Originally Posted by
GXER
There are several indicators that to me represent clear signs that air travel is ‘incorrectly’ priced: it ought not be (but generally is) cheaper to fly from (say) London to Edinburgh than take a train; it ought not be (but I believe it is) cheaper to employ a fully certified FO for passenger transport than it is to employ a train driver (overground or tube).
Off topic, but: there are other factors at play in that particular comparison, notably that the East Coast mainline is operating at max capacity already - they are actively trying to price pax off that railway and have been for years. The trains cannot be lengthened or double-decked as the infrastructure won't support it and they cannot run any more often because the signalling won't allow it. More specifically, they are pricing pax off the trains that are running full, hence the any-time/open ticket prices are utterly ridiculous, but book in advance for a specific train and travel off-peak and you can get London to Edinburgh for 26 quid or so, allegedly.
The capacity issue isn't unique to that train line either, or trains in general - much of the UK road network also runs at or over capacity (at certain times). Pricing people off the roads onto the rails only works if there is train capacity to switch to, and often there isn't. Our ability to build new road or rail infrastructure is itself constrained (mostly by existing land use, but also quite possibly by utter incompetence, looking at you CrossRail). Aviation has a significant advantage in that it needs essentially zero infrastructure except at the ends, there is not a significant constraint there (excepting particular localities), if there was I submit that the A380 would not have been cancelled...