Holiday Lettings news - Air France-KLM to launch alternative to Eurostar service

Air France-KLM to launch alternative to Eurostar service

Air France is to launch a rival service to Eurostar. The Eurostar alternative could be in operation in two years and would offer faster rail services from the UK to France and the Netherlands.

Air France-KLM has hinted at its intentions to launch an alternative to Eurostar, which would reduce journey times as well as offer lower fares, reports Overseas Property Professional (OPP).

The airline plans to launch its London to Paris and Paris to Amsterdam high-speed train services by October 2010.

The journey time from London to Paris would be just under two hours on Air France-KLM's rival service, compared to Eurostar's current time of two and a quarter hours.

"This shows that airlines now realise that high-speed rail is increasingly the natural choice for business and leisure journeys across Europe," said a spokesperson for Eurostar.

Virgin Atlantic is also believed to be thinking about setting up a high-speed rail service, claims OPP, and Deutsche Bahn has already announced that it wants to run a London-Cologne service from 2010.

The news comes as airlines are increasingly being forced to economise in the face of soaring fuel costs and sometimes, as is the case for XL Airways and Zoom, going into administration.

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