Paris Charles de Gaulle is among the few airports in the world that benefits from a high-speed passenger rail station in the terminal. That intermodal connectivity allows Air France to be among the leading airlines offering air-rail connections, whereby passengers book combined flight and train journeys on a single ticket. But having an intercity rail station in the terminal does not mean the passenger experience is good. There is little signage directing travelers who arrive off a domestic France flight and are connecting to a train on an Air France Train + Air ticket. If they have checked luggage, travelers must claim their bags at baggage claim and transfer them themselves to the train. And, until last fall, they needed to stop at an Air France office in the high-speed TGV rail station to collect their train ticket. “The experience was not so good,” Air France CEO Anne Rigail said of the airline’s Train + Air connections at Charles de Gaulle. And the numbers show that: Only about 160,000 passengers annually book joint air-rail tickets on Air France. That compares to the roughly 575,000 passengers that used Lufthansa’s similar air-rail offering with Deutsche Bahn at its Frankfurt hub before the pandemic. Now, Rigail wants to boost those air-rail numbers with what some might call its an out-of-the-box approach: Making the transfer experience good. Air France expanded its Train + Air program to 33 routes from Charles de Gaulle during the pandemic. Rigail wants to further expand the number of routes, including to destinations where “there is no airline service.” And, beginning late last year, Air France improved the digital experience by allowing travelers to check in for their entire journey — both flights and trains — on the Air France app. “What we want to do … you come by train, you can drop your luggage immediately with a drop-off facility that is really connected to the station,” Rigail said. “And the ultimate experience is to go directly to a people mover to reach your boarding gate. That’s the intention. It won’t be quick to deliver, but we are definitely working on it with our partners.”<br/>