Global environmental pressure group Greenpeace has found “a slightly positive trend” in transport ticket pricing, but the difference between rail and air prices is still “distorted” in favour of cheap flights. Flying Cheap, Paying Dear is the second investigation comparing the low price of budget air carriers with the equivalent train journeys across Europe. The group said the effect of cheap air travel is “creating a perverse incentive that encourages polluting air travel” over less polluting rail travel.
The 2025 version has examined 109 routes between 31 nations, which is slightly fewer than the 112 routes assessed in 2023, and 33 domestic routes. This year Greenpeace found a significant difference in cross-border journeys and internal journeys, with domestic routes much more likely to be cheaper by train. But overall, fewer than 50% of the journeys analysed were cheaper on the railways.
“While in 2023, only 27% of the 111 analysed routes were cheaper by train… this figure increased by 14 percentage points to 41%,” Greenpeace said. It explained that one reason behind this change was the drop in cheap connecting flights.
