High-Speed Thalys Train Picks Up Air France Passengers

<B>High-Speed Thalys Train Picks Up Air France Passengers</B>

By Lynn Woods

Air France in March eliminated all flights between Paris and Brussels and instead began booking passengers flying through its hub at De Gaulle on the high-speed Thalys train. The move highlighted the degree to which Thalys, a joint partnership of the French, German, Belgian and Dutch railway systems with a network extending to Amsterdam, Cologne and Geneva, has displaced air and car traffic on the route and become popular with corporate travelers.

"Thalys has between 80 percent to 90 percent of the traffic," compared with air, said Christophe Renard, sales director at Carlson Wagonlit France, based in Paris. "The car is the main competition," although here too the train wins out: While the trip by car takes from two to three hours, Thalys takes about an hour and a half from city center to city center.

Thalys is perhaps less known in America, compared with the high-profile Eurostar, the trans-channel London-Paris and London-Brussels high-speed rail link. Unlike Thalys' virtual dominance, Eurostar competes against regularly scheduled competitively priced flights on such carriers as British Midland and Virgin Express. However, in one sense, the two rail links are similar: While both are attracting large numbers of corporate travelers, they have been slow to respond to corporations' desire for volume-based discounts.

According to Renard, until recently, Eurostar "offered no discount at all." Corporate users also are frustrated by the fact that they have had to deal with different agents on the United Kingdom side and the Belgian or French side, an unwieldy arrangement that prevents them from consolidating their volumes for trips originating on either side of the Channel. The rail company, operated by a private U.K.-based company and the French and Belgian railways, may be coming around, however, with the recent completion of an agreement for a discounted rate with its second largest, though undisclosed, customer on London-Paris.

Thalys does offer a corporate discount, but it is an across-the-board program involving vouchers. "Corporations are dissatisfied with the level of discount and the fact that it's not linked with their volumes," Renard said.

Nonetheless, participation in the corporate program, called TCP, is growing and has increased 15 percent so far this year over last year, said Herman Uyttendaele, the program's assistant manager. Thalys has contracts with 500 companies based in Paris and 650 firms in Brussels, all of which have paid a fee to benefit from a 15 percent discount off the business tariff in the two classes of service offered on the train, Comfort 1 and Comfort 2.

"In general, most of our users are satisfied," said Huub Smeets, vice president of global development at Rockwell Automation, European Customer Services Center in Rotterdam. "If you look at the development around huge airports in Europe and the number of ATC-related delays, things are much smoother on the train."

For travelers already in Europe, the train is not only faster than the plane--taking into account airport transfer times--but also is a better value. Thalys, launched in 1996, introduced high-speed TGV service on the Paris-Brussels route the next year, reducing the two-hour ride to just one hour, 25 minutes to Paris Nord station and one hour, 15 minutes to De Gaulle. In comparison, flight time is one hour.

The trains feature weekday in-seat meal service, complimentary newspapers and taxi reserve service for Paris-bound passengers in Comfort 1. Roundtrip train fare in Comfort 1 is $276, if booked in the United States, compared with $512 on Sabena. According to travel managers at several European companies who have contracted with Thalys, booking the train is slightly more of a hassle than reserving an airline ticket. It is reserved through the national rail service in each country--SNCF in France and SNCB in Belgium.

Corporate travel managers also are unable to obtain any data about their train spend from Thalys. However, Thalys plans to launch a frequent traveler program by the end of 2002, which would entail establishment of a customer database, said Monique Laurent, assistant distribution manager. "We will reconfigure all our distribution systems into one," she said. Direct booking currently is available through Thalys' Web site in certain European countries, using the national railway's reservation system.

Thalys offers both corporations and individual frequent travelers a standard discount. For 430 euros (US$382), a company receives 20 TCP cards, entitling users to a 15 percent discount off the fare. Companies also can opt to purchase one-time vouchers for infrequent travelers. The cards or vouchers can be used on any train in the Thalys network. A company would start saving money after 32 Comfort 1 roundtrips and 53 Comfort 2 roundtrips, according to Uyttendaele. Tickets booked using the cards are flexible: There are no change fees and travelers can take any train of the day, though there are no seat guarantees for departures other than the one they booked.

In contrast, the Lys card, designed for individual travelers and applicable only to Paris-Brussels, entitles users to a 50 percent discount, but it is more restrictive--holders must pay change and cancellation penalties. Lys cards are valid for three, six or 12 months and cost is based on duration. A three-month Lys card costs 320 euros (US$284), six months costs 457 euros (US$405) and one-year costs 747 euros (US$663).

Meanwhile, U.S. corporate travelers flying Air France to Brussels may inadvertently find themselves sampling the Thalys high-speed train. In the past, Air France gave its passengers the option of either flying or taking the train to the Belgian city upon their arrival in Paris, but with the cessation of all flights on the short-haul route, all travelers now board the train at the TGV station at De Gaulle. The rail journey is included on their airline tickets.

To accommodate the airline's passengers, an extra train has been added to the existing four on the nonstop route between De Gaulle and downtown Brussels, resulting in five daily departures. From Brussels, Air France passengers can check in for their flights leaving De Gaulle, including baggage transfer, at the train station.

A spokeswoman said Thalys also has interline agreements with United and American Airlines out of De Gaulle, though she was unsure whether they actually are using them to transfer passengers onto the train. Neither airline returned phone calls by press time.