In one of those bizarre "Did I really read that?' moments it appears that Air France/KLM are going into the rail travel business.
The EU's rail traffic laws will be liberalised in 2010 allowing non state-owned firms to ply the tracks with their own services. Air France and Veolia are going into partnership to provide international high-speed rail services. Initially they will route between Paris and Amsterdam and Amsterdam and London.
The logic behind this is actually quite sound. Having spent many years as an international commuter (living in London and working in Frankfurt or living in Belgium and working in London), I know that the actual travel time from leaving home to arriving at a destination on such a heavily trafficked route is comparative on rail and air. Competitive rates on the trains coupled with rising fares on the airlines have caused business travellers to start looking at the train as a viable alternative to flying.
The service will potentially run using trains known as the AGV, which can carry up to 900 passengers at a speed of 360 km/h (224 mph). At such speeds, passengers would be able to commute between Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport and Schiphol airport outside Amsterdam in approximately 1.5 hours. That's not bad going at all. A car journey of the same distance would take over 3 times as long and a flight (although only scheduled for about 50 minutes), would probably take somewhere between 2 hours and 3 hours including delays and extended check-in times.
Look for this to occur in October 2010.
The EU's rail traffic laws will be liberalised in 2010 allowing non state-owned firms to ply the tracks with their own services. Air France and Veolia are going into partnership to provide international high-speed rail services. Initially they will route between Paris and Amsterdam and Amsterdam and London.
The logic behind this is actually quite sound. Having spent many years as an international commuter (living in London and working in Frankfurt or living in Belgium and working in London), I know that the actual travel time from leaving home to arriving at a destination on such a heavily trafficked route is comparative on rail and air. Competitive rates on the trains coupled with rising fares on the airlines have caused business travellers to start looking at the train as a viable alternative to flying.
The service will potentially run using trains known as the AGV, which can carry up to 900 passengers at a speed of 360 km/h (224 mph). At such speeds, passengers would be able to commute between Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport and Schiphol airport outside Amsterdam in approximately 1.5 hours. That's not bad going at all. A car journey of the same distance would take over 3 times as long and a flight (although only scheduled for about 50 minutes), would probably take somewhere between 2 hours and 3 hours including delays and extended check-in times.
Look for this to occur in October 2010.
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