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It’s even simpler: Trains are powered by taxed energy sources. Planes are powered by untaxed kerosine.
by mtsr 7y ago
It’s even simpler: Trains are powered by taxed energy sources. Planes are powered by untaxed kerosine.
- gruez 7y agoI'm not convinced. According to [1], fuel costs make up 25% of airline expenditures. Elsewhere in the thread [2] someone says that plane tickets cost less than 100 euro compared to over 400 Euro for comparable train tickets. This difference simply can not be accounted for using taxes. Even a 500% tax on aviation fuel wouldn't put plane tickets close to train tickets. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/591285/aviation-industry-fuel-cost/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/591285/aviation-industry... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20361346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20361346
- Leherenn 7y agoI think infrastructure plays a great role. An airport is expensive, but once you have it, you basically don't need infrastructure to link it to other airports. (I guess there's a few beacons, lights and ATC centres, but compared to the price of thousands of kilometres of rail, this is nothing.) Compare to rail where you have to build and maintain all those kilometres that must cost a ton long term. From an article I read recently about trains in France, a high-speed rail line is in the €15B range on average. An airport is in the low billions (even Berlin new airport which is massively over budget is still only around 6B I think). Maintenance of a rail line is €300k/y/km from the same article, when maintenance for the (empty) Berlin airport was in the 20M range.