To make this a fair comparison you need to look at the average price per ticket, not the “starting at” price, and include the government subsidies of airports/security/atc/ etc that enable this system.

I would also add in a cost for carbon. I realize that’s more controversial but it seems like we will have to pay to remove co2 at some point.

I don’t know what the numbers look like when you do that.

Regardless, I do agree the amount per traveler to make a train work seems depressingly high.