Most Popular Airline Routes Which Shouldn't Be

airline routes chart photof
image from Financial Times

This tally of the most popular airline routes reveals that several of the busiest flight routes are absolutely unnecessary. In the top three, we can understand the Hong Kong to Taipei trip, and numbers two and three--LA to New York and London to New York. But Milan to Rome at number 5--come on! It's a 4 hour train ride , with high speed links, through the Tuscan countryside--what could be better? Or a 6 hour drive along the autostrada del sole--either of which would be an improvement on flying.

If the United States had any kind of decent high-speed train system, Los Angeles to San Francisco would be against the law! And maybe it will be: California has just voted for a high speed link between the two cities that will make travel time two and a half hours. Now what about Boston to New York (number 16)--that's another one to get working on. At number 11, London to Paris is surprising since the Eurostar train is now so fast, environmental and convenient. Businessmen should be ashamed to be seen on that flight.

Eurostar train travel photo
image from seavision.info

Ditto Marseilles to Paris (number 13) with the TGV trains zooming down the length of France every day at top speed. As for Amsterdam to London, at number 8--shame on those travellers as well. It's a 5 and a half hour train ride, compared to 4 and a half by air. The Man in Seat 61, the easy and brilliant train travel website, can make any European train travel a cinch.

This fascinating survey was drawn up by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network and the statistics are based on trips by business travellers, rather than tourism. Financial Times

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