Protests and investigations over rising airfare prices. But the train, far less polluting, still costs twice as much: Greenpeace proposes the climate ticket.
Over the past few months, flights have become significantly more expensive than in the past — by as much as 40 per cent more — even though fuel prices have fallen 45 per cent since the early months of the war in Ukraine. So much so that, in Italy, the prices watchdog has opened an investigation, asking the main airlines operating short-haul routes for an explanation. The government, for its part, through Minister for Enterprises and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso, announced that "a regulatory intervention is being drawn up, in agreement with the Minister for Transport, aimed at countering any unfair commercial practices by carriers." From a purely environmental standpoint, rising airfares would also be good news: for the same route, a train option is often available — a far less polluting mode of transport. And yet a new report by Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe shows that, at the same time, train travel across Europe is on average twice as expensive as flying, with some routes costing up to 30 times more.
(in the Greenpeace tweet, a poster by street artist Hogre)
The Greenpeace analysis compared flight and rail tickets across 112 different European routes over 9 different time periods, finding that flights are cheaper than trains in 71 per cent of cases. On the 15 routes analysed that include Italy (mostly international), the train is two and a half times more expensive than the plane, placing Italy fifth in Europe in the ranking of countries with the greatest cost difference between the two modes of transport.
One example: travelling between Rome and Vienna can cost up to 10 times more by train than by plane. And yet, the report explains in its chapter dedicated to Italy, "thanks to a well-functioning high-speed rail network and some domestic night trains (admittedly, the assessment of the reliability of Italian services is indeed somewhat too generous, ed.), many countries are reasonably accessible by train, even from the south of the country." Beyond this, "there are frequent international rail connections to Switzerland and Austria, continuing on to France and Germany." And yet on 13 of the 15 routes analysed, flights were always or almost always cheaper.
Low-cost airlines, operating on the same routes, are often cheaper than the train thanks to very aggressive pricing strategies. And this is true despite airfares currently being at their highest in recent years. Sometimes, too, they offer cheaper connecting flights compared with carriers operating direct services, causing up to 10 times more greenhouse gas emissions.
Greenpeace points out that low-cost airlines also benefit from advantages derived from staff working conditions reduced to the legal minimum and from the subsidies they sometimes receive from local authorities (and when they receive none, they are nonetheless exempt from paying fuel taxes, which is already in itself a significant form of subsidy). Railways, by contrast, must pay energy taxes, VAT and the high track access charges imposed in most countries.
"The aviation industry is one of the most climate-damaging sectors, and airlines can offer rock-bottom ticket prices because they benefit from scandalous tax advantages that push European citizens towards choosing the most polluting means of travel," explains Federico Spadini, head of Greenpeace Italy's Transport campaign. "Low-cost carriers in particular exploit every loophole to cut fares, but flights for a few euros are only possible because it is the environment and workers who foot the bill. It is time for European governments, including Italy's, to radically transform the transport sector — incentivising rail and less polluting modes of transport, and making airlines pay for the climate and social damage they cause."
To make rail transport more affordable than air travel, Greenpeace is calling on European governments (and on the Italian government in particular, with a petition) to introduce so-called climate tickets — affordable, easy-to-use long-term tickets valid on all public transport in a country or a given region, including trains and cross-border services. Climate tickets could be funded, among other options, by taxes on the windfall profits of oil companies, by the gradual phasing out of environmentally harmful subsidies, or by a fair taxation system based on CO₂ emissions. In parallel, the other demand is to put an end to subsidies for airlines and airports, starting with the gradual elimination of tax exemptions on kerosene.
