Please sign in to post.
Holiday Sale! Save 20% Storewide!

Flight may be better than train?

Posted by (Oceanside, CA, USA) on

We are planning a combined 25 day trip through Spain and Portugal in the Fall. This will include several train connections which we are comfortable with. However, to allow for the most time in two of our destinations, we need help deciding on train/bus vs. air. The first is traveling from Madrid to Granada Spain, the flight takes 1 hour, vs. train which takes 4 3/4 hours. Even with an estimated additional 2 1/2 hours( for showing up at the airport 1.5 hours before flight, plus .5 hour transportation to airport, plus .5 hour to get luggage etc) it still seems better to fly than take the train. Is this correct or not?

The second connection is getting from Sevilla Spain to Porto Portugal. There is a TAP flight leaving early am from Sevilla, takes 2 hours via change in Lisbon. Even with time to show up at the airport, driving to and from airports and getting luggage, I am guessing total time would be 3 1/2 hours. The only ground connection from Seville to even Lisbon is by bus, a 7 hour trip (there is no direct train service) and longer to Porto. In this case, doesn't taking the plane make better sense or is there another connection I am missing? Thanks!

Posted by
4637 posts

It's not better to fly. Time is very similar. Going by train you are also sightseeing.

Posted by
32351 posts

Pamela,

For the trip from Madrid to Granada, my suggestion would be the AVE high speed which travels at up to 300 km/h. The trip will be as short as 4H:35M, depending on which train you choose. I suspect the flight will take at least 6 hours, when all is considered - travel to & from airports, check-in, security, waiting times, collecting baggage, boarding and deplaning, etc. With a flight you'll also have to deal with costly and restrictive baggage limits, which won't be a concern on trains.

For the trip from Sevilla to Porto, a flight would probably be the best option as bus or train will take considerably longer on that route.

Posted by
11294 posts

For Madrid to Granada, it's a bit of a wash time-wise. Many people have a strong preference for trains, but it''s not crazy to take a flight. For Seville to Porto, however, I think you are quite correct that a flight is preferable to any other method.

Posted by
2540 posts

Seems to me that my flights are more often delayed than my trips via trains. Just one more factor to consider.

Posted by
4684 posts

There are very poor ground-level transport connections between Spain and Portugal in general. I would fly between Sevilla and Porto.

Posted by
19274 posts

Although I am generally pretty critical of Americans who make the knee jerk decision to use other forms of transportation than rail in northern Europe simply because they don't know how, or want to learn how, to use rail in Europe, when it comes to Spain and Portugal, I'm a little more forgiving. If you order county's rail system by density (km of track per square km), among the 10 western continental European countries, Switzerland and Germany are 1, 2 with 12.19 and 12.04 km/km² respectively, and Portugal and Spain are dead last, at 3.63 and 3.06, respectively.

So it's understandable that you might not be able to get everywhere you want to get to with the train in Spain.

Posted by
11879 posts

Another factor is luggage fees, that may or may not apply

Depends on what you are traveling with and what the airline policy is.

This topic has been automatically closed due to a period of inactivity.