AIRail Service on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
AiRail Service is offered by
Rail&Fly - the train to your plane
High-speed rail in Germany Transport in Frankfurt Intercity Express
AiRail Service is offered by Deutsche Bahn
The (; abbreviated as DB or DB AG) is the national railway company of Germany. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). The Federal Republic of Germany is its single shareholder.
describes itself as the se ...
AG in cooperation with Lufthansa
Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), commonly shortened to Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it is the second- largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. Lufthansa is one of the five founding m ...
, American Airlines
American Airlines is a major airlines of the United States, major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the world when measured ...
and Emirates
Emirates may refer to:
* United Arab Emirates, a Middle Eastern country
* Emirate, any territory ruled by an emir
** Gulf emirates, emirates located on the Persian Gulf
** Emirates of the United Arab Emirates, the individual emirates
* The Emirat ...
. It is one example of several a dedicated air-rail alliance There are four main types of airline-railway business alliance or codeshare agreements: dedicated services, entire network access, Night&Fly, and re-protection agreements. The currently active air-rail alliances are listed in the tables below.
De ...
s currently operating worldwide.
AiRail Service is currently offered between Frankfurt (Main) Flughafen Fernbahnhof
Frankfurt am Main Airport long-distance station (german: Frankfurt am Main Flughafen Fernbahnhof) is a railway station at Frankfurt Airport in Frankfurt, Germany. It is served by long-distance trains, mostly ICE services running on the Col ...
(the long-distance railway station of Frankfurt International Airport
Frankfurt Airport (; german: link=no, Flughafen Frankfurt Main , also known as ''Rhein-Main-Flughafen'') is a major international airport located in Frankfurt, the fifth-largest city of Germany and one of the world's leading financial centres. ...
) and the central railway stations of Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
, Dusseldorf and Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
, among others.
It enables all passengers to check in their baggage at the stations and use the ICE
Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaq ...
high-speed train
High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail system that runs significantly faster than traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated tracks. While there is no single standard that applies worldwide, lines ...
service to Frankfurt Airport (first class for passengers with Business and First tickets, second class for passengers with Economy tickets) without having to carry their baggage
Baggage or luggage consists of bags, cases, and containers which hold a traveler's personal articles while the traveler is in transit. A modern traveler can be expected to have packages containing clothing, toiletries, small possessions, trip ...
themselves.
Right after arriving at the long-distance train station at Frankfurt Airport, Lufthansa Express Rail customers can quickly and conveniently drop off their baggage and also check in for their flight in the nearby AiRail Terminal.
AiRail Service uses the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line (maximum speed of 300 km/h) and between Stuttgart and Mannheim (maximum speed of 250 km/h), rendering the train service faster and more reliable than air transport on the same route.
AiRail Service was established some decades ago, when Deutsche Bundesbahn
The Deutsche Bundesbahn or DB (German Federal Railway) was formed as the state railway of the newly established Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) on 7 September 1949 as a successor of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (DRG). The DB remained ...
(now Deutsche Bahn AG) established a direct connection between Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
and Frankfurt Airport using the DB 403 "Donald Duck" EMU
The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus ''Dromaius''. The emu' ...
with tilting technology
A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train (or other vehicle) rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide abo ...
in Lufthansa livery.
In the 1990s they established the Stuttgart-Frankfurt connection after the high-speed train line between Stuttgart and Mannheim was opened. Both services were closed due to high cost some years later.
In 2000 they re-established the service between Stuttgart and Frankfurt, now using only some seats in regular cars in standard ICE service.
See also
Air-rail alliance There are four main types of airline-railway business alliance or codeshare agreements: dedicated services, entire network access, Night&Fly, and re-protection agreements. The currently active air-rail alliances are listed in the tables below.
De ...
Intermodal passenger transport
Intermodal passenger transport, also called mixed-mode commuting, involves using two or more modes of transportation in a journey. Mixed-mode commuting is often used to combine the strengths (and offset the weaknesses) of various transportati ...
References
* {{cite web , url=http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/prices/air_passangers/airail.shtml , author=Deutsche Bahn AG , title=Take off with the Train to the Plane , accessdate=2008-08-16 , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080731234940/http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/prices/air_passangers/airail.shtml , archivedate=2008-07-31 , url-status=deadExternal links
Rail&Fly - the train to your plane
High-speed rail in Germany Transport in Frankfurt Intercity Express