Most air passengers do not live within walking distance of the airport. That means they are faced with a choice of transportation options for the first and last miles of their journey. Worries about delays and missed connections to busses and trains can often mean that the car is the preferred choice. But European low-cost easyJet is forging a path to make public transport a more attractive option for those final miles of a trip.
Train plus plane equals success
When it comes to reducing CO2 emissions, aviation is an industry with a lot of work to do. Replacing air travel with train travel, where feasible, is seen as quick win for some nations. Indeed, France has moved to replace a number of shorter flights with rail alternatives where feasible.
But there’s another reason for train and plane to work closer together. For passengers, combining different modes of travel can serve to get them closer to their final destination on a single itinerary. This sort of intermodal transportation is yet to be widely embraced by either the rail or the air travel industry, but one airline is forging a strong path in this direction.
easyJet announced its partnership with Deutsche Bahn (DB) earlier this year, adding the German rail operator to its ‘Worldwide by easyJet’ program. The program works very much like an interline operation, with various airlines including Cathay, China Airlines and Air Transat offering single itinerary connectivity beyond easyJet’s own network. However, DB is the first rail operator to join such a program.
Connecting at Berlin Brandenburg Airport, easyJet passengers can book a single ticket for train and plane to take them beyond Berlin and closer to their final destination. Simple Flying spoke with Sophie Dekkers, CCO of easyJet, about how the scheme has been going. She told us,
“It’s been really positive. I think people like the fact that you can buy that end-to-end ticket. It’s all part of the easyJet Worldwide program and since Worldwide launched, we’ve sold over 1.5 million seats. The Deutsche Bahn partnership launched on the 15th of July, so relatively recently, and obviously there’s still been quite a few constraints in terms of travel restrictions, but certainly early day sales look really encouraging.”
Although it is still early days, easyJet is forming something of a blueprint that other airlines and rail operators could follow. Indeed, she noted that other partners who are not airlines are already showing an interest in being connected in this way.
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The benefit to easyJet
For easyJet, the whole Worldwide program is fast becoming a powerful tool to expand its reach without doing any more flying. While airline to airline connections are relatively common, they are not so much in the low-cost sphere. For intermodal connectivity, easyJet really is forging a brand new path. Sophie noted the opportunity for easyJet, stating,
“It’s really a great opportunity for us. We are Europe’s leading airline in terms of primary airport connections. We operate to more slot constrained airports than any other airline, and we’re not connected to any airlines, we’re not in any alliances. So the opportunity for us to help people to connect onto other airlines or even onto Deutsche Bahn and other transport modes, we see as a massive opportunity given our footprint within Europe.”
As an airline that is keen to drive down its environmental footprint, easyJet avoids flying connections where trains can provide the same journey in three hours or less. That means easyJet customers are often planning to hop on a train to complete their journey. Intermodal agreements like the Deutsche Bahn tie-up make this all the more easily conducted.
Working through IT company Dohop, the journey is protected in the same way that a connecting flight itinerary would be. If the easyJet flight is delayed, the passenger’s train ticket can be moved to another service. Connections are timed to minimize the risk of missing the train after landing, and Dohop’s customer service is on hand to help deal with any issues.
Harder to set up in the UK
While we may well see more DB-type deals springing up with easyJet or other airlines in the future, some parts of the world make it much more difficult to undertake this type of agreement. easyJet’s home in the UK is one such problem country, where the privatization of rail many years ago has made for a fragmented industry, much harder to coordinate into a Worldwide-style partnership. Dekkers explained,
“I think it’s slightly harder in the UK where you’ve got multiple train operators. It’s not such an easy model as when there’s a national provider, which you have more commonly within Europe. Nationalization of UK rail is a very hot topic, but whilst you’ve got multiple providers serving the same stations like Gatwick, for example, it would be harder but not impossible to do.”
That’s not to say easyJet hasn’t thought about onward connectivity from its Gatwick hub. For most arrivals, a key next destination will be London, from where they can find transportation options to pretty much anywhere in the UK. The Gatwick Express is a high-frequency train service into London Victoria, a major interchange, taking around 30 minutes. While it’s not a Worldwide by easyJet partner, it is still an important connection for the airline’s passengers, as Sophie explained,
“We do sell Gatwick Express train tickets on our flights. This is not done through the Worldwide Connections – you can’t buy it as a through fare – but when you’re on our flights, you’re able to buy the Gatwick Express ticket at a discount onboard the plane versus buying it on the ground. So we do have a partnership in that way, but it’s not through the Worldwide Connections.”
Despite the challenges in the UK, the potential for intermodal partnerships could make door-to-door journeys much easier to plan. Having that added layer of assurance that connections are guaranteed and that there is someone there to help in the event of disruption could encourage more air passengers to leave the car at home, and to use other methods of transport on their next international trip.
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