Status: March 8th, 2021 3:48 p.m.
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In view of the crisis in the travel industry, competitors Deutsche Bahn and Lufthansa want to work together more closely. European and intercontinental flights are to start more frequently at the train station.
If the pandemic loses its power at the end of the year due to increasing vaccination numbers, train and flight should start together more strongly than before. Berthold Huber, Board Member for Passenger Transport at Deutsche Bahn, justifies the planned better connection to the most important international Lufthansa hub in Frankfurt am Main with super-fast sprinter trains.
“Networked, integrated mobility benefits consumers, customers and the environment,” says Huber. What will happen here in the near future is emblematic of the development that the corporations also envision for European transport in the future, according to the board of directors. “We will interlink the different modes of transport even better.”
Specifically, this means: at least for parts of the journey, train instead of flight. For the first time, from July onwards, it will be possible to travel to Frankfurt am Main Airport faster with trains from Hamburg and Munich. From December, ICE trains from Berlin, Bremen and Münster are to be added without stopping.
Domestic flights will be reduced or abolished
Lufthansa Executive Board member Harry Hohmeister: “Wherever we can offer customers a fast, comfortable and reliable connection to our hubs together with the railways, we either reduce the number of flights or we even forego them entirely.” This has already happened, for example, from Cologne, Dortmund or Paderborn. “Our customers will benefit when the corona crisis is over,” said Hohmeister.
This will strengthen the Frankfurt am Main air hub. Other airports, which are also suffering severely from the consequences of the pandemic crisis, are likely to lose traffic permanently. The train station will no longer be the starting and ending point for European or intercontinental flights such as Lufthansa.
More competition between airports
The good rail connections will intensify competition between German airports, Hohmeister expects: “We already offer 134 rail connections from 17 destinations to Frankfurt every day. Five more are to be added. That is much more than Lufthansa offers from its own route network can. ”
For example, anyone who wants to fly from Nuremberg into the world will soon be able to take the Supersprinter to Frankfurt Airport in less than two hours without stopping, explains the board member. “That means being half an hour faster and more competitive than traveling through other hubs.”
It should become more convenient for “Lufthansa Express Rail” customers. They should get through the security checks at the airport faster and receive their luggage faster after landing so that they do not miss the next train.
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