Why are rail fares in britain more expensive than domestic flights?

Privatisation.

Because most people are using rail when traveling.

It's generally because an aircraft has little air resistance once it's flying.

The quoted rail fare is exactly what you pay city centre to city centre. Quoted air fares usually do not include taxes, credit card charge, luggage charge and check in charge. Nor do they include the fares to and from the airports by bus or train. The very cheap air fares are normally for flights at very inconvenient times too.A very large number of rail passengers have an annual railcard which gives them another 34% discount on top of the quoted rail fare. www.railcard.co.uk The biggest price we all pay for the nonsensical activity of domestic air travel is the pollution these planes cause. I am not a supporter of the Tories or any other political party but the railways were not 'sold off'.' Passenger services are franchised to private companies for fixed periods if time. The government's department of transport still controls many fares, the timetables and much more. Network Rail which owns the infrastructure is nationalised. The high operational costs of operating the passenger railway in Britain is due to the layers of government bureaucracy, government consultants and the endless government commissioned reports into the railways. The average profit margin of the rail operating companies is 3%. and some are losing money. These facts can all be verified

planes are not "really expensive" - some are, some aint the 737s easyjet tend to use - aint - they cost about the same as a complete train they do not use a "massive" amounts of fuel the amount used for each passenger mile is about the same as a car. planes do not have to be replaced every 10-15 years- some are still flying after 30 years. Rail fares are NOT always more expensive than flights. YOU are lucky cos you want to travel between 2 popular destinations and can use a cheap airline (and sometimes not so cheap) try looking at the MAXIMUM price you can pay when everybody else wants to fly Also look at the cost of flying between less popular destinations (I found it mind bogglying that I wanted to fly from where I live to another town (300 miles away) the cost of coach travel from the nearest airport to where I actually wanted to go (30 miles away from the airport) was more than the airfare - It was cheaper AND quicker to go by train AND that required travelling across london)

Railways are more expensive than air travel, every inch of that track has to be maintained, it's allot of metal, airlines only have to maintain the aircraft, by contrast that's easy

You're forgetting that the flight might be £27, but there's still the obscene airport tax to add on to that.

Because Maggie Thatcher sold off the railways to foriegn companies who can charge what they can get away with