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And flights costing 29 EUR are simply a market (and policy) failure. In no reasonable sustainably operating economy would we ever have gotten into a situation o

And flights costing 29 EUR are simply a market (and policy) failure. In no reasonable sustainably operating economy would we ever have gotten into a situation of flights being cheaper than train trips.

kevindong 6y ago
Counterexample: in Summer 2019, I took a one way flight from Rome to Lisbon via Ryanair for $57.40 USD / ~€48.77 (current conversion rates, my receipt was denominated in USD). That's a 1,160 miles / 1,870 km / ~2.75 hour flight (distance is as the crow flies). A train cannot compete with that. Not that a reasonable train itinerary between Lisbon and Rome exists. For May 2021 [0], I'm seeing several roundtrip itineraries between Lisbon and Rome for USD$31 / €26 on Ryanair. I think the fact that such a low-priced flight can exist is actually a triumph of capitalism. [0]: https://www.google.com/travel/flights/s/a5Ea https://www.google.com/travel/flights/s/a5Ea
- verall 6y ago
  It would be more of a triumph if those $30 flights were not using leaded fuel, or if there was at least some lead pollution task to encourage people to take different transit options until the airline industry figures it out. I think, it was much less of a problem, when many less planes were flying. -- Correction in the comment, Jet-A has no lead. Cursory research suggests its nasty products are mostly organics rather than heavy metals, which is much less bad. Thanks! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15093276/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15093276/
  - coryrc 6y ago
    I don't believe Ryanair flies any piston planes and, thus, does not use any leaded fuel.
- anodari 6y ago
  I understood that the ban was only for flights within France.
- Sharlin 6y ago
  Yes, the sort of "triumph" that got us into this catastrophically unsustainable situation. Flights are not cheap. It's just that the hidden costs are paid by all of us, including yet unborn humans. This cannot continue.
- Retric 6y ago
  Work out the fuel costs per passenger mile and that’s a subsidized ticket. Now, airlines often have a surplus of seats on a route and will sell some of them at a nominal loss over flying empty seats, but they couldn’t operate the route if everyone was paying that.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  Every retailer will tell you that cutting prices (or even accepting a small loss) on goods or services that don't make a big profit brings in customers whose happiness with finding a bargain is a more effective advertisement than any the business can issue itself.
dsnr 6y ago
> And flights costing 29 EUR are simply a market failure That’s actually the market working as intended. In the case of flights you have competition which drives the price down, in the case of trains you mostly have a monopoly of the national operator which increases prices each year (DB, Germany). Train prices are prohibitively high, and when I face the choice I always end up driving vs taking the train (the price advantage grows larger with the number of people travelling).
- makapuf 6y ago
  Sometimes those 29€ are just the emerged part if the iceberg, with local airports subsidies which distorts said market.
  - makapuf 6y ago
    If you look at this article[0], the subsidies can be 100€ per passenger [0] https://www.lechotouristique.com/article/il-y-a-trop-d-aeroports-en-france,62131 https://www.lechotouristique.com/article/il-y-a-trop-d-aerop... (french)
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > Train prices are prohibitively high They didn't need to be, the problem is that Deutsche Bahn is expected to be profitable since two decades (as a result of the failed attempts to privatize it) - and that includes the cost of physical infrastructure, which is enormous. An airport however is cheap to build (okay, jokes like the BER aside) and operate, not to mention subsidies for regional airports whereas the EU has been pushing for de-subsidizing and liberalization of the railways for decades now.
- gpvos 6y ago
  No. It is externalities not properly being accounted for in the cost.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  The basic problem is that the market does a poor job of accounting for externalities, so indirect costs (pollution, subsidies) are dumped across whole populations over a long period, thus becoming effectively invisible, while profits are scrupulously accounted for and distributed to a far smaller group of recipients.
EdwinLarkin 6y ago
Railway systems usually dont play well with capitalism as there is very little competition (given that infrastructure and the train operator is usually a state owned company). Aviation is simply much more efficient.
- Symbiote 6y ago
  > Aviation is simply much more efficient. Efficient, how? It uses much more energy, makes more noise and creates more pollution. The speed has very little to do with the funding model. Flights were still faster in the 1970s when many state-owned airlines operated, and trains are little different when private companies run them (see: several European countries).
  - EdwinLarkin 6y ago
    Point-to-point travel is much faster and more efficient with planes than with trains.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Don't forget about those rails. A lot of energy is locked in them, not to mention land. Planes need airports and nothing more. Planes also spend their time where there is less wind resistance to deal with. Trains are still a win, but it isn't as clear as it seems.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    Tying up capital equipment and personnel for much less time to serve the same journey. Consider San Francisco to Chicago, a route I have done both ways. The flight is 5 hours, the train ride 50 hours. A 737 is more expensive than the California Zephyr trainset, but not by 10x. I'm not sure what noise has to do with efficiency - I doubt that the energy expended on vibrating the air is physically or economically significant - but it is worth noting that trains are loud. Particularly because regulations written in blood require that they blow their horns three times at every level crossing at all hours.
    - 6y ago
plantain 6y ago
Flights don't pay VAT, for some unfathomably baffling reason. Train tickets do. It's not just a market failure, it's been engineered this way.
- killtimeatwork 6y ago
  Depends on the country? Domestic flights in Poland are taxed at 8% VAT. International flights are at 0% VAT.
bsder 6y ago
> And flights costing 29 EUR are simply a market (and policy) failure. In no reasonable sustainably operating economy would we ever have gotten into a situation of flights being cheaper than train trips. Mostly ... you don't. To get that 29 EUR flight you have to book it WAY in advance, generally be on a trip that isn't super popular, and be willing to have no luggage to speak of. When we were in England, France and Italy pre-Covid, we priced out moving around on the train vs moving around on planes. The trains almost always won (sometimes by quite a lot) and had the advantage that you could buy the tickets with a day or two of advance rather than planes which required 2 weeks of advance to get a sane price. Now, obviously, we were moving between big cities and didn't need a car (because "tourist"). Business travel would probably be a different beast.

kevindong 6y ago

Counterexample: in Summer 2019, I took a one way flight from Rome to Lisbon via Ryanair for $57.40 USD / ~€48.77 (current conversion rates, my receipt was denominated in USD). That's a 1,160 miles / 1,870 km / ~2.75 hour flight (distance is as the crow flies). A train cannot compete with that. Not that a reasonable train itinerary between Lisbon and Rome exists. For May 2021 [0], I'm seeing several roundtrip itineraries between Lisbon and Rome for USD$31 / €26 on Ryanair. I think the fact that such a low-priced flight can exist is actually a triumph of capitalism. [0]: https://www.google.com/travel/flights/s/a5Ea https://www.google.com/travel/flights/s/a5Ea

verall 6y ago
It would be more of a triumph if those $30 flights were not using leaded fuel, or if there was at least some lead pollution task to encourage people to take different transit options until the airline industry figures it out. I think, it was much less of a problem, when many less planes were flying. -- Correction in the comment, Jet-A has no lead. Cursory research suggests its nasty products are mostly organics rather than heavy metals, which is much less bad. Thanks! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15093276/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15093276/
- coryrc 6y ago
  I don't believe Ryanair flies any piston planes and, thus, does not use any leaded fuel.
anodari 6y ago
I understood that the ban was only for flights within France.
Sharlin 6y ago
Yes, the sort of "triumph" that got us into this catastrophically unsustainable situation. Flights are not cheap. It's just that the hidden costs are paid by all of us, including yet unborn humans. This cannot continue.
Retric 6y ago
Work out the fuel costs per passenger mile and that’s a subsidized ticket. Now, airlines often have a surplus of seats on a route and will sell some of them at a nominal loss over flying empty seats, but they couldn’t operate the route if everyone was paying that.
anigbrowl 6y ago
Every retailer will tell you that cutting prices (or even accepting a small loss) on goods or services that don't make a big profit brings in customers whose happiness with finding a bargain is a more effective advertisement than any the business can issue itself.

dsnr 6y ago

> And flights costing 29 EUR are simply a market failure That’s actually the market working as intended. In the case of flights you have competition which drives the price down, in the case of trains you mostly have a monopoly of the national operator which increases prices each year (DB, Germany). Train prices are prohibitively high, and when I face the choice I always end up driving vs taking the train (the price advantage grows larger with the number of people travelling).

makapuf 6y ago
Sometimes those 29€ are just the emerged part if the iceberg, with local airports subsidies which distorts said market.
- makapuf 6y ago
  If you look at this article[0], the subsidies can be 100€ per passenger [0] https://www.lechotouristique.com/article/il-y-a-trop-d-aeroports-en-france,62131 https://www.lechotouristique.com/article/il-y-a-trop-d-aerop... (french)
mschuster91 6y ago
> Train prices are prohibitively high They didn't need to be, the problem is that Deutsche Bahn is expected to be profitable since two decades (as a result of the failed attempts to privatize it) - and that includes the cost of physical infrastructure, which is enormous. An airport however is cheap to build (okay, jokes like the BER aside) and operate, not to mention subsidies for regional airports whereas the EU has been pushing for de-subsidizing and liberalization of the railways for decades now.
gpvos 6y ago
No. It is externalities not properly being accounted for in the cost.
anigbrowl 6y ago
The basic problem is that the market does a poor job of accounting for externalities, so indirect costs (pollution, subsidies) are dumped across whole populations over a long period, thus becoming effectively invisible, while profits are scrupulously accounted for and distributed to a far smaller group of recipients.

EdwinLarkin 6y ago

Railway systems usually dont play well with capitalism as there is very little competition (given that infrastructure and the train operator is usually a state owned company). Aviation is simply much more efficient.

Symbiote 6y ago
> Aviation is simply much more efficient. Efficient, how? It uses much more energy, makes more noise and creates more pollution. The speed has very little to do with the funding model. Flights were still faster in the 1970s when many state-owned airlines operated, and trains are little different when private companies run them (see: several European countries).
- EdwinLarkin 6y ago
  Point-to-point travel is much faster and more efficient with planes than with trains.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Don't forget about those rails. A lot of energy is locked in them, not to mention land. Planes need airports and nothing more. Planes also spend their time where there is less wind resistance to deal with. Trains are still a win, but it isn't as clear as it seems.
- closeparen 6y ago
  Tying up capital equipment and personnel for much less time to serve the same journey. Consider San Francisco to Chicago, a route I have done both ways. The flight is 5 hours, the train ride 50 hours. A 737 is more expensive than the California Zephyr trainset, but not by 10x. I'm not sure what noise has to do with efficiency - I doubt that the energy expended on vibrating the air is physically or economically significant - but it is worth noting that trains are loud. Particularly because regulations written in blood require that they blow their horns three times at every level crossing at all hours.
  - 6y ago

plantain 6y ago

Flights don't pay VAT, for some unfathomably baffling reason. Train tickets do. It's not just a market failure, it's been engineered this way.

killtimeatwork 6y ago
Depends on the country? Domestic flights in Poland are taxed at 8% VAT. International flights are at 0% VAT.

bsder 6y ago

> And flights costing 29 EUR are simply a market (and policy) failure. In no reasonable sustainably operating economy would we ever have gotten into a situation of flights being cheaper than train trips. Mostly ... you don't. To get that 29 EUR flight you have to book it WAY in advance, generally be on a trip that isn't super popular, and be willing to have no luggage to speak of. When we were in England, France and Italy pre-Covid, we priced out moving around on the train vs moving around on planes. The trains almost always won (sometimes by quite a lot) and had the advantage that you could buy the tickets with a day or two of advance rather than planes which required 2 weeks of advance to get a sane price. Now, obviously, we were moving between big cities and didn't need a car (because "tourist"). Business travel would probably be a different beast.