Amadeus and Thalys, the international high-speed rail operator connecting Paris and Brussels with Germany and the Netherlands, have announced a partnership agreement to distribute Thalys’s services through the Amadeus global distribution system, starting in Germany. Thalys will be available alongside airlines on selected routes in the Amadeus neutral booking display for travel agents and corporate bookers.
Users of Amadeus Selling Platform, Amadeus’s point of sale for travel agents, and Amadeus e-Travel Management, the company self-booking tool for corporate users, will have access to the full range of Thalys fares, including corporate negotiated fares, schedules and availability to effectively compare Thalys high-speed rail services with flights on specific routes. Thalys will be presented as a real alternative to air travel, giving the railway better market exposure, and ensuring that travellers have greater choice and transparency of options.
Travellers will also benefit from additional advantages, such as the possibility of booking a complete ticketless train travel experience using Thalys Ticketless (TKL) – that permits to travel without a paper ticket – or collecting Miles on Thalys’s loyalty programme, TheCard.
The addition of Thalys into the Amadeus booking flow will permit travel agents to benefit from a more simple and faster booking process as well as from increased productivity and efficiency, thanks to automatic integration into the Amadeus Passenger Name Record and IATA’s Billing Settlement Plan.
This agreement is a step forward in Thalys’s strategy to expand its international distribution reach and to grasp new market segments such as corporations while improving distribution beyond traditional channels. Moreover, for the future it enables Thalys to develop interline agreements with airlines, allowing travel agents to combine a flight with a high-speed rail link on the same ticket or to combine rail and air services with hotel and car.
Scheherazade Zekri-Chevallet, Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer, Thalys, said: “We are glad to work with Amadeus as our distribution partner for travel agencies and corporations. This agreement will allow us to compete with short-haul air travel, facilitating travel agents’ access to our public and corporate fares, and schedules while giving Thalys access to new revenue opportunities.”
Thomas Drexler, Director of Amadeus Rail, added: “With the addition of Thalys to Amadeus’s global distribution system, Amadeus continues to build the most complete and relevant rail offering for the travel agency community. We are proud to have the only multi-channel rail-dedicated distribution platform that is helping railways to expand their international distribution.”
