this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Because most normal people use a flight when they actually need to.
I regularly hear people say stuff like "I would like to take the train, but the flight was cheapest". "You know, i'd take the train, but with switching twice and 8 hours... and the flight was only a bit more expensive"
There is still a lot of convenience over actual need.
Then make the fucking trains work not other stuff more expensive...
One way to make the money for making trains better is to end subsidizing and properly taxing planes.
In what scenario would a normal person need to fly within Europe?
Unfortunately the train routes from the Netherlands to, say, Portugal, Spain, Italy, or eastern Europe are not well developed enough yet. The train is great in the directions of Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin, and London, but beyond that it often takes longer than flying and often requires multiple tickets
You just describe when it's convenient not when anyone needs to fly. With the same reasoning everyone needs to use a car for everything outside a 500m radius because it's faster than going by bike.
I'm not just talking about faster. Over long distances flying is often almost an order of magnitude faster, significantly cheaper, more reliable (trans-continental rail journeys often involve tricky connections between different rail carriers), and much easier to book (for example, try booking a flight between Amsterdam and Bucharest, and then a train ticket). There are some connections where rail makes sense right now, but definitely not all connections.
Airlines are also obligated to pay compensation if their flights are delayed, railway companies are too under certain circumstances but the amounts are far lower and this doesn't cover separate tickets, which are often needed to travel on these very long railway journeys.
But I think we're in agreement that it shouldn't be this way. In situations where taking the train takes merely 2x as long as flying instead of 10x as long, it should definitely be the preferred option. Now the goal is to expand international railway connections, extend the railway compensation rights to make the trip safer to book, and provide a pan-European ticketing system that shows the lowest prices and allows all connections on a single ticket.
Screw that. I can't even afford a flight.
Then you can't afford a train either most likely.