EasyJet’s rail deal highlights new airline sector way of selling trains and flights

EasyJet and Deutsche Bahn began selling in late July combination tickets that include flights and rail travel, Skift has learned. The deal is notable for a behind-the-scenes aspect. Europe’s second-biggest discount airline is using a new method to sell the tickets from the German railway operator. “It’s going to send shockwaves in the industry because rail is finally sexy,” said Ann Cederhall of LeapShift, a UK-based travel brand retailing consultancy. Other carriers, such as Air France, Avianca, and Vueling, are also embracing this method to sell long-haul flights from other providers. But rail is a hot topic. Airlines are paying renewed attention to rail partnerships after the French government required cuts to domestic flights in exchange for billions in state aid during the pandemic and Germany is looking at parallel steps in demanding minimum flight prices to discourage cheap short-haul flights. The countries want to encourage train travel, which is believed to generate fewer carbon emissions. EasyJet’s move relies on partnerships involving application programming interfaces, or APIs, or data feeds that rail and airline partners can plug into, rather than use older, hard-coded systems that are often less agile. Software engineers in sectors such as advertising and financial technology have long relied on APIs. While airlines have used APIs for years for certain tasks, they have been slow to adopt robust, modern versions of this data-sharing tool to sell partners’ airfares, rail, and other content. “The benefit of an API partnership is primarily cost savings,” Cederhall said. “With an API partnership, it’s just you and the partner splitting the money. No waiting for settlement three months from now. You avoid the fees a clearinghouse may charge for classic interline. You can spin it up in a few weeks to see if there’s demand, making it easier to test routes and see if customer demand truly exists — rather than waiting six or nine months via a traditional tech implementation.”<br/>