Why are flights cheaper than trains in Europe?
Why are flights cheaper than trains in Europe?
Train travel is often more expensive than flying. Could taxing aviation to invest in the rail industry help change that?
One of the main reasons for the disparity is the lower taxes that the aviation industry benefits from.
If you fly from Paris to Barcelona the airline not only pays no VAT, but is also exempt from kerosene tax. If you make the same journey by train, the rail company will pay an energy tax and passenger VAT. This means higher costs for the company which are usually reflected in ticket prices.
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The train companys are also super greedy and trains shouldn't be run by private companies...
Why would train companies be greedier than airplane companies?
Because they can, there is basically no competition, a airline needs to either be cheaper than the others or offer services the others don't have.
So wait, is the free market bad or good? Is the argument to nationalize the airplanes too? Or is it to nationalize the rails but not the train companies and let trains compete like planes?
In short, yes.
In long, the problem is very complex and i don't know how to solve it, having infrastructure in general be run by the government is a good idea, but what is infrastructure and what service? In general rails should be treated like Road, so public property, but of the train company should be a government institution or not is a hard question, there are many pros and cons to that.
Is capitalism bad? No. It needs to be run on a well oiled system and have restrictions, so a social media economy is probably the best option.
From the experience of the Czech republic:
Most of the trains are run by private companies on behalf of the regional governments (chosen in a public competition). This has increased the quality of trains, while price (and, sadly, timetables) remains regulated by the region.
On the major lines, private companies operate also on their own, and even though the last-minute-in-rush-hour ticket are expensive, you can travel cheaply if you book it in advance and in less used hours.
(Also, until a year ago, one of the companies found a way how to misuse the governments' discounts, making tickets for students&seniors practically costless/paid by state, but that's another story.)