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.
I did 1000km in airplane (also i was private pilot) and it's a 1h trip. Barcelona -> Santiago is max 1h. I can spend another hour getting into the airport, the total trip will not go more than 3 hours, but in Train it will take me 8hs.
Barcelona-Madrid vía the "Puente Aéreo" (air bridge, freely translated) is the closest I have seen. There are departures every half hour, you buy one ticket and can take any of them. Boarding is also very fast.
No need to apologise, it is a pretty logical thing to assume.
We have flown of course but more often we will drive as we usually break the journey up visiting friends and family in Barcelona and Valencia on the way.
It takes longer to drive obviously but it is a more relaxed journey than flying. Plus as we don't have any time restrictions such as with a hotel booking we can just take our time and if we decide to stay a few more days for whatever reason it doesn't require any changing of flights, etc. Also means we don't need to hire a car for our stay.
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.
This flight seems very slow. I’ve just compared it to some short haul flights locally - 1hr 10 mins gets me 650km.
The flight in the article takes 55 minutes to go 178km. Short flights will have proportionally more time taxing etc, but this alone wouldn’t appear to explain it.
That's low to you? That's actually amazingly high, unless most of their flights are really long international ones. But I suspect most flights are 2 or 3 hours.
I’ve been traveling from Hamburg to Barcelona by bike for the last ~6 weeks. Total is about 2700km. It surely could be done faster but I’ve met people along the way and did some work.
Also you get to connect with locals and nature along the way. Another thing that’s totally lost when you do the airborne thing.
Crossing an ocean is ofc a different beast but I’m also
excited for a re-emergence of blimps!
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.
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