These discount airlines are entirely independent, and stand (or fall) on their ability to make a profit. Generally they add on a pile of additional costs to the cheap fare - airport tax, luggage check in fees (to encourage hand luggage only), check-in desk fees (vs internet check-in), forced check-in with non-EU passport (bastards), fat-tax and pay-per-piss (seriously suggested by the Ryan-Air CEO).
We have booked a few £1 fares - usually costs about £30-50 return per person to somewhere like Edinburgh or Dublin at odd times (Thurs evening to early Sunday morning) from a regional airport - which does take some getting to.
Still, compared to rail it can be hard to fault if you don’t live in a city with a local public transport network. But buses are making a comeback, too - the Greyhound to London from Southampton/Portsmouth is really cheap and compares well to the train - if you can prebook you can get a real cheap (and not too slow) trip with similar access.
Ok, I’m keeping in mind that this is a last-minute/walk-in price in peak time, but doing the exact same thing in the Netherlands - that is walk up to the station at 8 in the morning, buy a ticket and get on the first train from Groningen to Maastrict via Utrecht which is a little under 200 miles actual travel by my estimation:
Journey time 4 hours - not a very quick route, this.
Anyway: € 44,60 ~~ $60 for a return ticket, 2nd class, or € 75,80 ~~ $102 1st class.
If you’ve got a reduction card and you don’t mind leaving an hour later, it’s only € 26,80 ~~ $36 for a 2nd class return ticket.
That’s true. I have bought some advanced tickets from Newark to Leeds and it comes out at £17 return.
We have just returned from a trip to Lille, in northern France, and the tickets from Newark to Lille, via Eurostar were £75 return . That’s city-centre to city-centre in three and a half hours. Much better than air travel.
I went from Farnborough to Manchester via London and back a couple weeks ago. I traveled up on a Friday after 10:00am and back on a Sunday. I booked about a month in advance and the total cost was about £40.
If I’m going to Newcastle or anywhere further north I’ll fly otherwise I’ll take the train. I’ll only drive more than 100 miles if I need to carry something too awkward to get on the train.
Since you arrive in the middle of the city, and already have your bags with you, the last bit is totally negated. As a rule of thumb, the Eurostar is about twice the price of the really cheap airlines, but it takes less time and is a much more pleasant experience.
There’s a lot of airports (and budget airlines) because flying is often preferred for international travel - remembering that we have a high concentration of different countries within Europe.
Well, distances between cities in one country is usually much less than in the States, so taking a train is much faster than getting to the airport, getting through security, collecting your bags, getting into the city centre from the airport, etc.
The train network across Europe is much more comprehensive than the US, our roads are much more congested, fuel is much more expensive and parking in cities much more of a pain, so train travel is often easier, faster and less stressful, although not necessarily cheaper, especially in the UK. As an example, I often travel from London to other cities 100-200 miles away. As speed rather than cost is usually the deciding factor in business travel, if the train journey is less than 3 hours, then train usually wins over car or air travel.
I should mention I once travelled from Oxford to Glasgow by train on business. We took the train because two of my coworkers are scared of flying (ironically it was this very service that had a derailed Pendolino a few months later where one person died).
The total travel time to my hotel in Glasgow would have been 5 hours by plane, whereas with the train it was 6 hours, and a hell of a lot less stressful. However, the cost of the ticket would have been extortionate because we were in the UK. Thankfully I wasn’t paying.
A friend and I travelled from Edinburgh to London, with a stopover in York, a couple of years ago and if our tickets cost us more than £20 (if my memory serves me right) each it wasn’t much.
Yes while Train Fare’s are generally High, those fare are usually walk on or last minute fares.
If you are able to book in advance, you can usually gate pretty cheap fares.
For example, On the rout I used to take pretty regularly, between Nottingham and London, the Walk in fare was I believe £44 One way, £46 Return Off peak.
If I booked a week or two in advance I could often get fares of £6-8 One way, or First class £10-12 one way .
As I don’t have a car, My options are usually limited, though due to reasonably good public transport system there has never been much pressure to get one. While it might make it a little more convinent, its not worth the expense or effort involved.Add in the ridiculous Parking charges in London and other cities, its often not worth the few buck you may save.
Personally even When I had the choice, of renting a car or getting a ride I’ve usually preferred to go by train if possible as you are usually comfortable, you can move around and get a lot of work done which you would be able to do so in the car. I’ve not had much chance to travel to europe, though a lot of people I know prefer to travel via train to avoid the hassle of Air travel.
Actually that’s not usually true. For most connections in Europe, especially domestic, there’s a set price that never changes. E.g. the prices that **Superfluous ** quotes above are always going to be that, whether you buy the ticket five minutes or five months before boarding. Note that for most of these connections, you don’t reserve a seat, you don’t even buy a ticket for a specific connection. You’re ticket is just going to give you the right to be transported from A to B (and back, possibly) on a given day.
Well, there’s a few high-speed connections that are significantly higher priced here in the NL - specifically, there’s now a high-speed connection from Amsterdam to Paris which is almost twice the price of a regular ticket for domestic tickets and takes 20 minutes off the regular time of 1 hour from Amsterdam to Rotterdam. There are special offers on that route sometimes, though I don’t know if you can get an “early reservation” reduction.
But for regular routes without monthly or yearly subscriptions, there are only 2 main prices: full price (all the time) or reduced (40% off after 9 am, and you need a ~ 45 euro reduction card which is valid for a year - well worth it if you plan on doing a few “long-distance” train travels in the Netherlands, and you can take 3 more people on 1 reduction card).
