No let-up in provision of new rail-air links

International Railway Journal, March, 2003 by Andrew Sharp

Airport rail links have opened in four major cities around the world in the last 12 months, and the new maglev connection to Shanghai's Pudong International Airport will start to carry passengers next year.

KLIA Ekspres, linking Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and the new Sentral station in the Brickfields district, was opened on April 13 2002 by the Prime Minister of Malaysia. This was followed in June by the opening of the parallel Commuter Rail Service (CRS), whose trains have accommodation more appropriate to the needs of daily commuters and airport workers rather than airline passengers. CRS stops intermediately at three stations, including the new city of Putrajaya.

KLIA Ekspres has in-town check-in, although this is currently only available for Malaysian Airlines' passengers, the main operator at the airport. Just as on Heathrow Express in London, bags are securely containerised. The containers are taken to a special baggage compartment on the train and then to the airport where they are off-loaded. The contents of the containers are security scanned and transferred to their flights on the airport baggage handling system. The entire container handling system was engineered by Marco Trailers, Britain, which also dealt with the Heathrow Express and Madrid installations.

There are firm plans for in-town checkout too for KLIA, which will be a world first for an airport express. A range of additional facilities is needed in order to provide the ability to check bags from, for example, Amsterdam Schiphol to Kuala Lumpur Sentral station.

First, bags need to be labelled with the station code of XKL rather than the airport code of KUL. It proved quite difficult to get airline acceptance of this. A fundamental problem is that it is uneconomic to sell an integrated ticket between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur Sentral at the moment, although the problem is being worked on.

This is because the ticketing organisatons--the Global Distribution Systems (GDSs)--make the same flat charge for a [pounds sterling]500 Schiphol-KLIA air ticket as they do for an [pounds sterling]8 KLIA-Kuala Lumpur Sentral rail ticket. The amount left is insufficient for the railway, especially if it also has to pay commission, a credit card charge, and a bank transfer charge. So because passengers do not have a ticket (a contract of carriage) for the final rail sector, the airlines are reluctant to check bags through for the entire journey.

This is being overcome by the negotiation of a special annex to a recommended practice of IATA, the airlines' trade body.

Secondly, baggage handling equipment at KLIA needed to be upgraded so that the last bag off the aircraft could reach the train within 30 minutes of the plane coming to a standstill. This is essential because the bag needs to arrive at Sentral station within 30 minutes of the passenger. Siemens is currently upgrading the system at the airport.

On-train facilities are already there, of course, for the outbound journey.

The baggage handling system at Sentral station is also already in place, with two airport-style reclaim belts. Customs facilities have also been built at the station.

World First

Another world first is in Madrid, where the first city-centre check-in on a metro is in operation. Line 8 of the metro has been progressively extended and now runs from Barajas via the airport to the new office centre of Nuevos Ministerios, where there is an interchange with numerous metro and local rail lines. At Nuevos Ministerios, there are 34 check-in desks for Iberia, Portugalia, Air Europa, Alitalia, and Lan Chile. Passengers checking-in there are issued with a boarding card which is valid for travel on the metro to the airport.

As in many other cities, the city-centre check-in deadline is two hours before flight departure for those with hold baggage and one hour for those with just hand baggage.

Madrid uses a similar system to that of Heathrow Express and KLIA Ekspres, whereby bags are containerised and transferred by metro train in a special compartment to the airport where they are offloaded and the contents taken to the airport baggage system.

For those not checking-in at Nuevos Ministerios, or those on an inbound journey, generous baggage stacks are provided on the trains, although obviously, this is at the expense of seating. The system is clearly designed for large numbers, with ample lifts and banks of escalators. At major points, including interchanges with other metro lines, flight information displays are also provided.

Newest Airport Station

Europe's newest airport station opened on December 15 2002 at Leipzig-Halle in Germany. The new FlughavenExpress service operates at 30-minute intervals between the airport, the Leipzig Messe exhibition centre, and Leipzig main station. The 20km trip takes 14 minutes. InterCity trains will call at the new airport station from June 30 offering direct hourly-interval services to Halle and Magdeburg, and at two-hourly intervals to Dresden. There are plans to introduce a checked-baggage service from these cities. Research shows that passengers would be willing to pay a premium for this.