Does an Accesrail intermodal ticket guarantee connections to and from flights?

First Great Western now provides, thanks to AccesRail, its first air-rail intermodal solution. This allows passengers to go to/from Heathrow or Gatwick Airport to their First Great Western destination of choice.

Passengers receive an intermodal ticket that covers both their flight and rail journey. Depending on which airport the passenger travels, train connections are slightly different.

If I have an intermodal ticket, does that mean I am guaranteed a connection from the train to the flight and vice versa? I mean in case of delays. At one point the Swedish railways SJ and the Swedish airline SAS had such an agreement (perhaps they still do) when connecting from the train to a SAS flight within Europe.

air-travel uk trains intermodal

Best Answer

Searching on Matrix, it is possible to find a fare from, for example, OXF (Oxford railway station) to MUC (Munich). An example fare is Carrier 9B ZNXADT OXF to LON, where 9B is the IATA code for AccesRail (in this case a National Express Coach journey) connecting to fare Carrier KL T7WKWGB LON to MUC, where KL is KLM.

The fare rules for the 9B fare contain:

Fare rules & restrictions AccesRail and Partner Railways (9B) ZNXADT OXF to LON NATIONAL EXPRESS ONE WAY FARES
APPLICATION
AREA
THESE FARES APPLY
FROM UNITED KINGDOM TO LON.
CLASS OF SERVICE
THESE FARES APPLY FOR ECONOMY CLASS SERVICE.
TYPES OF TRANSPORTATION
THIS RULE GOVERNS ONE-WAY FARES.
FARES GOVERNED BY THIS RULE CAN BE USED TO CREATE
ONE-WAY JOURNEYS. RAILWAY CONDITION APPLY.

If this is booked as one ticket, normal protection rules will apply and a missed connection would result in flight/bus/rail rebooking for following segments.