And that's in spite of most railway lines being subsidised and most airlines not. I guess if you think of the stuff involved going London - Barcelona, for flying it's a plane with maybe 10 crew, and some tarmac at either end for runways, for train it's 100s of miles of track, goodness knows how many staff along it, plus the train of course.

The UKs new HS2 line is looking at costing £750m per mile while airspace is free.