Lufthansa hopes that its second air-rail service, launched in May between Cologne city centre and Frankfurt Airport, will make a greater impact on replacing air with train journeys than its pilot route from Stuttgart to Frankfurt.
The eventual aim of both services is for rail to replace air, but since starting in March 2001, the Stuttgart train has only reached load factors of at best 35%, says Wolfgang Weinert, Lufthansa inter-modal transport project manager. The partners in the project - Lufthansa, Die Bahn German Railways and Fraport - have learnt some lessons from the Stuttgart experience and co-operated to make the Cologne service hourly. This will give a good feeder service into Frankfurt, with 1,000 seats per day offered in each direction, says Weinert.
Unlike Stuttgart, Lufthansa is immediately cutting its air frequencies on the Cologne-Frankfurt route. Services have been dropped from six to four in each direction. The air service between Stuttgart and Frankfurt remains at six per day.
"Progress is that we hope to discontinue flight operations on both routes," says Weinert. He adds that an air-rail route between Düsseldorf and Frankfurt would be the next logical step for the partners, but after that there are few opportunities to link other cities with Frankfurt. Even with high-speed trains, the over ground times become too long, he says.
Source: Airline Business
