Rival delays the take-off of air-railway alliances

Date: 26/11/1998

By Chris Johnstone

PLANS for airlines and railways to share more of their passengers in Europe could be undermined by fresh internecine industry rivalries and practical problems.

Air France has launched a challenge to national railway Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer's (SNCF) plans to tie up code-sharing partnerships with US airlines, claiming such a deal falls outside the bounds of the countries' bilateral aviation pact.

US airlines argue they should be able to sell customers a seamless transfer on to France's highly developed high-speed train network. However, Air France says this would undermine its own internal system.

The dispute highlights the limits to European Commission moves to promote transport cooperation across sectors.

EU transport ministers are expected to agree next year on a new code of conduct for selling tickets via computer reservation systems, the main tool of travel agents.

One of the key innovations will be a demand that train services be shown alongside equivalent air routes on travel agents' screens so customers can make their own choices.

Airlines unsuccessfully attempted to block this idea and quibbled about how the time taken to complete rail and airline journeys was to be displayed to the travel agents.

Germany's national airline Lufthansa and train company Deutsche Bahn last year announced steps to investigate ways of boosting cooperation, but this has yet to bear fruit.

A new international railway station at Frankfurt airport is under construction with high-speed train links from Cologne, Stuttgart, and Hannover, offering an attractive opportunity to feed passengers into Lufthansa's main hub.

However, even here, airline sources see possible code-shares between airlines and railways as an interesting, but distant, prospect.

Practical problems such as the need to develop check-in facilities which would allow passengers to transfer from aircraft to trains with the same ticket still need to be addressed.

However, environmental campaigners and the Commission are increasing the pressure on airlines to start offloading some of their passengers, especially from shorter routes, on to trains.

Some 'green' groups have even called on the Commission to support a ban on all short-haul airline journeys of under 800 kilometres, arguing that trains could easily fill the gap for that part of the market.