Paris-Marseille is 775km (481 miles), 3 hours by train, I don't think anyone actually takes airplanes to do this route if they don't have a connection afterwards.
That appears to be about 650 miles (1050km). That’s around the point where many people will still prefer to fly. However, the train will likely make a few stops, making Berlin/Paris more accessible from other cities on the route.
Where there are high-speed routes today, hopefully 300 mph maglevs will be running in 50 years.
So it works now and I am sort of disappointed. I can get to Paris and London, which, don't get me wrong, is nice. But Paris is I think three hours and apparently I can't get to anywhere South of there in five.
I'd say more than 300mi. Probably 500-600mi. Eg: Paris-> Montepellier, 3h30 by train. 1h20 by plane. By the time you add an hour for security/checkin at the airport, and the additional hassle of getting to/from the airport vs city centre rail terminals, it's competitive. I think only when you get over 4h then air starts to benefit.
BA flew them London - Paris for a short while early on. It was kind of ridiculous, not least because embarking/disembarking such a big plane took about as long as the flight.
In France they closed flights up to 500km competing with TGV.
500km is less than 2h in TGV, you show up 5mim before departure, you have no annoying security check and stupid questions asked, and you arrive in city center. Planes cannot compete with this offer.
Even more since SNCF launched their low cost TGV (Ouigo).
Note that this is literally a publicity stunt. The flights offered are 30-40km (19-24mi) straight-line distance, and they are intentionally calling it an "experience". It's one person, no luggage, and only available for two months.
Maastricht has an once-per-hour train service to Liege which takes 30 minutes, and a twice-per-hour train service to Aachen which takes 50 minutes. The same can be done by car in 25 minutes and 45 minutes. Take into account travel to/from the airport, and it takes longer than just going by car or train.
Not just theoretically, LA to London (LAX to Gatwick or Heathrow) is 10:15-10:30 — there are several flights per day. (interestingly it's 11:10-11:30 in the opposite direction because of the wind patterns).
The title of the article does indeed use ‘direct’, but the article actually talks about non stop flights. The Sydney - London flight will take 20 hours.
Madrid - Barcelona (504.64 air km or 313.5 air miles) in 2:30h, and often just 2:15h (they give a longer time due to a delay over 15min means they've to refund 50% of the ticket.
- 300 km range - Travel from London to Paris in one hour.
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