AIRail Service is offered by Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...

 AG in cooperation with Lufthansa

Lufthansa

Deutsche Lufthansa AG is the flag carrier of Germany and the largest airline in Europe in terms of overall passengers carried. The name of the company is derived from Luft , and Hansa .The airline is the world's fourth-largest airline in terms of overall passengers carried, operating...

, American Airlines

American Airlines

American Airlines, Inc. is the world's fourth-largest airline in passenger miles transported and operating revenues. American Airlines is a subsidiary of the AMR Corporation and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas adjacent to its largest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport...

 and Emirates. It is one example of several a dedicated air-rail alliances

Air-rail alliance

OverviewThere are four main types of airline-railway alliance or codeshare agreements - dedicated services, Rail&Fly, Night&Fly, and re-protection agreements. The currently active air-rail alliances are listed in the various tables below....

 currently operating worldwide.

AIRail Service is currently offered between Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof

Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof

is the Hauptbahnhof of the city of Stuttgart, the capital of the Land of Baden-Württemberg, in southwestern Germany. It is the largest regional and long-distance railway station in Stuttgart, the main node of the Stuttgart S-Bahn network, and, together with the halt at Charlottenplatz, the main...

 (the main railroad station in Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

) and Frankfurt (Main) Flughafen Fernbahnhof

Frankfurt (Main) Flughafen Fernbahnhof

Frankfurt Airport long distance railway station is a railway station at Frankfurt Airport in Germany that is served by long-distance trains, mostly ICE services running on the Cologne–Frankfurt high-speed rail line. It is the largest airport railway station in Germany with about 23,000 passengers...

 (the long distance rail station at the Frankfurt International Airport

Frankfurt International Airport

Frankfurt am Main Airport , or simply Frankfurt Airport, known in German as Flughafen Frankfurt am Main or Rhein-Main-Flughafen, is a major international airport located in Frankfurt, Germany, southwest of the city centre....

), and between the latter and Köln Hauptbahnhof

Köln Hauptbahnhof

Köln Hauptbahnhof is the central railway station in Cologne, Germany.The station is an important local, national and international hub, with many ICE, Thalys and Intercity trains calling there, as well as regional RegionalExpress, RegionalBahn and local S-Bahn trains...

 (the main railroad station in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

).

It enables all passengers between Stuttgart/Cologne and Frankfurt to check in their baggage at the stations and use the ICE

InterCityExpress

The Intercity-Express or ICE is a system of high-speed trains predominantly running in Germany and neighbouring countries. It is the highest service category offered by DB Fernverkehr and is the flagship of Deutsche Bahn...

 high speed train service to Frankfurt (first class for passengers with Business and First tickets, 2nd Class for passengers with Economy tickets) without having to carry their baggage

Luggage

Baggage is any number of bags, cases and containers which hold a traveller's articles during transit.Luggage is more or less the same concept as "baggage", but is normally used in relation to the personal luggage of a specific person or persons Baggage is any number of bags, cases and containers...

 themselves. There is a snack/drink service for passengers in 1st Class - voucher at check in.

All passengers receive their boarding passes for connecting flights on Lufthansa and several other airlines from Frankfurt immediately at the check in counters in Cologne or Stuttgart.

AIRail Service uses the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line (maximum speed of 300 km/h) and between Stuttgart and Mannheim (maximum speed of 250 km/h), rendering the train service faster and more reliable than air transport on the same route.

AIRail Service was established some decades ago, when Deutsche Bundesbahn

Deutsche Bundesbahn

The Deutsche Bundesbahn or DB was formed as the state railway of the newly established Federal Republic of Germany on September 7, 1949 as a successor of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft '...

 (now Deutsche Bahn AG) established a direct connection between Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

 and Frankfurt Airport using the DB 403 "Donald Duck"

DB Class 403

The DB Class 403 was a series of three electric multiple units commissioned by the Deutsche Bundesbahn in the 1970s, an early predecessor of the Intercity-Express as a high-speed train. The units were mainly used for InterCity services and again by the Lufthansa airline in the 1980s. Due to their...

 EMU

Multiple unit

The term multiple unit or MU is used to describe a self-propelled carriages capable of coupling with other units of the same or similar type and still being controlled from one driving cab. The term is commonly used to denote passenger trainsets consisting of more than one carriage...

 with tilting technology

Tilting train

A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide about or seated passengers to feel squashed by the outboard armrest due to...

 in Lufthansa livery.
In the 1990s they established the Stuttgart-Frankfurt connection after the high speed train line between Stuttgart and Mannheim was opened. Both services were closed due to high cost some years later.
In 2000 they re-established the service between Stuttgart and Frankfurt, now using only some seats in regular cars in standard ICE service.