The organisation I work for has banned flights (NI excluded) unless you are able to justify it, even if the rail fare is 3 times more expensive.
Barking PoslethwaiteIt's doubtless more convenient for some to take internal flights (but obviously not that many otherwise Flybe wouldn't be bust yet again) but that convenience is a luxury the world can't afford in the 21st century. People need to revise their behaviour and this would be a good moment to start by not reinstating at least some of those routes if and when another carrier comes along. If the alternatives don't exist or are too expensive and cumbersome ... well, there's your transport policy for the next 20 years.
See my response to IanT earlier in the thread, I accept pretty readily the need to change behaviours and the new normal will hit us whether we like it or not, but imho we should be investing to prepare for it before flicking the switch off on convenient cheap travel that as of now is pretty important to our economy
TandyThe time saving of plane v train is negligible for most routes in the Ik when you factor in time getting to the airport, check in, waiting around and then onward travel to the city. Often it’s quicker to train on London-Scotland routes and it would certainly quicker on the train for London-north of England.
Sorry mate but that's nonsense. Check in on domestic flights, particularly in my scenario where you don't need hold luggage is minimal, Rail, bus and hire car links are generally available. It would take me 10 hours to get a train down the road, and I would at times be one delay away from the whole thing being blown out of the water.
The Caledonian sleeper is good if you are going to Crewe or London, but not ideal if you're going elsewhere, and is still an 8 hour trip, and you still have to get home.
I've been up here for 17 years and travelled up and down quite a lot for leave, deployments, meetings, Uni work etc and honestly, the most flexible and time efficient way to travel is to fly
Train to Edinburgh from central London. 4hrs 15 minutes.
Heathrow express to LHR is 25 minutes, tube is 45. Check in 60-90 minutes before at the latest, 1hr 15 flight to Edinburgh depending on how busy the taxiways are at Heathrow, could be a bit longer. Deplane, wait for bags and get out of Edinburgh airport 30 minutes if I’m being generous probably closer to 45 mins. Tram into Edinburgh city centre half an hour. Total time around 4 hours if nothing goes wrong, you take the expensive Heathrow Express, and you’re cutting check on quite fine.
TandyTandyThe time saving of plane v train is negligible for most routes in the Ik when you factor in time getting to the airport, check in, waiting around and then onward travel to the city. Often it’s quicker to train on London-Scotland routes and it would certainly quicker on the train for London-north of England.
Sorry mate but that's nonsense. Check in on domestic flights, particularly in my scenario where you don't need hold luggage is minimal, Rail, bus and hire car links are generally available. It would take me 10 hours to get a train down the road, and I would at times be one delay away from the whole thing being blown out of the water.
The Caledonian sleeper is good if you are going to Crewe or London, but not ideal if you're going elsewhere, and is still an 8 hour trip, and you still have to get home.
I've been up here for 17 years and travelled up and down quite a lot for leave, deployments, meetings, Uni work etc and honestly, the most flexible and time efficient way to travel is to fly
Train to Edinburgh from central London. 4hrs 15 minutes.
Heathrow express to LHR is 25 minutes, tube is 45. Check in 60-90 minutes before at the latest, 1hr 15 flight to Edinburgh depending on how busy the taxiways are at Heathrow, could be a bit longer. Deplane, wait for bags and get out of Edinburgh airport 30 minutes if I’m being generous probably closer to 45 mins. Tram into Edinburgh city centre half an hour. Total time around 4 hours if nothing goes wrong, you take the expensive Heathrow Express, and you’re cutting check on quite fine.
I'm not talking about Edinburgh tbf, run your experiment again from Inverness to Birmingham, Milton Keynes, Oxford or Southampton.
Rail and other methods of transport also need to make the route planning and booking process as easy and reliable as air travel if they want to take more custom off them
TandyThat’s a reach. It’s very easy to get return Eurostar tickets for a decent chunk less than £100.
Yeah and then what's your Birmingham to Euston ticket costing on top?
Yeah that'll stop at about 30 stations and take 1hr 40?
So you get to the station 20 minutes before, 2 hours later you're at Euston, then it's 20 minutes to get to St. Pancras, you're there say 30 minutes early.
2 and a half hours and you're at Gare de Nord.
So £100 for a return flight from BHX that takes 50 minutes or a 4 hour journey with a change of station for twice the cost on the train.
It's a Craig Gardner.
Haircut1000TandyTandyThe time saving of plane v train is negligible for most routes in the Ik when you factor in time getting to the airport, check in, waiting around and then onward travel to the city. Often it’s quicker to train on London-Scotland routes and it would certainly quicker on the train for London-north of England.
And yet I saw the Man U team flew back after a match at Palace the other day.
Well yes obviously because they don’t have to deal with check in, waiting and whatnot. They turn up and go. East when you’ve got a private chartered plane, and not flying economy on BA?
Do the players have a special gate then? So they don't have to queue in the check-in, have their bags searched, traipse through a mile of Duty Free perfumes, buy a shit sarnie at Smiths, wait in a holding pen etc etc? It is all that shit that makes flying so awful these days.
they would probably be on a private jet so yes
Robert HopkinsWhat we need is a High Speed rail network connecting the big cities - oh no thats a white elephant.
And here is the problem..politicians and the public ill informed on HS2 stopping progress. High speed rail is the answer and you would think post brexit we would be investing in this idea you know making Britain great again. Hands up all those in favour of scrapping internal flights but are against HS2...I know you are out there
The government sets the majority of train fares in the UK, so it's within their remit to reduce those.
It's also ridiculous that we don't currently tax aviation fuel, not to mention that this government plans to reduce air passenger duty on domestic flights, which is the exact opposite of what they should be doing.
Need to build high speed rail network 1st. We are decades behind with this remember our rail network is victorian in origin and has just been modernised along the way. We need ro build for the future but politicians are not bold enough or of the right calibre to get this done. And let's not forget the press and the NIMBY's too
TandyYeah I wouldn’t agree with a ban obviously, but there shouldn’t be a NEED for domestic air travel in the UK really.
I think people are forgetting that a lot of people who fly domestically are doing so as they are flying on the second leg of a journey having come into London as the port of entry into the UK. It is a lot more convenient to make that a flight rather than heading into the city centre to get a train.
So ZLAMMER is right. Mark the day mate.
CharcyTandyYeah I wouldn’t agree with a ban obviously, but there shouldn’t be a NEED for domestic air travel in the UK really.
I think people are forgetting that a lot of people who fly domestically are doing so as they are flying on the second leg of a journey having come into London as the port of entry into the UK. It is a lot more convenient to make that a flight rather than heading into the city centre to get a train.
So ZLAMMER is right. Mark the day mate.
I think the French have it about right....a ban on any flight that can be done on a train in less than 2.5 hours.
I'm not sure we have any/many domestic flights that fit into that time frame in any case.