railway companies

Having arrived a little early, it was in the Grand Voyageur lounge at Paris-Lyon station that we began this test of the new Business 1st of TGV Lyria, the Franco-Swiss rail company owned by SNCF and CFF. Located in a corner of Hall C, on level -1 of the station overlooking the Place...

Why launch a Business 1st class on 10 December? Andreas Bergmann - After drawing up a portrait of tomorrow's consumer, TGV Lyria decided to anticipate market developments. The two-class model was no longer appropriate, as needs have expanded. This move to three classes means we can better meet the needs of all segments...

This is the biggest project in the history of Deutsche Bahn, which has taken 25 years to complete. The inauguration of the Berlin-Munich high-speed line, scheduled for December, will put the finishing touches to the country's reunification, reconnecting East and West Germany after four decades of separation... The railway line, which passes...

What led you to launch this international API? Daniel Beutler - We started with a B-to-C platform, called Captain Train at the time. After a while, we realised that certain accounts were associated with a hundred or so sub-accounts, with email addresses with identical extensions. So we...

"The response from business passengers has been very positive, with Business 1ère guaranteeing greater fluidity, comfort and assistance", explains Fabien Soulet, Director of the Business, Corporate and Travel Agencies market at the SNCF. In fact, in addition to the advantages in terms of exchanges and refunds, customers travelling with a TGV Pro ticket in...

The "OUI.sncf" transformation is a daring gamble for Voyages-sncf.com, the leader in French e-tourism, with a turnover of €4.1 billion in 2016 for 86 million tickets sold, including 75 million in France (+4.41TP3Q/2015). "In a negative context marked by attacks, strikes and floods, we have managed to fetch...

Thalys is once again playing the originality card to encourage the general public to take a voyage of discovery. From September 12 until the end of the week, the rail company is offering Parisians the chance to travel to Amsterdam, Cologne, Brussels and Paris, without leaving the Marais or even getting off the train...

If only practice matched theory in the world of travel... If only we could be sure that every train actually left the platform at the precise time indicated on its ticket, whatever the format: paper, mobile, loyalty card... Since it is impossible to achieve this ideal, which is shared by every business traveller, Trainline is working...

After the Paris-London route, the new Eurostar e320 trains are starting to run between London and Brussels. To accommodate these higher-capacity Siemens trains, the terminal at Brussels-Midi station has had to be reconfigured, with an enlarged departure area and an optimised check-in area for the installation of passport control...

Sixteen million passengers have travelled between France and Germany since the creation of the Alleo commercial alliance. Two out of three customers now choose the train between Paris and Stuttgart, thanks to the six daily round trips in 3 hours 08 minutes (including 1 extended to Munich) and one passenger in three between Paris and Frankfurt with 5 round trips...

To coincide with the French Open tennis tournament, TGV Lyria has renewed its partnership with Swiss tennis player Stan Wawrinka. Two trains running between France and Switzerland bear the effigy of the Lausanne-born player. "Through tennis, ice hockey and athletics, major sporting events bearing the...

At its new headquarters in Brussels, opposite the Gare du Midi, Thalys management unveiled its new fare offer, which will be marketed from 12 September and introduced in December. The railway company's ambition is to bring more...

After the Paris-Lyon line in December 2016, SNCF is launching wifi on the TGV Nord network, departing from Gare du Nord. "This service is in response to strong demand from our passengers", says Jérôme Leborgne, SNCF TGV Nord Director, who points out that "the Paris-Lille route is the second busiest in terms of traffic after Paris-Lyon and at...

Eurostar has just opened a new business lounge in the Gare du Nord. Had "The Lounge", designed by Philippe Starck in 2008, become outdated? Nicolas Petrovic - The inauguration of this new Business Premier lounge is part of a wider investment in the Gare du Nord, particularly in the area dedicated to Eurostar, and...

The SNCF is "simplifying its high-speed offer": this was the title used by the rail group on 7 March to confirm the end of the IDTGV offer, in order to refocus on two brands, TGV and Ouigo. The announcement, published on Tuesday, begins by stating that "IDTGV will not disappear...

On 3 February, the Eurostar teams proudly unveiled their new business lounge. A few hours later, it will replace the lounge previously used by European business travellers, thus freeing up space to enlarge the rail company's waiting room. It will be accessible from 4 February to...

Are you going to increase the number of journeys lasting less than 3 hours? Lyria is offering a non-stop departure from Paris to Geneva at 9.15am in 2hrs 58mins, a journey that is proving very popular with business customers. This remains difficult to implement in the other direction because of the regions crossed, which wish to keep their stops....

"The roll-out of Internet on board will be massive and rapid! The statement may use the future tense, but this little revolution initiated by SNCF is really in the present tense. It's a phrase that business travellers have been dreaming of hearing for a long time, and it became a reality on 15 December with the launch of TGV Connect. This service,...

A few days after blowing out its twenty candles, Thalys is already looking to the future: that of the rail company, of course, but also and above all that of the planet. European Mobility Week kicks off on 16 September, and the company, well known to business travellers, is determined to make the event a...

Between April 2015 and April 2016, the German price comparison website GoEuro studied thousands of prices for journeys booked by customers via its website in 40 European countries. It compared the average price per 100 km of a domestic flight, a journey by...