Whilst it is very interesting and engaging to contemplate about what possibilities the integrated door-to-door air-rail ticket can bring for the future of travel, a complication arises of truly seamless partnership. Still so many airlines see rail operators as competitors who “come and steal our revenue”. To provide a truly door-to-door service, air- rail operators at both ends of the journey need to reach an agreement to offer some sort of standard ticket.

So a three party partnership must be formed where all partners share the customer and provide equally high class service.

Ticketing suppliers see an opportunity in mobile and barcode technologies. Giacomo Biggiero, Chief Product Officer of Masabi talked about the “Ticket Machine in Your Pocket” concept for rail operators, when a 2D barcode is used to purchase and validate the ticket via the mobile phone.

If one standard barcode system is to be created for all airport trains, a joint ticket is then just one handshake away. Already some of the 10 Airport Expresses that participated in the conference in Riga seemed to be interested in such an idea and if the round table discussions will bring them closer to sealing the deal, the other step will be to convince airlines that air-rail operators can increase their customer satisfaction like never before.

But, Giacomo warned, “a successful service must offer a significant advantage to the user, the mobile payment must be easier than cash and cards, just because a user can do something, doesn’t mean they will.” Dirk Brekel, Business Development Director of NS Hispeed also stressed that the partnership and cooperation between airlines and rail operators lies not only in ticketing, but they are perfect partners to complement each other in crisis situations such as the ash cloud, who put on hold the entire European airspace and the harsh winter of 2010, when trains were having difficulties on tracks.

“Airlines and Railways complement each other so a good cooperation is vital for good service”, Dirk said.

Whilst mobile ticketing companies hypnotised the delegates with their smooth barcode systems, Verena Metz, Operations Director of Groundline, shared some interesting facts showing that a lot of people still do prefer the classic paper ticket. For example their customers in Italy do not use electronic ticket at all and only one per cent of Switzerland travellers chose the electronic ticket through the company. The situation is quite different in UK, as 75% of Groundline customers prefer e-ticket for their travel.

So whilst we talk about integration, can it be done using a paper ticket or should we wait until the world will go digital?

What is an Airport Express?

Since we started talking about Airport Express it could be useful to have a look at who they are. An Airport Express is a dedicated, high speed airport rail link with its own distinctive brand and premium service. Airport Expresses are amongst the leaders in the rail industry, innovating in train design, ticketing, customer service and marketing.

A great example is the Swedish Arlanda Express, and the company’s CEO Per Thorstenson presented their latest project to wow the travellers – Train of the Future. Constantly innovating with their train interiors, Per stressed that design is very important to their company and brand image. The Airport Express “formula” can be used to describe 22 air-rail operators around the world and the delegates of the conference discussed the possibility of having official benchmarking to determine if a rail operator meets the criteria and can call itself an Airport Express.

A similar attempt to join the airport expresses was made in UK with the former Airport Express Alliance (AEA) comprising of Heathrow Express, Gatwick Express and Stansted Express. AEA was responsible for the joint marketing strategy and the “airport express” image, but because of “incompatibility of characters” the marriage was terminated in 2009.

So would it be possible to have an international standard of an Airport Express or do cultural differences, that make each operator unique and brilliant in their own way, prevent the global unification?

Who owns the customer?

It seems that “ownership” of the customer raises the most heated debates between the rail operators, airports and airlines. Many delegates raised this issue in their discussions, including rail operators, airlines and airports.

But are we looking at this from a wrong angle? Surely, it is like being parents? Nobody really owns the child - both parents are there to make sure it is well looked after and happy to take the journey through life.

As a traveller, I do not want to be owned by anybody, I make free choices of who to travel with and the minute I feel I have been mistreated – I chose another service provider. So while the three of them are fighting who gets the lion share from the traveller, airports, railways and airlines should get together and discuss how to make the journey as seamless and simple as possible, so travel once again would become something of pleasure not hassle.

More pictures from the conference here >>>

Next airrail EVENTS conference “The Future of AirRail – Airport Rail Terminal Integration” will take place on 20 October in London, UK.

More articles from the conference in Riga to follow...

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