Spanish Amadeus expands travel offer to central and northern Europe with Thalys

Spain’s Amadeus, a technology partner for the global travel industry,  announced this week an agreement to distribute Thalys’ services. Thalys is the international high-speed rail operator connecting Paris and Brussels with Germany and the Netherlands.

Users of Amadeus Selling Platform–Amadeus’ point of sale for travel agents–, and Amadeus e-Travel Management–the company self-booking tool for corporate users–will have access to the full range of Thalys’ fares, including corporate negotiated fares, schedules and availability to effectively compare Thalys high speed rail services with flights on specific routes.

“Thalys will be presented as a real alternative to air travel, giving the railway better market exposure, and ensuring that travellers have greater choice and transparency of options,” Amadeus said in a press release.

Travellers will also benefit from additional advantages, such as the possibility of booking a complete ticketless train travel or collecting Miles on Thalys’ loyalty programme TheCard.

According to the Spanish company, “the addition of Thalys into the Amadeus booking flow means travel agents will benefit from a more simple and faster booking process as well as from increased productivity and efficiency, thanks to automatic integration into the Amadeus Passenger Name Record (PNR ) and IATA’s Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP).”

Scheherazade Zekri-Chevallet, chief commercial and marketing officer at Thalys, said this “this agreement will allow us to compete with short-haul air travel.”