Flying is still cheaper than taking the train in Europe, study finds

Flying may be bad for the environment, but taking the train in Europe is bad for your bank account, a new study found.

Rail travel within the Continent remains 71 percent more expensive than flying, according to research by Greenpeace. The report compared the prices of flights and trains on 112 European travel routes and found that taking the train was cheaper than a flight in only 23 cases. As a result, despite the fact that flying produces more greenhouse gases than train journeys, people will often opt for the former.

In Poland, train travel costs half as much as flying, but the most expensive country for rail travel is the U.K., where travelers pay four times more for train journeys than flights. For example, traveling from Barcelona to London by train costs around €384, while a flight can be as cheap as €12.99, the report says.

Barcelona-London is the third most-traveled short-haul route in Europe, and "shifting these flights to rail would save 461,000 tons of harmful greenhouse gases, equivalent to the yearly emissions of 303,000 cars," the study finds.

Due to the "subsidies that airlines benefit from, they can offer unreasonably low prices," Greenpeace says. Eighty percent of the study’s routes are operated by low-cost airlines.

Traveling through Europe by train is also more complicated, as passengers have to book tickets from different operators in various countries in advance.

To make travelling more climate-friendly and affordable, Greenpeace demands the introduction of a "European wide ticket valid for all means of public transport."