To think the Eurostar should be cheaper than flying?

[ClaudiaWankleman]

I’m looking at £176 for a return flight to Amsterdam versus £246 on the Eurostar. Flight from London City so just as convenient (for me).

AIBU to think that the Eurostar should be cheaper? I remember going to Paris a couple of years before Covid for £120 return which seemed like a decent price. The same journey is presumably much more now.
Given the carbon cost and the number of passengers compared to flying, AIBU to think the Eurostar is very expensive?

You are not being unreasonable. It's a complete rip off

We heavily subsidise air travel, so actually the flights should be much more expensive...

I was gobsmacked at the price when I looked in the summer. It was almost £900 for a family of four to go to Paris.

Train travel has become extremely expensive for families

It sounds like you mean 'shouldn't we stop subsidising air travel and start subsidising train travel?'

This is why. Flights haven't always been so cheap.

They could also do with some competition on the route. They have a monopoly at the moment.

Hopefully that’ll change as other European rail companies are interested, although that’s been said for years and nothing ever seems to happen.

Because train companies get money from governments and they can make ridiculous ticket prices and it doesn’t matter.

so you get to pay through your tax for expensive train travel

You can get a cheaper fare than 246, I went not long ago and paid around that for the business fare, but the standard fare was significantly cheaper, although I can't remember exactly how much.

I think comparing with the fare to Paris several years ago is a bit unfair....... it's a closer destination and prices do change over time.

Air travel really should be more expensive than it is. We are far too used to cheap flights, and the low fares is backed by travel and business policies over the last few decades.

Yes and we should stop (and subsidise trains more instead).

I travel a lot on the Eurostar between Paris and St Pancras. It's always cheaper if you book ahead and the farther ahead you book the cheaper it will be. Midweek is generally cheaper than weekends for obvious reasons. Last minute around school holidays and especially Christmas is always expensive. Everything about the Eurostar (boarding, disembarking, luggage allowances etc) is a million times better than flying and it's obviously much more environmentally friendly. I would never fly from Paris, but I always book as far ahead as possible. I'm going in a couple of weeks and paying €105 return, I've also got returns booked for Christmas at €135 return per person.

I booked last week, to go in about 6 weeks' time, and it was way cheaper than that! So much depends on when you travel (both day of the week and time of day).
Weekend tickets are indeed £££. But there are cheaper seats available.

But in principle - yes, I agree that it should be cheaper. The thing with AMS is that loads of airlines fly there, from loads of airports, so there are lots of options and lots of competition, so it will be a comparatively cheaper route.

A problem for Eurostar at the moment is that they don't carry as many passengers as they used to. The increased border requirements post-Brexit means they don't the space or the staff at St P to deal with full capacity trains. So they've capped numbers until that can be sorted, which obviously means that all other passengers have to pay more, because the costs of running the service are fixed.

But I've reliably been able to get a Friday-Sunday return to Paris for £150 booking more than a month out, and a return for under £100 if travelling mid-week and over 4 weeks in advance. Last minute travel will get caught by surge pricing which does make it very expensive.

Also, once you add in the cost of travel to & from airports to the city centre, v just arriving there by train, doesn't the price difference fall?

£246 is the lowest class return, leaving at 7am and coming back at 4pm. The flights are the same time. I know Paris is closer, but I've just had a look and while the out leg is £43 cheaper to Paris, the return leg is exactly the same cost. So the cost of the Paris trip would be £203. An increase of 70% in 5 years is very expensive to me.

I'm aware we subsidise air travel - that's why I mentioned that the carbon cost is much lower for train travel. But even if it weren't, surely the economies of scale in terms of passenger numbers should reduce ticket prices?

I'm looking at Friday 8th December - Sunday 10th. Not early enough for peak Christmas (I'd think?) and more than a month out.

Interesting about passenger numbers - I didn't realise that. I'd still think a train carries more passengers than a plane though.

For many, many years we didn't even own a car - I was a huge proponent of public transport. But the frequent strikes meant we had to invest in a car, and having done so, the cost of travelling (as a family of three) is SOOOO much cheaper. It will be hard to tempt me back to the trains now. I want to be green, but, like the OP, not at vast expense in a cost of living crisis.

I think you must have just stumbled upon a very busy weekend - I've been sorting Fri-Sunday travel for Paris for a week earlier and it's comfortably under £150.

Full capacity of Eurostar trains is about 850 passengers. I don't know how that compares to a plane. But because of the issues I mentioned before, they could only run 2 trains an hour - and that has to cover Paris/Brussels/Amsterdam. I think at the height of the problem capacity was down 30%, although it has eased slightly now. I don't know how many flights depart all London airports every hour for those destinations, but I'm happy betting its considerably higher.

Hopefully it's going to become a reality now.

It's true Eurostar is more expensive than flying now but I would pay a small premium to go by rail just because it's so much more comfortable. We took the train to Europe this summer and had to return by plane due to time restrictions. I would happily never fly again now, there's no comparison. Except in many cases the cost sadly.

Just priced up December flights from Manchester. Plenty of choice on dates and decent flight times. Less than £35 return pp

No brainer

I am booked to go to England soon. Flight - £15. Train - £88. The additional cost to get to and from the airport is likely to be in the region of £10-£15, so still saving around £60.

Based on the time I leave the house and get there, I'll also save 4 hours by flying.

You are right op, it shouldn't be like this, but I'm choosing the flight.

Yanbu. I was looking at Paris for half term. For two adults, two teens it was £1,200 return on the Eurostar and that was the most basic tickets. The cost of flights is less than half that but I don’t want to fly due to the environmental impact. Most people will just go with the cheapest option, sadly, but flying shouldn’t be the cheapest option!

If you are going to Amsterdam, the extra cost to go on Eurostar is (in my opinion) absolutely worth not having to go through arrivals at Schipol. Last time I was there (July 2023) it took 2 hours to get through passport control. The time you will save at the airport (at both ends, for both journeys) is worth it!

go through arrivals at Schipol.

be very care at departures - they have a problem with pickpockets on phones - then you are leaving the country

Our family of four is doing Eurostar for the first time next week. It worked out half the price of EasyJet. I did book many months ago though.

@witheringrowan

Full capacity of Eurostar trains is about 850 passengers. I don't know how that compares to a plane.

For info for your common or garden short haul aircraft such a a 737 or an A320, think in terms of 180 per aircraft, but there's a big plus/minus on that depending on variant.

But because of the issues I mentioned before, they could only run 2 trains an hour - and that has to cover Paris/Brussels/Amsterdam. I think at the height of the problem capacity was down 30%, although it has eased slightly now. I don't know how many flights depart all London airports every hour for those destinations, but I'm happy betting its considerably higher.

Haven't got time to dig into now but top of the head you'd quite possibly looking at (again on average) one an hour out of somewhere like Heathrow to Paris, a bit less frequency for Brussels and Amsterdam...then of course as you say, factor in the other London airports, plus flights from the UK regions directly to those three destinations..(e.g Manchester - Paris)

Not sure what these subsidies on flights are that have been mention, always seemed like the money went the other way, for example Airport Passenger Duty (APD) which people pay on their tickets makes HMG a significant amount of dosh in a year...(over 3 Billion sterling in 22/23).

If people are thinking of the old chestnut of (no) tax on fuel well, unless you can reach an agreement to equalise any such tax across, say, the whole of the EU you're almost certainly doomed to see something called tankering increase on some routes, which would increase emissions

https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Documents/EnvironmentalReports/2022/ENVReport2022_Art38.pdf

I booked a few Eurostar trips this year and I thought they were so expensive, booked in advance etc. Also it seemed quite fraught, massive queues etc. I also ended up paying extra for premium as the main carriages were just packed...