it can be fixed.
@albertcardona The unsaid part of this is that the cheap airlines are private (and hence efficient), while most train companies are either public or semi-public, and hence both expensive and inefficient. If you take a look at Polish train prices, which aren't that bad compared to other places, going by car instead becomes more affordable at 3 to 4 people, assuming normal tickets. This makes no sense, there's no way a car is more efficient than a train.
@miki @albertcardona do you know what privatization did to British railroads by chance?
@miki @albertcardona do you know how much subsidies European goverments provide to airline companies by chance?
@cybertailor @albertcardona Do the cheap airlines get any of these? I was under the impression that most subsidies go to the expensive state-owned enterprises like Lufthansa, KLM, British Airways or Lot.
@elexia@catcatnya.com@cybertailor @miki @albertcardona yeah, private railroads aren't any better anywhere lol