Airport trains

[deltic]

I have recently travelled on airport to city centre trains in Rome, Oslo and Kuala Lumpa.

All were fast, clean, suitably expensive, reasonably easy to understand but all have different ticketing systems and were not very well used. Interestingly in Rome and Oslo children travelled free making the cost more reasonable.

Every other Oslo train runs on to Drammen but is not advertised for local travel between Oslo and Drammen meaning its empty on this section - memories of empty Gatwick Expresses running into Victoria in the morning peak.

What is the potential for train operators around the world to work more closely together to produce a common ticketing system for these airport services so foreigners feel more comfortable using them. Given they tend to operate different prices and ticketing systems to local services it might not be too difficult to introduce such a system.

 

[edwin_m]

Maybe more a question of train operators working with the airlines to get their routes promoted and even tickets sold before landing? Although that raises some difficult questions when there are several operators offering journeys from the airport and one manages to get an exclusive deal with an airline. A bit of research beforehand often throws up a much cheaper way of getting into the city, that "they" usually aren't keen on telling you about!

 

[causton]

I think they do that on the Gatwick Express for people flying in don't they? Sell tickets to it on the plane, so they don't wander up to a TVM and find the Southern/FCC only options

 

[waynenm1]

I have flown into Gatwick a couple times on Delta in the last few years (I think Delta only currently uses LHR) from the States and they did not sell Gatwick Express or any other tickets on the plane. Instead I just bought FCC tickets at the train ticket counter at Gatwick. Although Heathrow Express is convenient if one is running late for a flight, I use the underground about half the time to LHR, and always use the undergound from LHR to Kings Cross. Regrettably no US carrier now goes into Gatwick from Chicago or Dallas so far as I know.

 

[glbotu]

I can't really comment on Kuala Lumpur or Oslo, but the thing with Rome's airport express is that there is a relatively frequent alternative service with the R1 regional train (if you're going from Termini, you need to change at Ostiense, but it's a connecting service, with a 5 min wait time). It's slower, but considerably cheaper (8€ instead of about 15€ IIRC). Much like Heathrow Express/Connect being served by a considerably cheaper, though slower Piccadilly Line and Southern stopping services at Gatwick instead of the express.

 

[northwichcat]

When I went to Munich earlier in the year I arrived on a day when Lufthansa were on strike (so not many flights that day.) The Manchester flight I caught arrived at around the same time as a Heathrow flight and it seemed like the majority of passengers off both flights headed for the S-Bahn in to central Munich and there were long queues for the ticket machines.

The thing that didn't make sense to me about Munich is the fare between Munich Airport and the city centre is about 4 times the fare between Berlin SXF and the city centre, while it's the latter which has a mix of express Regio trains and S-Bahn trains and the former that has S-Bahn trains only.

 

[WestCoast]

I have flown into Gatwick a couple times on Delta in the last few years (I think Delta only currently uses LHR) from the States and they did not sell Gatwick Express or any other tickets on the plane..

A lot of European low cost carriers (e.g. easyJet, Ryanair, Wizzair) sell a range of rail/bus tickets onboard for some of the cities they serve as a way of gaining more ancillary revenue. It's not especially common on other carriers, I don't believe BA sells Gatwick Express tickets and they are the second largest carrier at Gatwck IIRC (there is however a BA branded GE website offering 10% off for their flyers).

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The thing that didn't make sense to me about Munich is the fare between Munich Airport and the city centre is about 4 times the fare between Berlin SXF and the city centre, while it's the latter which has a mix of express Regio trains and S-Bahn trains and the former that has S-Bahn trains only.

The local transport boards in Germany decide the prices for Regional trains, and if they want to charge a premium for trips out to the airport and generate additional revenue from mostly occasional users (i.e. tourists), they will do so. A lot of locals will have passes that cover all or most of that trip. Munich is also a more expensive city in general than Berlin.

 

[waynenm1]

We've only flown into Munich once from the States and that was on United. As you mentioned, a long queue for the ticket machines; but there were also a couple of young ladies at the 'Welcome to Munich' desk so we went there first to see if they had some tourist literature. Well they heard one word of my German and switched to English! But they also sold us the S Bahn tickets which saved standing in the long queue.
I don't know if it is still the case, but the American Airlines connection to Munich from Dallas was a flight to Frankfurt, then a trip at Flight Level 0 to Munich on DB. wf.

 

[chubs]

KL was fairly cheap when I used it last year, just buying a ticket from the kiosk in arrivals?

It was fairly busy considering the airport was really quiet when I arrived.

Clean, quiet and quick too, was in Sentral in no time.

 

[Matt Taylor]

I think they do that on the Gatwick Express for people flying in don't they? Sell tickets to it on the plane, so they don't wander up to a TVM and find the Southern/FCC only options

I've experienced a GX rep selling GX tickets to passengers at the gate (airside) in Alicante airport.

 

[Greenback]

I have flown into Milan and Barcelona and caught the airport trains there to ge tinto the city centres. I found them cheap enough, clean, modern and a speedy and comfortable enough way of getting to where I wanted to go.

In both places the trains were pretty full, the ticket machines were simple to use, and there were multilingual instructions on what to do.

So, it's quite easy to have a good airport rail link, and for those like Oslo that have the issues reported by Deltic, it is probably more due to local arrangements, travel patterns and, as was noted, a way to segregate airline passengers from other travellers. Oslo is expensive in any case, and as with Gatwick, I understand it's relatively easy to avoid the expensive airport express service in Rome if you don't want to pay the higher fares.

I don't really see any need for some sort of global partnership for airport trains. I would prefer to see the poorer services encouraged to up their game. At the end of the day I think it must be a local operation to take account of local factors.

 

[upnorth71]

I find the practice of different pricing (i.e. more expensive) for airport rail services odd- if practiced here in Japan it would merely divert potential passengers to the rather excellent (at least in Tokyo) express bus services. But then again, the railways here are for-profit, and in fact three big airports here (Tokyo Haneda, Tokyo Narita, and Osaka Kansai) actually have two different railway companies serving them, which keeps things competitive and thus beneficial to customers.

 

[edwin_m]

I think the general idea is to provide a service that is simple to use for visitors (so usually just linking two stations) and with plenty of space for passengers and luggage. By charging a premium fare and not making intermediate stops the train is less likely to be overcrowded with local commuters.

Of course the fact that the train operator and/or the airport operator make more money out of the premium fare is no more than incidental...

 

[richw]

A lot of European low cost carriers (e.g. easyJet, Ryanair, Wizzair) sell a range of rail/bus tickets onboard for some of the cities they serve as a way of gaining more ancillary revenue.

Easyjet definitely sell GatEx tickets, Thomson were selling them last time I flew with them.

 

[Greenback]

Let's be honest, in some places the intention is to deprive passengers arriving on what might be pretty expensive tickets of as much of their money as possible, all on the pretence of providing something beneficial to them such as a slightly faster journey time and/or a bit more room.

Now did anyone mention Gatwick Airport?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Takes a lot to beat the value of around 3.80E from Berlin Schoefeld or Amsterdam Schpol for a 20 -25 min journey in a smart double deck train. In the latter case a 10 min frequency service.

Compare to Gatwick ; Luton or London Heathrow for value.

Many well heeled friends have given up on the Stansted train and use Terravision or whatever the bus to Liverpool St and Stratford instead , as they just refuse to pay the GA fares (and NX before)

 

[theageofthetra]

Totally agree re Stansted Express. If you book in advance the coach fare with Nat Express is a bargain and my door to door tikes are not much more. There is also the other option of using the local bus to Bishops Stortford and getting a much cheaper train from there if not in a hurry.

 

[Ze Random One]

But as anyone with a bit of nous on this forum would be at pains to point out, Stansted is far cheaper on split Tickets.
I'm going to use Anytime Day Singles for my example
Liverpool St - Stansted is £23.40
Liverpool St - Bishops Stortford - Stansted is £14.80+£4.90 = £19.70 (2 trains per hour)
Liverpool St - Stansted Mountfitchet - Stansted is £15.50+£3.20 = £18.70 (1 train per hour)
(I should also note that period SVR off-peak returns are avaliable on all these ticket combinations, with combined fares around the £26 mark)
Stansted is, also, three times the distance from central London as Schiphol is from Amsterdam or Schönefield from Berlin.
To a certain extent, Greater Anglia can get away with charging a premium fare, because of Stansted's location at the end of a branch line. Not so for, say Gatwick, where competitive fares are available, and even if they weren't passengers would be protected by the existence of commuter fares to/from Three Bridges
Heathrow, obviously, allows one to arrive by TfL transport under the normal fares regime.

Premium fares or premium shuttles are very common, in fact many cities make it painfully difficult to avoid paying that premium (Paris, New York, looking at you).

Where big airports could do better:

The central rail stations need IATA codes and code-sharing agreements with all the big airlines. It is ridiculous that the airport shuttle services cannot be added to my airfare cost, to save me the worry of another transaction (turning up, jet-lagged, and having to fight with a ticket machine in a language I don't know well is not my idea of fun, why not book the whole journey in one go, on a website I have quite patently already navigated successfully)

Premium Economy tickets could throw in Heathrow Express and the like, as a value-add. Not quite the convenience of the limo service you get with First class, but better than cattle truck passengers.

 

[waynenm1]

Ze Random One wrote:
"Premium fares or premium shuttles are very common, in fact many cities make it painfully difficult to avoid paying that premium (Paris, New York, looking at you)."

I do not know about Paris, but it is easy to go cheaply into NYC from the two major international airports (JFK and Newark). Both airports offer frequent and inexpensive bus service into the the city. At JFK you can take the Airtrain shuttle to the subway, the Airtrain is $5 and the subway is $2.50. Buy a Metracard and use that. At Newark there is a shuttle from the airport to the Northeast Corridor line (NEC) where you can catch a NJTransit train into the city. Again I think the shuttle adds $5 onto the price of the NJTransit ticket. Not sure what premium fare you might have in mind with regard to NYC, other than limo service.

 

[Ze Random One]

Ze Random One wrote:
"Premium fares or premium shuttles are very common, in fact many cities make it painfully difficult to avoid paying that premium (Paris, New York, looking at you)."

I do not know about Paris, but it is easy to go cheaply into NYC from the two major international airports (JFK and Newark). Both airports offer frequent and inexpensive bus service into the the city. At JFK you can take the Airtrain shuttle to the subway, the Airtrain is $5 and the subway is $2.50. Buy a Metracard and use that. At Newark there is a shuttle from the airport to the Northeast Corridor line (NEC) where you can catch a NJTransit train into the city. Again I think the shuttle adds $5 onto the price of the NJTransit ticket. Not sure what premium fare you might have in mind with regard to NYC, other than limo service.

I know that, but it is worth noting that the $5 Airtrain fare for JFK is manifestly a premium fare when compared with the subway fare of $2.50 for the remainder of the journey from Queens to Manhattan. If you have an unlimited-rides metrocard for the MTA network, you need to have additional value on it to ride Airtrain, because there is a $5 per use charge. I also cannot see any way of having an unlimited Airtrain+Subway metrocard - unless it's possible to hold more than one unlimited rides product on a single metrocard.

I, personally, take premium fare to mean "deliberately in excess of that which someone would pay for a similar journey on the same transport system that doesn't involve the airport"
So Heathrow by London Underground is not premium fare - it's about the same distance from central London as Ruislip or Uxbridge, and is the same fare.
Stansted from central London is about the same distance as Stansted Mountfitchet, yet a single fare is £8 (or 50%) more expensive - it is a premium fare (albeit with substantial loopholes as I discussed)

 

[waynenm1]

JFK and Newark are not quite a premium fare in the sense of London Underground compared to Heathrow Express though. Both the tube and HE go direct to the airport terminal. The NYC subway does not really take you to the airport terminal. It simply has some of its stops near the airport. So the airport is charging you $5 to use the Airtrain they built to a particular subway station. You don't have to use the Airtrain, you could take a taxi or bus from a subway station to the terminal. It is the exact same situation at Newark. The airport is charging you $5 to pay for the people mover they built over to the NEC. At Newark the train ticket to NYC covers the cost of the shuttle to the terminal. Another possibility for NYC is to fly into BWI where they have a free shuttle over to the rail station on the NEC, and then take Amtrak from there into NYC. Of course JFk and Newark could also simplly have offered a free shuttle bus instead of the expensive train systems.

A valid point about the regular subway Metrocard, it does not cover the Airtrain, You need a separate card. You can however catch a regular NYC bus at the airport and have that take you to a subway station and then it would be just $2.50 for the trip. That is a bit more hassle, although locals tend to use that option.

 

[Hartington]

Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted did try and produce some kind of integrated marketing at one point but it never got beyond an attempt at common branding.

There is an EU "initiative" at the moment to try and make the purchase of rail tickets as "easy" as air right the way across Europe. There's a long way to go! The airlines realised long ago (by which I mean the 1940's/50's) that sharing timetable and fares data is a good thing because, when you combine it with interline ticketing, it allows someone in the UK to buy a ticket on BA from Glasgow to London then United to Washington and Atlanta on Delta and finally Charleston SC on one ticket purchased in one transaction. The timetable data is shared through OAG and fares data via SITA and ATPCO. Each airline sends its' timetable data to OAG and they retransmit it in a standard format to anyone who wants to subscribe to it. In the same way so the data goes from individual airlines to ATPCO and then gets redistributed. And the coding of fares, in particular, is done in such a way that things like applicable dates, only available to specified airline partners or agents, minimum stay, maximum stay and much more is all coded so that auto-pricing systems can work.

Then there are the messages that flow between airlines so that BA can say to United I've got a passenger on my flight number nnnn from Glasgow to London on ddmmyy that wants a seat on your flight to washington the same day flight number nnnn in x class.

In the railway world that kind of shared data is either paper based on is done on the basis of individual agreements. Don't get me wrong, there are files of data and even realtime links for reservations in some places but it is not the norm as it is in the airline world.

Once the EU initiative bears fruit (5 ish years?). We might see it get easier to buy train tickets in Europe at least meaning you would be able to prepurchase your ticket on Heathrow Express or the Frankfurt R trains into Hauptbanhof. We might even see some of the airlines integrating that offer into their booking systems.

 

[jon0844]

I really hope this happens.

 

[edwin_m]

I guess the railway in the UK has some similarities in that retailers whether TOC or third party can sell tickets for any journey including through tickets involving more than one operator. However this is because a unified system was inherited from BR and has to be retained rather than that the TOCs choosing to set it up for themselves, and there is nothing similar across national boundaries.

 

[jb]

I can't really comment on Kuala Lumpur or Oslo, but the thing with Rome's airport express is that there is a relatively frequent alternative service with the R1 regional train (if you're going from Termini, you need to change at Ostiense, but it's a connecting service, with a 5 min wait time). It's slower, but considerably cheaper (8€ instead of about 15€ IIRC). Much like Heathrow Express/Connect being served by a considerably cheaper, though slower Piccadilly Line and Southern stopping services at Gatwick instead of the express.

Oslo's national rail (NSB) connection between Central and the airport is barely any slower than the "Express" and is about half the price. About the only substantive difference is 2 tph most of the day as opposed to 6 tph for the Express.

The "Express" still dominates the market, however. Power of marketing right there.