The high-speed train was supposed to be an alternative to the plane, but right now in terms of cost it’s not much. The low prices of low cost airlines and the high fares of Renfe make the costs comparable and sometimes the plane is more affordable for the pocket. In an extreme comparison, but no less true, the situation is that in most days it is cheaper to fly from Catalonia to London than to make the high-speed journey between two Catalan capitals: Girona and Lleida.
AVE costs can fall for high-demand journeys, where there is a wider supply of tickets and it is therefore easier to find cheap tickets, even if it is only outside peak hours. But on trips between medium-sized cities, the cost can skyrocket.
The Kafkaesque situation is given when compared to the low costs of the plane. Calculating the average of all tickets available on the Renfe website between 1 July and 31 December this year, the average price for a one-way journey is 39.49 euros per person (no discounts for age, large family or others), a figure that drops to 34.84 euros if you average only the lowest price available each day. The latter price is only 99 cents less than 35.83 euros which costs, on average, the cheapest daily flight between El Prat Airport and any of London’s six international airports – Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, City and Southend .
However, these are average: in 116 of the 184 days analyzed – 63% of the total – the cheapest ticket that can be found to fly to London costs less than the high-speed ticket from Girona to Lleida. If you discount the month of August, when the price of flights soars, the percentage of days you can travel to London for a lower price than between the two Catalan capitals rises to 75.8%. For example, in December –despite the bridge of the Purissima and Christmas, times when it is customary to travel abroad–, the average daily price of the cheapest ticket between Girona and Lleida is 30.40 euros, while the cheapest flight to London that can be found every day costs on average 19.03 euros.
It should be borne in mind that the distance by road between Girona and Lleida is about 230 kilometers without tolls along the Transversal Axis, which can be done – if there is no traffic – in two and a half hours. At high speed, some direct trains cover the journey in just under two hours, but others do so in almost two hours and three quarters. The distance between Barcelona and the British capital is about 1,500 kilometers, a distance that takes almost fifteen hours by car and having to cross the English Channel.
Limited season tickets
Although Girona-Lleida may seem like a relatively common route for many Catalan users, Renfe does not offer any kind of season ticket that allows you to travel at high speed from one city to another. In fact, the only available season tickets break Catalonia into two parts: on the one hand, the Barcelona-Girona-Figueres routes and, on the other, the Barcelona-Camp de Tarragona-Lleida routes. This means, for example, that a person from Lleida or Tarragona cannot obtain a season ticket to go to Girona or Figueres and vice versa. Sants station acts as a border, although the journey between the Camp de Tarragona and Girona is one hour and twenty minutes, only ten minutes longer than between Barcelona and Lleida, for which there is a pass.
In addition, the season tickets do not allow you to take the entire high-speed offer, but are only used for Avant trains, for which there are about ten trains a day in each direction in the case of the northern branch. between Barcelona and Figueres, with the exception of Friday afternoons and weekends, which reduces the number of trains. For the south side, there are about six daily trains per direction.
If you are looking for tickets for a single day without a season ticket, between Lleida and Figueres there are only three direct trains per direction available per day – two AVE and one AVLO – with prices between 20 and 70 euros per person.