Hmmm I just flew from Bergamo, Italy to Liverpool, UK and it was basically four hours door to door from where I was staying to where I was going in Liverpool, and for less than €100. The train can’t do this.
Bergamo to Liverpool is over 1700 km by road as per Google Maps.
The company is trying to solve transportation for the 50 to 300 mile range (around 80 to 500 km). Trains can easily do this.
Anyway, in China the Beijing to Guangzhou high-speed rail covers the 2200 km distance in 8 hours. Costs $120.
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Do note that — while I do understand there's an environmental impact (and I hope technology improves to eliminate this impact) — I'm not against flying. I love flying. In fact I wanted to become a commercial pilot myself.
Yeah by the same token I love trains too. I’d happily get the train between Bergamo and Liverpool but as it stands we’d probably be talking €500 and 12-24 hours with multiple changes. Flights can be had from €20.
Airplanes can't do this either. The reason you paid 100€ is that your ticket did not include paying for cleaning up the mess the plane has left behind
I'm happy for everyone to fly to and from work if they'd also pay for cleaning up the pollution it causes. We have several options, carbfix and olivine weathering come to mind but there's also at least one company who turns atmospheric CO2 back into fuel, we just need to start doing it after realising that what we're doing is only possible because the climate hasn't caught up with current habits yet
But also train tracks and infrastructure aren’t exactly free of mess all across the landscape. Flights can be had for as low as €20, which yeah, makes no sense at all.
