Europe's overnight rail network keeps adding city pairs, with new direct sleepers and revived cross-border links appearing in the December timetables, while the base tunnels meant to carry more of that traffic are years behind schedule.
Europe's rail map is being redrawn by a patchy mix of new sleeper services and record-breaking tunnels, with the EU already missing its 2030 deadline for 10,850 miles of core corridors.
Europe's rail operators brought back direct overnight links between cities as far apart as Munich and Warsaw and Aachen and Halle in December 2023. The base tunnels meant to speed up those same corridors are running an average of 82% over budget and 17 years late, the European Court of Auditors found.
For the first time since UTK began its monthly counts, more than 40 million people travelled by rail in Poland in July. But 92 accidents at level crossings pushed the President of UTK to call an emergency meeting of his safety team.
Domestic flight bookings in China rose 60 percent year on year on the first day of the extended holiday. Bookings for routes longer than 2,000 km rose 76 percent.
IATA forecasts 5.085 billion passengers and USD 1.165 trillion in revenue for 2026, with net profit down by nearly half compared to 2025.
The Chinese CR450 trainset, billed as the world's fastest high-speed train, debuted at the InnoTrans trade fair in Berlin.
IATA is using AI to build flight offers, China has released a plan for aviation data management, and railways are adjusting ticket booking rules.
IATA puts airline industry costs at 1.117 trillion USD in 2026, with 350 billion USD of that going to fuel. Engine servicing is counted separately.
IATA says verifying digital visas at check-in costs carriers an average of USD 9,000 for every passenger turned away at the border.
One German local court received 19,146 lawsuits in 2025. 92 percent concerned air passenger rights.
Fast security checks at German airports are usually free, but booking windows vary significantly between ports.
The rail business posted its first surplus in seven years in the same half-year that brought the second-highest rate of long-distance cancellations on record.
A study by the German consumer federation vzbv found that the cheapest Deutsche Bahn fare was sometimes up to 157 percent higher than the advertised price.