To accelerate the building of a national comprehensive transport system that provides multi-tiered and integrated services, CAAC and China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (China Railway) recently signed the Strategic Cooperation Agreement to Promote High-Quality Development of Air-Rail Intermodal Transport. According to the Agreement, the two sides will further deepen reform and innovation to promote the “hard connectivity” of infrastructure in civil aviation and railway planning and construction, and the “soft connectivity” of the arrangements, standards, and information of transport services, so as to fully leverage the combined advantages of air and rail transport to promote high-quality development of intermodal transport, better meeting the people’s needs for air-rail intermodal transport services of higher quality.
In recent years, CAAC and China Railway have maintained close collaboration. The two sides have worked together in air-rail intermodal transport area, including enhancing infrastructure, innovating products, improving services, facilitating information sharing, and promoting demonstration projects, jointly advancing the integrated development of comprehensive transportation services. In terms of the “hard connectivity” of infrastructure, 24 airports have established direct links to railway stations. As for the “soft connectivity”, Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, and Spring Airlines have taken the lead in connecting their ticket booking systems with the railway’s system, achieving system integration between airlines’ apps and the railway ticket booking app 12306, allowing passengers to seamlessly purchase air-rail intermodal tickets on either app.
