Air-rail Alliances
There are also code sharing agreements between airlines and rail lines. These are more formally known as an air-rail alliance, but more commonly known as "Rail & Fly" due to the popularity of the Deutsche Bahn codeshare with many airlines. They involve some integration of both types of transport, e.g., in finding out the fastest connection, allowing exchange between an air ticket and a train ticket, or a step further, the air ticket being valid on the train, etc. In Europe these air-rail alliances are used to divide markets by selling these combination tickets abroad for a lower price to attract more customers. The systems also prevent local customers from buying these much cheaper tickets as the customer is only allowed to board the plane with a valid train stamp from a station outside the country.
Read more about this topic: Codeshare Agreement
Famous quotes containing the word alliances:
“An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like the United States gains no advantage and it loses prestige by offering, indeed peddling, its alliances to all and sundry. An alliance should be hard diplomatic currency, valuable and hard to get, and not inflationary paper from the mimeograph machine in the State Department.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)