29.12.2010
Copenhagen Airport and DSB sign strategic partnership agreement
DSB and Copenhagen Airports (CPH) have signed a strategic partnership agreement. The first step in the partnership was direct DSB InterCity express trains every half hour between Jutland/Funen and Copenhagen Airport that begun on 12 December 2010.
The direct InterCity express trains to Copenhagen Airport represent the first step of DSB and CPH's joint strategy targeting business customers in southern and eastern Jutland, Funen and southern Sweden.
With this initiative, rail services will obtain an even larger market share, said Søren Eriksen, CEO of DSB.
“DSB currently has a 40% market share of traffic to and from Copenhagen Airport, and we would like to help our business customers by creating a more coherent travel experience, allowing passengers to turn travel time into working hours. The train service every 30 minutes between the centre of Aarhus and Copenhagen Airport is an obvious example of this. It is what our passengers demand, and there is great potential for growth in the business travel segment.
Major time savings
This opinion is shared by Carsten Nørland, VP, Sales and Marketing at CPH who also sees the partnership as a strengthening of Copenhagen Airport’s position in the competition with the airports at Hamburg and Stockholm.
“Very many people in Jutland, northern Germany and southern Sweden will save a lot of time and have more non-stop flights available with the more frequent rail services to Copenhagen Airport, which is one of the key traffic hubs of northern Europe,” he added.
DSB is of the same opinion and would also like to focus on Sweden, where DSB has a 25% market share of rail traffic.
Great potential
“The potential may possibly be even greater there. The Swedes are already very good at taking the train, but I see an obvious potential in marketing DSB together with Copenhagen Airport, which will put us in touch with even more Swedish business travellers,” said Søren Eriksen.
In the longer term, CPH and DSB intend to expand their partnership to include additional offers. The list of potential offers currently being discussed includes long-term parking by train stations, check-in and baggage drop at train stations, and extension of the DSB Travel Guarantee scheme to include cover of missed flights due to train delays.
“With this strengthened partnership, we wish to create value for our customers by offering them a coherent travel experience with focus on customers all the way from they arrive at the rail station until they board their flight,” said Nørland, emphasising that some of these initiatives will be implemented at a later point in time.
In addition to more trains to and from the airport, CPH and DSB intend, in the short term, to make it even easier for passengers to check in for their flights at railway stations and to get information on train departure times at the airport.