Air India in a recent development has made travelling across Europe a lot simpler and convenient than before. The Tata Sons airlines has chronicled its alliance with AccesRail and has avowed its standing in the contract. The intermodal interline agreement mentions the release of a single intermodal boarding pass to travel unrestrictedly across 100 scenic cities and lush green towns of Europe.
The IATA Guide on ‘The Future of Interline’ explains the relationship between airlines. This relationship allows a given airline to sell its commodities and services to the customers that are rendered by another airline. This approach is taken into account in cases where an airline won’t be able to present itineraries alone.
The intermodal ticket will also benefit travellers who are vagabonding around the country to use Bus and Railway facilities with no additional baggage expenses levied. This Air India ticket can be exercised even in cities with no system of airport.
Air India recently made headlines for its merger with Vistara as it got approved by the Competition Commision of India (CCI).
About Air India’s new collaborator AccesRail
AccesRail is a distributor that enables partner railways or railway companies to distribute their products on a shared-cost basis through a Global Distribution System (GDS) primary screen that uses the same ticketing procedure as airlines. The distribution company holds expertise in intermodal travel and GDS programs for passenger trains.
AccesRail has achieved a great feat by booking their railway partners on the Primary Flight Displays or PFDs that represent major global distribution systems across several nations, with the assistance of carrier code 9B.
AccesRail has successfully opened doors of opportunities for over 1,20,000 IATA-certified travel agents. The organisation has not only fortified the air-railway relations since its establishment, but has also worked on the advancement of its distribution network and has given decent exposure to railway products by permitting them to interline or codeshare by selecting any of the 260 airline IATA members.
This gives an impactful boost to railway corporations and helps them cooperate logically with airlines while also sharing the costs incurred during system development and maintenance with other railway partner companies that form AccesRail.
Airline passengers enjoy the benefits of the aforementioned air-rail cooperation and global distribution systems as it becomes easy for them to switch between different modes of transport.
Thus AccesRail also promotes the agenda of sustainable transportation schemes.
Air India and its patch-up with European Railway Lines
In a report covered by TOI, we found information about the Air-Rail operators that are part of the new Air India and AccesRail alliance. Following is the list of cities included:
- West Coast (UK)
- Great Western Railways (UK)
- London North Eastern Railways (UK)
- National Express (UK)
- Trenitalia (Italy)
- ÖBB Austrian Railways (Austria)
- SNCB Belgian Railways
- Thalys (Netherlands/Belgium)
What did the Air India’s and AccesRail’s officials say?
According to media reports, Nipun Aggarwal, Air India’s Chief Commercial and Transformation officer stated:
“The expansion of our global network is one of our key priorities in the ongoing, comprehensive transformation of Air India. This partnership with AccesRail not only helps us to provide our guests easy access to an extended network of destinations across Europe but also to bridge the gaps in connectivity between India and Europe”.
The Chief also commented on the sustainable and environment-friendly nature of this project. He emphasized his goals and commitment to environmental stability.
Air India officials hinted at anchoring the booking procedure within the airlines as booking can be initiated with the assistance of global travel agents or agencies only. The airline aims at expanding the facility and aligning it with its own sales channels.
AccesRail’s vice president of business development- Andrew Popescu showed enthusiasm on the episode of Air India-AccesRail cooperation. He expressed his desire to function with Air India on a global level along with their intermodal rail and coach partners.
He stated- “Through this enhanced AccesRail partnership, Air India will be able, now and in the future, to offer its customers more destinations and more possibilities in a more seamless fashion”.
