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Trains any time, except for this one important exception: regional to hub airport traffic. When you miss the connecting flight because of a delay on the first l

by usrusr 9y ago

Trains any time, except for this one important exception: regional to hub airport traffic. When you miss the connecting flight because of a delay on the first leg, it's not entirely unreasonable to expect that the airline will take care for their mistake, but when you miss a flight because of train delay, tough luck. I don't know how large the fraction of feeder passengers is relative to point topoint on those flight, but those won't be switching to planes any time soon. At least not without single ticket/single checkin dedicated airport train connections.

Gibbon1 9y ago
> but when you miss a flight because of train delay, tough luck. Solution for that is to put the airline checkin at the train station and make getting your from there to your destination the airlines problem. Which brings up the issue that transportation networks are often hopelessly Balkanized. At least in the US.
- ghaff 9y ago
  They are everywhere. Unless travel is all on a single booking, if you miss a train/plane/hotel/etc. because of a travel delay, it's no different than if you just overslept. And it's not unreasonable. It's not really the hotel's fault that you couldn't use your room because of some weather problem a continent away. Travel insurance is probably one answer if you want to buffer against some issues--though I doubt it makes sense in most cases.
  - usrusr 9y ago
    Travel insurance is no substitute for integrated service because it adds one more thing to worry about when the itinerary fails: "How do I solve this problem" vs "How do I solve this problem in a way that will be covered".
- FearNotDaniel 9y ago
  Not always in Europe. On some routes Lufthansa and Austrian allow booking of bus or rail transfers to the hub as a leg on the air ticket, which also means they guarantee the connection even in the case of delays. Examples: "Lufthansa Express Bus" which used Deutsche Postbus routes between Salzburg and Munich (now sadly defunct since Flixbus took over the route), and Austrian Airlines selling tickets on OeBB trains between Salzburg and Vienna (though personally I'd still prefer the 40min flight over a 2.5h train in that case). I always found it particularly amusing, while riding the SZG-MUC bus route, that a lonely little bus stop on the edge of Rosenheim, Bavaria has its own IATA airport code (ZPR).

by usrusr 9y ago

Gibbon1 9y ago

> but when you miss a flight because of train delay, tough luck. Solution for that is to put the airline checkin at the train station and make getting your from there to your destination the airlines problem. Which brings up the issue that transportation networks are often hopelessly Balkanized. At least in the US.

ghaff 9y ago
They are everywhere. Unless travel is all on a single booking, if you miss a train/plane/hotel/etc. because of a travel delay, it's no different than if you just overslept. And it's not unreasonable. It's not really the hotel's fault that you couldn't use your room because of some weather problem a continent away. Travel insurance is probably one answer if you want to buffer against some issues--though I doubt it makes sense in most cases.
- usrusr 9y ago
  Travel insurance is no substitute for integrated service because it adds one more thing to worry about when the itinerary fails: "How do I solve this problem" vs "How do I solve this problem in a way that will be covered".
FearNotDaniel 9y ago
Not always in Europe. On some routes Lufthansa and Austrian allow booking of bus or rail transfers to the hub as a leg on the air ticket, which also means they guarantee the connection even in the case of delays. Examples: "Lufthansa Express Bus" which used Deutsche Postbus routes between Salzburg and Munich (now sadly defunct since Flixbus took over the route), and Austrian Airlines selling tickets on OeBB trains between Salzburg and Vienna (though personally I'd still prefer the 40min flight over a 2.5h train in that case). I always found it particularly amusing, while riding the SZG-MUC bus route, that a lonely little bus stop on the edge of Rosenheim, Bavaria has its own IATA airport code (ZPR).