Short flights within France

[Blaze]

I'd heard on the grapevine that train prices in France had rocketed recently,

There are still many bargains to be had but you have to be quick, the right age, able to book in advance, be prepared to travel out of the rush hour and any other constraints .... there were a load of tickets at 1€ which went like hot cakes. I suspect that the reason was to get bums on seats because the rolling stock has to keep turning over.
The bargains probably ideal for people who use the train for work or as a viable option to air travel ....

[exile]

TGV has never been cheap - well lets say that 15 - 12 years ago it wasn't when I was commuting every weekend.

Cologne - Valence (change in Brussels, Lille or Paris depending on the offer) would typically be €200 - 250.
Compare with Air France or Lufthansa Duesseldorf - Lyon €99 for the year round except the 6 week summer holiday period.
And as for working en-route:
1/2 hour on the train to Duesseldorf
1/2 hour in Duesseldorf airport prior to boarding
1/2 hour in the plane
3/4 hour waiting for the train at Lyon.
1/2 hour on the train

[elsie]

It seems, from these articles, https://www.france24.com/fr/france/2023 ... en-vigueur and https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fran ... -kcxmx9sml (paywall) only Paris-Orly-Nantes, Orly-Lyon and Orly-Bordeaux are affected and they have already stopped. However, the flights to Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux from Charles de Gaulle (CDG) airport continue, as do CDG-Rennes and Lyon-Marseille, all due to some station designation/train link fiddles.

[DominicBest]

I use the TGV occasionally to travel from the SW to up above Paris. It’s far cheaper (for one person) than taking the car and even on the times I walk across Paris between stations hours quicker. There’s no turn up half an hour before take off these days and when I lived near Düsseldorf it was far quicker to get from my home there to SE Essex in the car than by flying. I’ve never lived in a world where I would consider a flight within the same country.

[exile]

The issue of time taken is an interesting one.
When I was working near Cologne, I had numerous options to travel from Germany to our home in SE France.
Best door to door times were:
Flying - tram into Cologne, train to Duesseldorf, Plane to Lyon, TGV to Valence, car home - 7 hours
Car - 7.5 hours - but did get to be a lot more at holiday times even though I arrived at the bottlenecks late in the day
TGV - Tram to Cologne, TGV to Paris, RER across the capital, TGV to Valence, car home - 8.5 hours.

The choice was based on price and availability given that I was doing this every weekend. Sometimes the choice led to some slightly strange journeys, for example Air France Dusseldorf to Lyon would sometimes be direct and sometimes via CDG and sometimes the second leg from Paris to Lyon was by TGV.