Rail air alliances
Photo: Epizentrum, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Airlines and ground transportation companies both offer alternatives and complement each other in terms of providing you with means to get to your destination. In some cases, they also cooperate to offer more comprehensive and convenient travel solutions. This article covers three types of cooperations between airlines and ground transportation providers:
- Airlines using ground transportation as connections where it is less convenient or impossible to offer an extra flight segment
- Airlines and ground transportation providers offering promotional tickets for those combining a flight with a rail or bus ride
- Ground transportation companies transporting luggage from city centers to airports on behalf of airlines, providing the opportunity for city center check-in and luggage drop-off (instead of doing so at the airport only).
Apart from those special solutions, public ground transportation is available from almost every airport with scheduled service to the destination it serves, but regular public transportation connections are not covered in this guide.
Ground transportation as "flight segments"Instead of offering flights from major hubs to some destinations, airlines sometimes choose to offer ground transportation by rail or bus bookable just the same way as a connecting flight.
Rail&flyAnother combined railway transportation solution offered in conjunction with flight bookings are discounted tickets for rail travel to/from the airport your flight departs from/arrives to.
"Good for train" agreementsIn case of an event causing a massive number of flights to be canceled, such as a strike, a terrorist attack or natural disasters, some airlines offer to arrange a train ride to your final destination in cooperation…
City check-in facilitiesIf an airport has a dedicated transit connection to the city it serves, airlines sometimes partner with the connection's operator to provide a city check-in service.
See also
Sources and licences
- Guide text adapted from the Wikivoyage article "Rail air alliances" by its contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikivoyage · Contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Photo: Epizentrum, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons