Brussels, Aug. 21, 2025 (Lusa) - Travelling by plane in Europe, one of the most polluting modes of transport, is 26 times cheaper than travelling by train, which, according to the international environmental association Greenpeace, shows "a broken travel system" at the European level.
This is one of the conclusions of a study on the subject carried out by Greenpeace, which says that low-cost flights are up to 26 times cheaper than train journeys, "fuelling climate injustice and exposing Europe's broken travel system".
The study released on Thursday analyses 142 routes in 31 European countries and concludes that flights are predominantly cheaper than train travel on 54% of the 109 cross-border rail routes analysed, with low-cost airlines dominating "through unfair pricing".
According to a Greenpeace statement, this situation "is not due to [commercial] efficiency, but to political inaction that allows airlines to undermine rail transport at the expense of the planet".
Greenpeace believes that Europe has "a tax system that rewards cheap flights that harm the climate".
The report notes that low-cost airlines such as Ryanair, Wizz Air, Vueling and EasyJet "dominate European skies", with fares that are often lower than airport and ticket taxes.
"These prices only exist because of the tax exemption on aviation fuel and because international airline tickets are exempt from VAT. By contrast, railway operators often pay full VAT, [bear] rising energy costs and high track access charges," the organisation emphasised.
Greenpeace found that on 54% of cross-border routes, flying was cheaper on at least six out of nine days. The fares were checked for nine different days for each route, in different booking periods.
In Portugal, only four routes were analysed, including two domestic ones. Of the two routes linking Portugal and Spain, Lisbon-Madrid was found to be predominantly cheaper by train than by plane. At the same time, the other, Porto-Madrid, was predominantly more expensive by rail.
In 2023, this route was always more expensive by train, and since then, the situation has improved somewhat, the report said.
For its part, Greenpeace notes, trains were always or almost always cheaper on only 29 (39%) of the cross-border routes, many of them in Central and Eastern Europe - especially in the Baltics and Poland.
In France, Spain and the UK, trains were more expensive than flights on up to 95% of cross-border routes.
Train journeys can cost up to 26 times more than flights - as the most extreme example found by Greenpeace shows: from Barcelona to London it costs just £14.99 (around €17) by plane, compared to €389 by train.
The environmental cost is enormous, Greenpeace points out, explaining that flights emit on average five times more CO₂ per passenger-kilometre than trains. Compared to railways, which use 100% renewable electricity, the impact can be 80 times worse.
Nevertheless, it criticises the fact that artificially low air fares continue to encourage passengers to fly.
Greenpeace acknowledges that there have been improvements since 2023, the date of the first study, but points out that the system is still malfunctioning.
Thus, Greenpeace claims that since 2023, the proportion of routes where trains are predominantly cheaper has increased by 14 percentage points, thanks to better rail connections and the reduction of ultra-cheap air connections via hubs such as London or Dublin.
Night trains, which offer an environmentally friendly alternative to long-distance journeys, are often more affordable than high-speed trains. However, they still can't compete with highly subsidised air travel, the document says.
Against this backdrop, Greenpeace is calling for affordable rail transport, ending the illusion of air fares and urging the EU and national governments to reform transport policy by eliminating aviation subsidies, introducing a simplified rail ticketing system and investing more in public rail infrastructure.
The organisation also advocates the introduction of affordable "climate tickets" - flat-rate passes valid for national and cross-border public transport.
The study only included routes of less than 1,500 kilometres, which can reasonably be travelled by both rail and air.
ARA/ADB // ADB.
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