Lufthansa Group is to work with Italy’s state-owned rail company to provide better links between train and airline travel in the country.
Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FS), which includes Italy’s largest rail operator Trenitalia among its subsidiaries, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Lufthansa.
“The intention is to negotiate a contract for a co-operation in feeder traffic within Italy in order to link the various modes of transport in a better and more customer-friendly way,” said Lufthansa in a statement.
“The aim of the planned co-operation is in particular to bring passengers with FS rail connections to and from their respective flight connections at various Italian airports.”
The two organisations will now hold further talks about a potential intermodal partnership, which will also involve Lufthansa’s sister airlines including Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Italian regional carrier Air Dolomiti.
Lufthansa already operates similar intermodal programmes with train operators in its key markets, such as Deutsche Bahn, Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) and Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), which provide 3,000 weekly rail and bus connections from more than 40 cities. The group’s existing agreement with Deutsche Bahn, which provides train connections from German cities to airports through Lufthansa Express Rail, has been in operation since 2001.
FS said that as well as creating multimodal services, the MoU with Lufthansa would also seek to create a “joint offer” allowing the purchase of air and train tickets in a “single solution”.
Last week, local news reports suggested that a deal between the Italian government and Lufthansa over the sale of ITA Airways could be reached as early as March.