Some South African agents are reporting demand for more rail trips within Europe than ever before. The reasons for this are two-fold.
French lawmakers recently voted in favour of a Bill to end airline routes across France where the same journey could be made by train in under 150 minutes. This is in a bid to reduce carbon emissions see here. German flag carrier Lufthansa now offers a rail option on all domestic feeder flights bound for Frankfurt. It is now possible to book a connecting itinerary for any domestic feeder flight where the domestic portion is on a Deutsche Bahn train. These train journeys complement the domestic flights rather than replacing them, but it is foreseeable that the flight sectors could in the future be replaced with rail sectors.
Added to this, South African travellers have also become aware of the post-COVID European airport drama. This reached its peak during the past European summer. Long queues, baggage mountains, delayed departures and cancelled flights – these are also reasons that travellers are preferring train travel.
Annelie Scheepers, an independent consultant at Sure Maritime Travel, says she has been inundated with rail ticket requests. “Many clients want to avoid airport chaos and prefer to take the train on short-haul routes. We have had more rail booking requests than ever before in the last six months.
“There are various channels to book trains. Sometimes I book directly with the train company online, which is effective and competitive but requires our client to produce their credit card at the station to collect their train tickets. This is a problem with corporate clients using a lodged credit card.”
Travel News asked Penny McAslin, Rail and Cruise specialist at World Travel, if she had seen an increase in rail travel. “Generally, my peak season starts in March and ends in July. But this year I have noticed that because of delays at European airports, trains are selling out at a very fast pace.”
McAslin says if travel agents book rail tickets through World Travel on behalf of their clients and the agency pays via EFT or utilises a credit card link to make the payment to World Travel, the client will not need to produce the credit card used for payment when boarding the trains.
Corné Kotze, Senior Rail Specialist & Product Manager at Travel by Train also reported an increase in rail travel bookings.
“There has definitely been an increase in rail bookings and we have a lot more passengers booking flexible rail options, so that if they miss their scheduled train due to airport delays, we can easily change their bookings,” said Kotze.
He warns agents and their clients of a potential problem that can be avoided. “Some British rail companies and online sites require passengers to collect their train tickets at the station and then clients must show their own credit or debit cards.” But Kotze says for most train bookings, Travel by Train accepts lodged credit cards and will email a copy of the tickets to the client.
Boris Ogursky, Lufthansa Media Spokesperson Europe, Middle East & Africa told Travel News that if trains on high-speed tracks and routes competed with Lufthansa flying times and comfort, passengers tended to use the train.
“In this case we do not lose the passenger as they still book a Lufthansa ticket and use the train instead flying. The Cologne to Frankfurt route is a good example. Our Rail&Fly relationship with Deutsche Bahn means our customers can travel easily from any station in Germany to (or from) their international flight and all modes of transport are booked on the same Lufthansa ticket.”
