RyanAir's director of communications grumbled:
"Only in the parallel universe of the ASA quango can a 1 hr 10 minute flight be declared to be longer than a 2 hr 11 minute train journey. Even a four-year old with basic maths could tell you that the flight is shorter. Similarly, only the mathematically challenged ASA could declare that a £15 airfare is 'not necessarily cheaper' than a £27 train ticket."I'd like to believe that this guy is merely saying what he's paid to say and doesn't really believe that it's not misleading to quote airport-to-airport and imply that it's the same as city center-to-city center. But maybe he does think that's all that matters.
I'd be interested in seeing a couple of people start in some representative part of London, leave at the same time heading for the same office in Brussels, one taking RyanAir and the other Eurostar, and see who gets there first.
It will be even more dramatic a difference in favor of the train when the High Speed 1 connection into St. Pancras opens in November.