Why I Can't Recommend Sweden's Super Fast Airport Express Train 

SJ is 185kr, Mälartåg 235kr and SL Pendeltåg 190kr.

Use flixbus for 79kr

Alternatively, take the local bus into Märsta, then the Commuter to Stockholm C, takes about an hour but it's doable for 39 kr (Adult) / 26 kr (Reduced Price). You have to pay the 120 kr fee if you're over 18 as well.

@@Jonsson474 SJ has flexible prices so not all departures will be 185kr. Mälartåg is only 218kr if you use their website/app, because SL takes a fee to book hence the 235kr. Finally SL is only 177kr for adults.

@@viken3368 You don’t book SL in advance. It’s bought at the station.

I am no fan of public-private partnerships. Either the government, the private investors or the public gets screwed, usually two out of three. However, it is very likely that without this partnership this airport branch would never have been built.

That is idiotic. What were they thinking? Did they have some friends in the transport busyness? That's how such things usually works.

It was 1994, it was the style at the time.

@@maxjohkna Even though I am Danish, I do know a tiny bit about Sweden. Doing things like that, ain't Swedish.

This fee is to cover the build cost of the railroad. The government would have never built it if a private owner did not invest.

Yeah, it is great. But it is also a bit of a scam. And it is shameful that we let a company with such a business privilege scam visitors who make their first purchase on Swedish soil.

Its just a shame that most other places have their airport transit a bit more integrated with normal public transport and don't actively punish people who are happy to take a slower cheaper public option.

Just flew out of Vienna actually! We took the s-bahn ;)

@@Simon-Andersen always happy to be helpful

I hope you enjoyed it!

It happens, but it's not often i share it on here (Wizzair basic economy middle seat is not very intresting xd)

On top of that 30 minutes pay for travel time is often more than the train ticket anyway, especially including all other costs.

If the business travellers don't care about the price, they could make the local train directly from the airport without the additional fee, so you are slower but for cheap and the business people will still use the express. I think the Bus to Märsta and train combo is unreasonable for people with handicaps for example. I did it years ago and due to my visual handicap I had big problems to read the signs at the train station in the glowing afternoon sun. The staff at the station was very unfriendly and unhelpful. So my first impression of Sweden as a person was handicap was as bad as it could be.

@@michasreisefieber There is one other aspect. If the Arlanda Express train is delayed and you miss your flight, Arlanda Express will pay for a new air ticket.

I’m afraid that Stockholm simply doesn’t have the passenger volume to fill the train.

@afcgeo882: Then how come the local bus between Arlanda and Märsta is always overcrowded?

Yet Flixbus just decided to also compete in the shuttle bus market. I think there is a lot of people avoding the 340 sek tax.

@@Oznej Ok, let me simplify my comment for the simple folks. It doesn’t have the volume of passengers to fill the train at a profitable rate. Obviously it would be full if it was free, but the operating expenses of a high-speed train are FAR higher than those of running a bus.

Ah that makes total sense!

Which means none subsidized. The km/SEK is horrible atleast if you compare that you can get the Göteborg to Stockholm for the same price with X2000 but I guess it could be worth it if you value time.

@@zerocool6452 Its not only the lack of Subsidization,. Its a very expensive part to build With very short distance rural area. A fairly long tunnel. 3 under ground stations that are horribly expensive, and then track in north of Stockholm that is very expensive to build. On top of that the passenger number, while not that low, is fairly low. The only saving grace is that a part of the distance is accessed by other train companies and they pay rail fee for that. Granted the company that owns the track have made a fairly decent profit. While i do think that PPP is the future. The way they done it here is not the right way. The issue is that its the same company that own the track that run the traffic. in effect gaining them a monopoly so there is nothing to make them push the price down. I think the right way would be to have the rail go in to public ownership while the maintenance and traffic remain private. To get the contractor a cut of the profit it would be based on the value of the track contra the construction cost and they would simply get a percentage. This is common in other project and it often helps to push the price down

​@@zerocool6452 Which means its not competitive in comparison to the road where there are huge subsidies directly and especially indirectly. Trains cant compete if other means of transportation are not paying their bills either.

Not true, they got houndreads of millions in state subsidized funds. And now they don''t pay taxes in Sweden due to ownership and tax planning. It wouldn't have to be that expensive if it was a corrupted deal to begin with.

@@matsv201 Could it be that passenger number are low because its expensive?If it would be 10 euro then probably would no one bother to take much slower route so you would have 5 times more people riding

Sure! I just don't see why they need to punish other travelers with a hefty fee to use the slower train then :P

I think that's the point, you can get the group discount, and also, if you are a business traveler, the company you work for may even pay for the Arlanda Express, so you don't have to pay out of your own pocket. The HQ of the company I work for is located in the heart of Stockholm, and when we were traveling to the HQ, we always used the Arlanda Express (splitting up into groups of the maximum size for the cheaper group tickets), and it did always turn out to be OK, we always got the money back from our company. And it's a really smoooth, safe and pleasant ride, very much recommended.

@@rolfviehmann6240 yes, pricing aside its excellent. Fast, comfortable and convenient

I just checked and Heathrhrow Express is 25 pounds? Can you explain how does this train make it look cheap?

It was fine, always fun to fly the bigger planes

Nothing wrong with the trains and service, its just the price

So the current contract with A-train allowing them to utilize the track is only slated until 2040. What will hapen after that is a mystery though obviously people would be happy with the fees being gone, but then Trafikverket would need to start paying for the maintanance of the tracks and stations which they may not want to or have the budget to do so without cutting other stuff

If you go to Uppsala or Stockholm through Arlanda, you don' pay extra for the Airport (you'll have to pay that fee to get off the platform in Arlanda, but they have already stopped making it a feature for staying on the train for the last couple of years). It costs extra anyway since it's both SL and UL, but there's no extra airport cost unless you go to Arlanda.

I don't think we have Waymo yet in Sweden, the only self-driving vehicles I've seen are those small slow buses operating at barely faster than walk speed. Uber exists, but for these sorts of trips to/from airports though you are often better off with a traditional taxi company, as they often have set rates that might be cheaper than Uber. Seems like it'll be about ~700-800 SEK with Taxi or Uber after a quick google (regular taxi cheaper). Although with more searching I did found one place that said ~435 SEK which is not bad at all considering the distance, and another where it seems to start at 545 SEK with Taxi 08

I make them myself using Adobe After Effects and Google Earth Studio

Oslo har samme ting. Flytoget er dyrere enn Vy og tar omtrent samme tid til Oslo. Men Flytoget er mer hyppig og mer komfortabelt. Og bedre rabatter for reiser med barn.

Vi har det virkelig godt i København med vores tog og metro til Lufthavnen, sammenlignet med Oslo og Stockholm.

@@Simon-Andersen Sant, men 124 NOK for tog + Ruter transfer i Oslo er en helt ok pris. Og toget er like raskt som flytoget :) Fin metro i København da!

Yes at some point i will!

Och hade kostat ännu mindre om inte en stor del av dom 240kr går till ägarna av Arlanda Express ändå.

Tack Simon

It's a long way from the cbd. Think Beenleigh or Campbelltown distance. And the arlanda owner is the same menace we have - Macquarie Bank who built the Sydney airport rail link and had shares in Brisbane one

@@radicallyrethinkingrailwaysina Huh, that does explain a lot.

We need high speed rail across the whole Sweden. I mean the west coast is connected via train and east coast as well but thereins going to Interior are so slow and EXPENSIVE that in turn its cheaper to get cars and drive, and city travel within small cities the buses are expensive that its cheap to use cars instead all the time. MTR is just making money for them , it's not for People at all.

I fly a lot in my job. As long as the service on the trains don’t match the airports I won’t be taking the train. Airports have big parkings, safety and they take care of your luggage.

@@H0Fidelity-rq4ry except when they lose it. lol

SAS sometimes operate 1 A350 flight CPN ARN on Friday afternoon i believe.I was booked on it once but missed my connection :(

They only fly the A350 rarely, mostly its the ususal A320 and B738 mix from them and Norwegian. The train can be competetive on price, especially when booked in advance, but it does take close to 6 hours atm.

Currently there is no discount for prebooking and these trains have no certification to run above 200 km/h so if you saw higher speeds its a false reading. The busses are cheap and a decent alternative to a rip-off private company.

@@Simon-Andersen I see they removed the pre-pay option from the website, but it was there a couple of months ago. In the bus vs train - I guess I'm not the target market for the bus companies and speed and comfort is more important for me than a few hundred kronor.

Many European carriers fly widebodies within Europe on select high demand routes between major airport hubs (Such as CPH-ARN) in order to save money on slot times and make 2-3 departures on small aircraft’s in to just 1 single departure instead.

Actually, they needed to train pilots on the A350 and did so by flying short haul in Scandinavia for about a month in the begining of the year. The reason Simon was on it was probably because it is an unusual thing.

Indeed, had planned to go to Sweden anyway and SAS runing the special flights with the A350 for training made it a bit more intresting option than getting the usual 737/a320 or X2000 train

SIA also flies A359s between SIN-KUL which are barely 300km apart

Intresting, i guess they have to make the salery a bit more competetive to still attract drivers

There is no snow in Sweden right now, at least not this far south. The video was posted now, but probably filmed some time ago.

It said "February 2023" in the beginning, but maybe that's a typo. Probably 2024, but February for sure. The display on the ticket machine said valid to some time in May, which matches that as well. (They are valid for 90 days.)

February 2024 indeed, little type at the start of the video :-)

I guess, but it just seems like a waste that is not more integrated into other public transport.

Thank you! Yes all the other nordic airports have considerably cheaper airport trains, even oslo who has a similar lenght express service

Thats less that i would expect actually!

Probably more expensive, but most other places don't also punish people who want to take the slower public transport option, when there is a rip-off express too :-)

You're definitely paying a premium, but at least the quaity is good

Maybe because its so expensive most people took a bus haha

@@Simon-Andersen Then the train company had to shorten the train to save power.

​@@maxpower9708 i used to take this train daily to and from work at the airport. During that whole time, there was only one time it was packed with people, and it was because of some kind of international football match during summer. All other times I rode this train it was practically empty, maybe I shared the cabin with 1-2 other people. I still have no clue how they make enough money to keep it running 😂

They did them as training flights on the A350 for about a month in the begining of the year.

@@SirIdot Aha yeah that makes sense

If you book ahead (1 month+), weekdays, tickets are around 700 sek which is only twice the fee of Arlanda Express. Takes 6 hours from Copenhagen City Center to Stockholm Central with one change in Malmö. Assuming you are in Copenhagen, 20 min to the airport, 1h waiting for departure, 1h15 flight-time, 30min debarking in Stockholm, 10 minutes to Arlande Express and waiting + 20 minutes ride is total about 4,5 hours. I'd take the train instead of flying.

This flight was booked about 1 week in advance with a SAS youthticket for about 350 DKK. SJ was asking more than 1200 SEK for a decently timed X2000 student ticket with a weeks notice unfortuantly

​@@Simon-Andersen Yes, tickets can become very expensive when booking late at SJ. Not sure if you travel this route often, but when on a budget consider Skåmetrafiken from CPH to Malmö, then Pågatåg towards Svedala (Ystad) and here you can pre-book a shuttle to Malmö airport (included in the ticket) for 180 SEK total and takes about 1h30. From there, there are often very cheap flights to Bromma which brings you much closer to Stockholm C.

@@hareja9588 Last time I made that trip, one way SJ simply decided not to bother with their end of the deal and kicked us off from the train after sitting at Stockholm C for 40 minutes. The other direction, we had a couple of extra transfers involving replacement buses that got lost, and of course had to walk to an extra platform far from the station in Copenhagen.

I guess i always view the train and bus as cheap options. In Copenhagen a train ticket is no where near the cost of a cab.

It really depends on the situation. I definitely wouldn't recommend it if you don't have loads of baggage with you, but if you do, depending on the time of day, it can get really annoying in the normal trains.

​@@Simon-AndersenThis isn't either anywhere near the price of a taxi either

Yes these trains have great ride quality, one of alstoms best products

When I took the Arlanda Express for the first time, I was completely amazed by the hyper smoooth ride, very nice experience. I have never before experienced such a smoooth ride in any road or rail vehicle in my whole life. Maybe there are even better trains in Japan or whatever, but not in Europe, I guess.

I guess that is one case where it could be justified, but i don't think the conclusion is wrong. Majority of traffic at Arlanda is Shorthaul and Domestic flights where people dont carry a lot of luggage, its really hard to justify arlanda express then imo.

Jeg har ikke planer om det lige forløbig :-)

But you also pay a fee if you want to take the slower cheaper train and also it is A LOT more expensive that similar airport express trains. Even in Oslo its "only" 240 NOK for similar distance.

@@Simon-Andersen comparing to one other train doesn't prove anything. If you compare to Milan (slightly longer distance): the AX charges you 2.3x more for a 3.1x faster journey, or Heathrow (slightly shorter travel time): the AX charges you slightly more for a journey almost twice the length, or Toronto: the AX charges you 3.6x more for a journey almost twice as long in less than half the time, or Stansted: the AX charges you 1.1x more for a journey 2.6x faster but only 0.8x the distance. Compared to these cities, the Arlanda Express has a better value. Olso is the exception, not the rule.

No plans for a Israel trip currently, but maybe in the future!

It seems like that's the main market this train caters too, which is a shame when they then also milk the cheper option with a station fee.

For the price of Arlanda Express you can almost buy a new flight ticket 😂

Ah that is a good policy, that i was not aware off!

I think you get to bring a companion for free, not sure unfortunatly

It's essentially just 2 now. Terminal 4 has now been connected to T5 and all arrivals from T4 now have to pass through customs in T5, and from what I can tell terminal 3 hasn't reopened since covid

Its really fast for an airport rail link :-)

Nothing wrong with catching it, i just dont think its the best option most of the time :-)

@@Simon-Andersen I do agree, unless you need to get to Stockholm C in a hurry its the best option.

I am more than happy to sit 20 more minutes in a train, to save 28 euro 😆

Howdy there !

@@Simon-Andersen Hello :3