A European airline is buying train tickets for its customers on a 108-mile journey to encourage passengers to fly less

• KLM's CEO told Politico: "We are moving our customers from plane to train."
• The Dutch airline has been buying tickets on the high-speed Thalys train from Amsterdam to Brussels.

KLM, the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands, is buying train tickets for its customers traveling from Amsterdam to Brussels, Politico reported.

"We are moving our customers from plane to train," CEO Marjan Rintel told Politico.

Traveling between the capital cities of the Netherlands and Belgium takes 45 minutes by plane, or 1 hour 38 minutes on the high-speed train Thalys.

At 108 miles, that's about the same distance as Los Angeles to San Diego, or Wall Street to the tip of Long Island.

KLM is doing this partly due to pressure on the aviation industry to reduce its carbon footprint, with the airline having launched a "Fly Responsibly" campaign back in 2019.

There have, however, also been issues at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, the airline's hub. The Dutch government won a court appeal against KLM last Friday to reduce the airport's annual number of flights from 500,000 to 440,000, AeroTime reported.

KLM first piloted the train-ticket scheme last summer, replacing one of its four daily Amsterdam-Brussels flights with the rail service.

Then in February, it announced it was buying tickets on four more Thalys trains for passengers transferring between the two airports.

Since then, KLM has purchased tickets for eight trains — four in each direction, an airline spokesperson told Insider.

"We have purchased as much capacity as possible on trains that match the arrival and departure time of the flights," the spokesperson said.

Although the pilot scheme also found it needed easier transfers for passengers, luggage assistance, and communication with customers who might be unfamiliar with Thalys.

"These obstacles must be removed before KLM can permanently replace flights to and from Brussels with rail capacity," the airline said in the press release.

"To accomplish this, KLM will need all of its Action Plan partners to cooperate. After all, it has no control over the trains, the railway platforms or the airport."

And Rintel told Politico: "If there are connections, if the connections are good, if they arrive at Schiphol, if they run also in the weekends, we are more than willing to stop flying to Brussels."