How to travel to Spain without taking a plane as flight prices soar

The price of paraffin continues to rise. Tension in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40% of the fuel used by commercial aircraft worldwide passes, has sent airlines’ energy bills soaring.

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This has brought back to the table a question that many travellers thought they had forgotten: can you get to Spain without taking a plane? The short answer is yes. The long answer is that it depends a lot on where you come from, how much time you have and how much you care about the journey itself.

Iberia holds its own, but the industry trembles

Iberia’s president, Marco Sansavini, came out with a message of calm on Tuesday. The airline will maintain its flight schedule this summer, will not apply additional fuel surcharges and will not touch any of the investments foreseen in its strategic plan until 2030.

“It’s not by chance,” Sansavini told the Madrid Leaders Forum, it’s the result of years of financial transformation that allow it to absorb the blow better than other airlines.

The blow, however, is considerable. The total fuel bill of the IAG group, to which Iberia belongs, will rise from seven to nine billion euros by 2026. And the airline’s chairman was clear about the horizon: “Even if the war were to end today, the effect on fuel prices will be in the medium to long term.”

Production facilities take time to recover, supply contracts are not remade overnight, and the paraffin market does not work like the petrol market at a filling station.

What Iberia can guarantee today, other airlines, especially low-cost airlines with much tighter margins, cannot. This is where the real problem begins for travellers who, in this case, want to travel to Spain from their respective countries.

The train: Spain’s unfinished business

For European tourists, the most logical alternative to air travel is the train. It is the one with the lowest emissions, the one that offers the most comfort on the journey and the one that works best in the heart of the continent. The problem is that Spain is still a “railway island”.

The connection of the Spanish high-speed network with the rest of Europe has a structural Achilles heel: the change of track gauge.

The Spanish network historically uses a different gauge from the standard European one, which forced for decades to transshipments at the border or trains with adaptable axles. Although connections with France have improved in recent years, the international Ouigo between Madrid and Lyon, or Renfe and SNCF services between Barcelona and Paris, the offer is still limited compared to that between, for example, Paris and Amsterdam or Brussels and London.

From the UK, direct rail links to Spain simply do not exist. Getting to Madrid by train from Germany, the Netherlands or the Scandinavian countries involves hours of travel time that hardly compete with a two-hour flight, and this imbalance is not going to be resolved in the short term.

The ferry: slow, but it exists

For northern European travellers with time and a desire for a different experience, the ferry is a real option. Routes between Portsmouth or Plymouth and Santander or Bilbao have been running for decades and offer crossings of between 24 and 35 hours. Not for those in a hurry, but for those travelling with a car, family or just want to cross the Atlantic without setting foot on it.

Brittany Ferries operates these routes and has places. It’s not cheap, especially if you include cabin and car, but in the context of more expensive flights, the price difference is reduced. And it has a not inconsiderable advantage: you arrive in your own car.

From North Africa, the ferries between Morocco and the mainland, Tangier-Algeciras, Tangier-Tarifa, are an established route, especially during the summer for travellers making the overland journey from sub-Saharan countries or who live in northern Europe and prefer to skirt the Mediterranean.

You can also take a cruise from anywhere in Europe that stops somewhere in Spain, but be aware that you will have to return to the ship afterwards.

Bus: the cheapest option

Long-distance bus operators, led by Flixbus, connect Spain with much of western Europe at prices that are often under 50 euros. Connections include Paris-Barcelona, Amsterdam-Madrid, and Milan-Valencia. The journeys are long, between 12 and 20 hours depending on the origin, but the cheap price is hard to beat.

It is the option that has grown the most in recent years among young and low-budget travellers, and in a scenario of more expensive flights it could absorb part of the demand that airlines fail to capture.

The electric car: possible, with planning

For those living in the south of France or near the Spanish border, the electric car is already a viable alternative. For those coming from further afield, the charging infrastructure on Europe’s main corridors has improved enough to make a trip from Germany or Belgium feasible, although it requires planning stops.

The problem is not so much the technology as the density of fast chargers on certain stretches, especially inland, where the distances between charging points can still create anxiety on less travelled routes. In any case, you can always arrive in other types of car, but bear in mind the cost of petrol or diesel.

Why Spain is particularly vulnerable

All of the above points to a structural fact that the jet fuel crisis once again highlights: Spain is more dependent on air travel than almost any other European country. Not only to receive foreign tourism, which represents a fundamental part of its economy, but also to connect internally and with the outside world.

The Canary and Balearic Islands have no real alternative to air travel for millions of travellers. And while Spain can refine and guarantee fuel supplies for its own airlines, that does not solve the problem of tourists arriving on foreign airlines with their own supply difficulties.

If Ryanair, EasyJet or Lufthansa have to reduce frequencies or raise prices above a certain threshold, Spain feels the impact directly on its visitor numbers.

Without a truly integrated rail system with Europe, and with ground alternatives that do not yet compete on time with air travel, any crisis in commercial aviation has a longer and more costly echo in Spain than in most of its neighbours.