Why do people make domestic flights?

This month RDG published its “Clearing the air” campaign, to try to debunk perceptions that rail is an expensive alternative to air.

This is a helpful piece of work, to challenge those that will often compare the cheapest pre-booked air fare, with the fully flexible walk-up rail fare.

I’m not here to criticise that work. As a piece of consumer facing work intended to catch headlines and get people to consider rail, it probably strikes a reasonable balance between simple clear messaging and rigorous detail.

However, within the industry we probably need to look a little more closely at why people make domestic flights, if we are to address all issues to make rail a more attractive alternative.

Flight origin-destination

I did some analysis in late 2022 looking at where our domestic flights were. A key headline from that work is that over half of domestic flights in the UK are to/from Ireland or other islands. Rail is unlikely to be a timely alternative for most of these. The vast majority of the remaining flights were London – Scotland (42%), with just under 2% between each of Newcastle and Manchester and London. (You can see that article here.)

Journey origin-destination

One aspect rarely discussed in analysis of air vs rail comparison is the true end-to-end journey origin-destination.

The RDG analysis assumes that it is city-centre to city-centre. That might be helpful to give a favourable headline, and fits the stereotype of elite business trips by air. However, it may be unhelpful for understanding the true market, and what rail needs to do to make itself attractive.

Connecting flights:

As far as I can tell, neither the CAA nor airline industry publish stats on what proportion of domestic flights are connecting to another flight, but a colleague advised me that when he left the airline industry in 2019 it was over half.

There are a few other data points that point to that being plausible, or even understating it.

For example, if we look at the London Edinburgh route, it offers around 37 daily flights to London:

·??????? 11 to London City,

·??????? 3 to Luton,

·??????? 4 to Gatwick

·??????? 6 to Stansted

·??????? 13 to Heathrow. ?

The Heathrow flights are generally notably more expensive than the other options, and therefore do not appear to be a rational choice for someone with an ultimate destination in central London.

If we look at the same issue from the regional end – there is another quirk: Manchester has eight flights a day to London, whilst on the other side of the Pennines Leeds, Humberside and Teesside have none.

Is the domestic market so polarised that Yorkshire folk only get the train?

Look more closely, however, and you’ll see that Leeds/Humberside/Teesside have nine flights per day between them to Amsterdam. Amsterdam acts as the hub for connecting flights on the east of the Pennines, and therefore these sit outside of the “domestic flights” bucket.

Unless we subscribe to the view that folk in the North West like to visit London, whilst folk in Yorkshire like to visit Amsterdam, connecting flights are significant here.

It seems, therefore, that for many domestic passengers flying to a London airport, London is not their destination.

Getting to the airport

Understanding the journey origin-destination is important at the other end too.

The RDG analysis seemed to take a slightly London centric view, with London always stated as the origin. In that mindset, it’s reasonable to apply a mental framing of a business trip to Manchester / Glasgow / Edinburgh etc and assume the destination is also the city centre. However, consider those journeys the other way around: The majority of passengers from Manchester or Edinburgh to London are unlikely to live in?Manchester or Edinburgh city centre. They’ll need to start their journey by getting these.

For journeys from Manchester to London, rail has the benefit of Stockport. All London bound services stop there, and it is well connected to the road/motorway network. For Edinburgh on the other hand, you’re likely to have to start your journey by actually getting to Edinburgh Waverley.

End-to-end journey considerations

If we assume the reason for travel is to get a connecting flight from London, we start to see why a domestic flight looks like an attractive way to get to Heathrow.

If you wanted to get from Falkirk (roughly mid-way between Edinburgh and Glasgow) to Heathrow, the first train of the day (05:47 from Falkirk) would get you to Heathrow by 12:01, with two changes. You’ve typically got to arrive 3 hours before your flight time, so that means this is only a viable option for flights departing after 15:00. In practice on a 6hr train journey, you are likely to want to add contingency, and may only consider this viable for flights departing after 16:00.

Alternatively, you could make the 30 minute drive to Edinburgh airport, and be on a flight arriving at Heathrow by 08:35. Crucially, if you’ve booked this as a through flight, then the airline is responsible for getting you to your destination if the domestic leg is delayed.

Falkirk might seem like an extreme example, but I live just outside of York with its frequent 2-hour LNER service to London. Yet it is common for local friends and neighbours to drive to Manchester Airport, to get a domestic flight to Heathrow, to connect with an international flight. When I ask why, the explanation is one of risk and convenience. Getting to Heathrow by train across London is perceived as too much effort with the risk of being delayed. Similarly, for driving the four hours to Heathrow. However, the 80 minute drive to Manchester airport is considered tolerable. Yes, you have to be there early for check-in, but you save that time with a shorter transit time at Heathrow – and crucially that connection at Heathrow is seen as the airline’s risk, not theirs.

Furthermore, the pricing of the domestic leg as a connecting leg is somewhat less than standalone (for example the Manchester to New York via Heathrow, is only ￡61 more than Heathrow to New York on its own for the examples I checked).

If you evolve that scenario to one of a family travelling, where the price of the car leg remains the same, yet the rail fare multiplies, rail is starting to look like a poor option for connecting to an international flight – particularly when you consider getting the family’s luggage across London!

Why this matters?

The purpose of this article is not to defend domestic air travel – rather that if the rail sector is to attract people from domestic air to rail, we need to drill down into the reasons people are making the choices they currently do. I sense that the wider public perception of "domestic air travel" may be quite different?to the reality.