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?

Yes trains should be heavily subsidised by taxes raised on flights. So many of us want to do the right thing environmentally but need more help to do so.

Our domestic rail is so expensive because 70% are run for profit by overseas based train companies who are not in a properly competitive situation and don’t care about the damage that high cost travel inflicts on the wider UK economy…as long as it doesn’t affect their profit too much.
https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/70-of-uk-rail-routes-now-owned-by-foreign-states/

The trains and buses are all run by one company with no competiton where I live and work. So much for choice. More Tory bullshit.

Eurostar is a state backed monopoly with no direct competitor. Their business model doesn’t depend on selling ultra-cheap basic tickets then charging £££ for add-ones like bags, seats, priority boarding etc etc. Using it is also much less of a nightmare than flying has become, or it was last time I used it.

Flying is brutally competitive, particularly on busy European routes. Airlines are forced to cut their basic fares to the bone by low-cost rivals, which works to the benefit of consumers.

Regarding UK train delays (it's pretty much the same all over Europe):

Trains get horribly delayed sometimes- and if you are delayed for over an hour you get a full refund- even if you get to take another train.

Car journeys get horribly delayed sometimes- and you are entitled to nothing.

Flights get horribly delayed sometimes- I think you get some compensation, don't you? After several hours? At least a free bottle of water or a coffee, IIRC? 😆

(I still remember having to spend TWENTY FOUR HOURS at Gatwick when I was a kid. French air traffic controllers' strike).

I've just done a check and DS and I could go mid week on HT for £316 return.

But you know what's really shit? I live 10 minutes from Ebsfleet. It was fantastic. Now we have to go back up to St P and go past our house on the way back!

Depends where you are starting from
Train won't be quicker for everyone

St Pancras to Luton airport is only 30min (there is also a quicker one)
Security is usually only about 20min at luton (I'll give you 1hr, 2 is excessive.
Taxi to paisley 10min. Train to Glasgow 15min
Actually the hold up would depend on the trains ironically.

You are also counting travel time to Luton but not travel time to Euston. London is a big place. If you are in west hampstead for eg it probably just as easy to go to Luton.

We live close enough to Luton airport for the flight path to be over our house.

Eurostar only really works if you live in London. The price of GWR tickets to London would make getting the train really expensive as opposed to a bus costing £8 to Bristol airport.

But an option for visitors to London

Well, providing you live in Bristol queencremant 😆
Actually though, when I used to work abroad (typically Paris) I did use to catch the train from Cornwall to Bristol and fly quite a lot though 😳. I'm not sure whether that would still be a saving though...fares to Bristol have jumped so much that it doesn't cost that much more to go to London nowadays (example: I just looked up the cheapest fares for 10 days time. £53 to London, £34 to Bristol, BUT you then have to add £9 for the airport flyer bus and however much the RER costs into central Paris, so call it about £46). It used to be much, much cheaper to fly, but I think the days of £20 flights are behind us. If I was doing the same job now I reckon I could make a convincing case to my employer to let me take the Eurostar.

But, as I've said upthread, if you're travelling for a holiday take a look at Interrail passes- all UK trains on your outbound and inbound legs are completely free of charge.

Op it's absolutely ridiculous. Each year i browse it and it's always about 500 that's no matter how far I book ahead.
Having said that after recent bed bug scare I'm glad I didn't manage to book anything.

Reading this with interest as we recently went on a late-booked trip to Germany and Eurostar prices were #HOWMUCH??!! and air travel not hugely better, so, having the luxury of time now we're retired, we went by coach.
It was very comfortable, I have to say, more so than train or plane. Of course it has to be, it's not quick! But at about £25-30 London to Brussels one way, and very, very little hassle, I would do it again.

It depends on how early you book. Going to Paris via train and Eurostar at half term and 4 adults and 4 kids came to £850 all in for the return. Which for us was cheaper than flying overall and i don't think will be that much longer if at all given the time saved on either end. Let's see!

@DdraigGoch

Morning

What about fuel duty? Aviation fuel doesn't get charged that either. Let's apply the same rate that petrol or diesel would be charged. I reckon that your three tonnes of fuel is liable for nearly £2k in fuel duty, plus VAT.

Well jet aircraft don't run on either but I guess that's a fair call (if fuel for rail gets charged similarly ).

So using your 2k that's about 11 pounds added to each ticket on our hypothetical flight ....So now with VAT we're up to a total increase of about 15 pounds.

But then again for fairness lets remove the 6.50 pounds of Air Passenger Duty charged on a domestic ticket (unless there's a Rail Passenger Duty).

The delta is now around a tenner.

I wouldn't expect that sort of price increase in itself driving a massive shift to rail.

I took the family to Provence last summer and looked into Eurostar and TGV to Aix-en-Provence but it was way way more expensive than Easyjet to Marseille.

The price increase would be more than £15 because the airline has to pay for fuel whether a seat is occupied or not. Therefore passengers travelling in July and August tend to get stung for the losses the airline makes in the quiet months. £15 represents up to a 50% increase on some Ryanair fares so it will tip the balance, particularly given that Avanti is offering Euston to Glasgow for £35 on some trains (railcard discounts available too). It also raises some revenue for the Treasury which can be put towards new infrastructure.

Why should APD be taken off? I'd leave it on and start charging multiples of it for frequent fliers. There's a climate emergency, you know.

I don't know why you're suggesting that rail transport should be taxed, the whole idea is that we need to be incentivising sustainable options. Quite apart from the fact that London to Glasgow trains are 100% electric so there is no fuel to tax anyway.

Sorry, I thought we were discussing subsidies and rail fares, not having a debate about raising levies to punish the UK airline industry.

But if you insist, and sticking with airlines for one moment - some in the environmental movement often seems to fail to see the big picture when it comes to things like fuel duty (which unless adopted and harmonised internationally will lead to increase in emissions), and APD ( the UK model doesn't stop flying, it simply encourages some passengers to use lengthy itineraries with an increase air miles flown).

It's worth bearing in mind that when the French looked at reducing domestic flights they realised they had to be very careful how it was done, since draconic level of cuts might only change the itineraries passengers used, and potentially increase miles flown by passengers starting or finishing their journey's in France.

Anyhow back to the OP - maybe the answer to UK rail prices is to take the continental view and increase subsidies on rail travel, and fares are high because at times the market will support those fares.

Indeed. It should also be cheaper to get the train than to drive, but thanks to Beeching's line cuts in Wales, that is only very rarely the case for us..

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/eurostar-trains-london-paris-kings-cross-gare-du-nord-b1112472.html

The cap no longer applies apparently