The next time you want to visit quaint cities in Europe without airports, you may want to book a ticket on Air India to get a comprehensive itinerary. The airline, now controlled by the Tata group, has entered an intermodal interline agreement with AccesRail to boost connectivity options for Air India passengers across Europe, including smaller cities without airports. Air India offers non-stop flights to major cities around the world, especially Europe, and this agreement will help passengers travel seamlessly across Europe on a single ticket.
As per the agreement, Air India guests can travel on a single intermodal ticket and take seamless, on-ground train and bus connections to more than 100 cities and towns in Austria, Belgium, Germany, The Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, and the United Kingdom via its European gateways of Amsterdam, Birmingham, London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Milan, and Vienna. Passengers can enjoy the benefit of the same baggage allowance on these rail or bus operator services as offered by Air India on its own flights.
Currently, intermodal tickets with Air India are available for booking through travel agents globally. The airline also plans to extend the facility to its own sales channels progressively.
Explaining the benefit of this agreement, Nipun Aggarwal, Chief Commercial & Transformation Officer at Air India, said: “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. Augmenting our network with an intermodal approach also underlines our commitment to environmental sustainability.”
AccesRail is an IATA travel partner with its own designator code (9B), thus making intermodal journeys on a single ticket possible. AccesRail’s extensive network of rail and bus operators for Air India include Avanti West Coast (UK), Great Western Railways (UK), London North Eastern Railways (UK), National Express (UK), Trenitalia (Italy), ÖBB Austrian Railways (Austria), SNCB Belgian Railways, and Thalys (Netherlands/Belgium).
Andrew Popescu, Vice President Business Development, AccesRail, said, “We are excited to be launching our Air India-AccesRail cooperation and look forward to continuing with Air India on a global scale with so many of our intermodal rail and coach partners. 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.”
Air India is navigating through a major five-year transformation roadmap under the aegis of Vihaan.AI, with an ambition to become a world class airline with an Indian heart. The first phase of this transformation, the taxi phase was recently concluded, and focused on fixing the basics. These included bringing back to service many long grounded aircraft, addition of talent across flying and ground functions, rapid upgradation of technology and strengthening of customer care initiatives amongst others. A member of Star Alliance, the largest global airline consortium of leading international airlines, Air India offers seamless connectivity and facilities to passengers all over the world.
Source: businessinsider.in
