Greenpeace: Climate-friendly train travel costs three times as much as flying this Christmas

Travelling by train over the busy festive period costs about three times as much as flying, a new analysis has found, despite air travel being five times worse for the environment.

This week is one of the busiest times to travel in the UK, as millions of Brits head home for Christmas or out of the country for the holidays. Now researchers from Greenpeace have compared train and plane ticket prices on 22 popular routes in the UK and Europe, and found that flights were consistently cheaper on four-out-of-five (82%) of them - despite the fact that flying is an average of five times more polluting than taking the train. The climate action group says airlines are benefitting from posting artificially low prices that don't factor in the pollution they cause - and is calling on the government to take action.

Taking the train on seven of the most popular UK domestic routes was almost twice the average cost of flying. The biggest difference was between Bristol and Newcastle, where a rail journey cost nearly three times (2.8x) the price of an equivalent flight. But the average price of a train ticket soared to 4.2 times that of a flight for 15 of the most popular destinations in Europe, including Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, as well as the Christmas market cities of Prague, Budapest, Copenhagen and Cologne.

The biggest price gap in the data was London to Barcelona, where the average cost of a train ticket was a whopping 8.7 times that of a flight. Flying London to Prague was a close second, with travelling by rail costing eight times as much as by air. According to Greenpeace's figures, a train journey to the Czech capital on 21 December cost €307.60 (£267.80) - almost 18 times as much as a flight with budget airline Ryanair (€17.57 or £15.30).

As well as the price gap, the research showed that booking a flight was often simpler and more flexible than buying train tickets - particularly on trips outside the UK. While there are direct flights to all 15 popular destinations tested in Europe, only three of them - Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris - had a direct rail link. Most rail journeys also required travellers to buy at least two separate tickets from different train companies - or three if not starting from London.

Greenpeace UK transport campaigner Paul Morozzo said: “Unless you own a herd of reindeer and a magical sleigh, the cheapest mode of transport this Christmas is likely to be a polluting flight. But it doesn’t have to be this way. A lack of investment in railways and ticketing, and a failure to properly tax carbon emissions, have created a nightmare before Christmas where consumers are effectively being rewarded for polluting.”

Mr Morozzo added: “For the sake of the climate we need to get people out of planes and into trains. We need to level the playing field by bringing in a frequent flyer levy and by ending the unfair subsidies and tax exemptions enjoyed by the aviation sector. This needs to happen in parallel with an increase in capacity on our rail network to facilitate more demand.”

Airlines are able to keep their prices artificially low because they pay no kerosene tax or VAT, he said. On top of that, in the UK airlines have recently had the amount of Air Passenger Duty they have to pay halved. By contrast, train operators have to pay energy taxes, VAT and high rail tolls in most European countries - although no VAT in the UK, Mr Morozzo continued.

Greenpeace wants the UK government to even the plying field, by increasing the costs of flying regularly through a frequent flyer levy. It also wants MPs to phase out the tax exemption on kerosene, as well as subsidies and indirect support for airlines and airports.

The climate campaign group was also in favour of banning all short-haul flights where there is a suitable rail alternative, for the sake of cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions. But Greenpeace said at the same time, "climate tickets" needed to be introduced, to make train travel more affordable and convenient - and to keep communities connected.

Air travel produces high levels of both CO2 and non-CO2 emissions, which make a substantial contribution to climate change. The world is on the cusp of its hottest year in recorded history, with scientists saying temperatures over the last half-year had "truly been shocking". "Scientists are running out of adjectives to describe this," she continued. "It’s only going to get warmer as long as the world keeps pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere."