A new Brussels–Milan sleeper train launched 9 Sept — is it cheaper than flying?

A new overnight train started running between Brussels and Milan on 9 September — the first direct sleeper on that route in years, threading through Cologne and over the Gotthard Pass. The headline fare, from €29.99, looks unremarkable next to a €30 easyJet ticket on the same city pair. Run the actual comparison and the train wins by a wide margin, because the flight doesn't include the bed you still have to pay for.

What launched, and what it costs

European Sleeper's Brussels–Milan service runs three nights a week each direction, leaving Brussels at 19:10 and pulling into Milan Porta Garibaldi at 11:40 the next morning — about 17.5 hours, via Verviers, Cologne, the Gotthard line through Switzerland (Zurich until mid-December, then Aarau), Lugano and Como. Four fare tiers: a budget seat from €29.99 (~HK$274), a shared Classic couchette bed from €49.99 (~HK$456), Comfort Standard from €99.99 (~HK$912), and Comfort Plus with breakfast from €129.99 (~HK$1,186).

The comparison worth actually running

Compare tickets alone and a budget flight wins easily — easyJet has sold Brussels–Milan seats from around €30 (~HK$274), a fraction of the roughly 90-minute flight time. But that fare buys you a seat, not a night's sleep. Add the hotel room you'd otherwise book in Brussels or Milan for that same night — a modest one runs €80–120 (~HK$730–1,095) — and the flight-plus-bed total lands at roughly €110–150 (~HK$1,000–1,370). The €49.99 couchette, which comes with reservation, luggage allowance and bed linen, undercuts that by more than half, and the transit time is dead time you'd otherwise spend sleeping anyway rather than lost from the trip. Even Comfort Plus at €129.99, breakfast included, sits at or below what flight-plus-hotel costs once you add airport transfers at both ends.

Where the flight still wins

The math flips if you actually need the day. Flying gets you to Milan by mid-morning with the whole day ahead of you; the train delivers you at 11:40, already a third of the day gone, and only runs three days a week, so it won't fit every itinerary. It's also a long single sit — 17.5 hours is a real commitment even in a lie-flat berth, and the December timetable swaps out the Zurich stop for Aarau, 30 minutes further out, if that city specifically mattered to your plan.

Worth building in?

For a Hong Kong traveller stitching together a multi-city Europe trip — landing in one gateway and working overland toward Italy — this is a genuine value option, not just a novelty. The saving isn't in the ticket price, which a budget airline will always undercut; it's in the hotel night you stop paying for and the daylight hour on the Gotthard line you'd never see from 35,000 feet. Book it as the overnight leg between two cities you were already visiting, not as a special trip in itself, and check the three-day-a-week schedule against your dates before the flights sell out around it.