Air France to launch high-speed trains
08 September 2008
Airline Air France is expected to launch its high-speed trains in 2010, French daily Le Parisien announced today. The airline will team up with Veolia to create a joint subsidiary as early as next Monday to “prepare the launch of private high-speed trains, to compete with those of SNCF, the state transport company in France, as soon as the international traffic of passengers will be opened to competition,” the daily writes.
"The date of September 15 is not on Air Frances agenda," a spokesman of the French company said, but confirmed anyway that since July the group has been negotiating with Veolia Transport. Air Frances high-speed trains are expected to connect Paris with Amsterdam or London. With this new strategy Air France "takes note of the reduction of the air traffic on the routes of less than three hours," Le Parisien writes. This adds to the rise of the diesel oil price, the newspaper continues. Also according to Le Parisien Air France have struck contacts with Alstom for the acquisition of AGV (high-speed electro trains) capable of circulating at 350 kilometres per hour.