The rail connection to Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport opened today - and it looks good, with a choice of an Airport Express or a commuter train as well as in-town check-in facilities at the Airport Express's downtown terminal.

I had a look at the airport's web-site to see how well the link was publicised - after all, it could bring both business and prestige to the airport.

I went to www.bangkokairportonline.com then clicked on Transportation then on Airport Express - and got details of the express bus service into the city!

You have to click on Rail Link to get any information about the railway - and that is badly out of date. Full service is expected in early 2010! There are no links to the airport railway (note to searchers - it's on www.bangkokairporttrain.com).

Sad - and a waste of a valuable resource for the airport.

There are debates about what an Airport Express really is - express laundry? express coffee?

In Bangkok, it's the four bus routes who got in first with the brand name. In Chicago, it's the minibus (or shared-ride van) service.

It's a pity - from the customer information point of view - that we can't standardise on this!

Probably the best name is the one in (Wien) Vienna. The stunning airport express there is called the City Airport Train - what could be clearer than that?

A colleague has made the interesting suggestion that it may be time to rethink how classes of service on trains are described or branded. He comments that the standard of accommodation on many first class train services is similar to premium economy on an aircraft.

He also speculated that occupancy might rise if the service was branded Premium or Business Class, since most companies have a travel policy which is aimed at finding the best business class service.

In addition, he raises the question of airlines which offer a rail service as a complimentary feeder service between airport and specific domestic destinations for certain fare types. Should this be a premium rail service for a premium air traveler? This is likely to depend on the traveler profile and the policy of the individual carrier.

Fascinating stuff!

As an economist, I approve of the concept of providing a number of classes and therefore a number of prices. It helps to maximise revenue, and it improves customer choice.

However, one needs to be culturally aware - in particular, of what to call the two classes.

In Japanese trains, there is Ordinary Class and Green Class. On some, you pay less if you have to stand: you can also have a compartment in Green Class which costs more than the ordinary Green Class, effectively making 4 classes.

On the Dubai Metro there is Gold and Silver Class.

I'm glad the UK rail network changed form Second Class to Standard Class: the argument was that you shouldn't be calling 80% of your passengers "second class"!

Heathrow Express had a big debate about what to call its classes: they decided on First and Express (and the term 'Express' was my idea!). First and Business was decided against, on the grounds that lots of people weren't travelling first class and were not travelling on business!

Amtrak provides coach and business class on the Acela Regional trains, and business and first on the Acela Express.

I was fascinated to learn recently about the Club Car on New Jersey Transit. A group of people pay to have a dedicated car attached to one peak train each way: the car has more comfortable seating and more leg-room than the average commuter car. Passengers pay their fare to NJT and a supplement for travel in the Club Car. You can pay by the day or for a month.

Moving on to the second point, I'm pretty sure that those airlines which offer complimentary rail travel in conjunction with a flight only offer first class. I also understand that the take-up of rail is good - at one stage, people like Virgin Atlantic and Emirates were offering their preferred passengers a choice of a limo or Gatwick Express to London, and most chose the train because of its reliability.

On both the Stuttgart and Cologne to Frankfurt and the Brussels Midi - Paris CDG air-rail code shares, all rail travel is in first class.

One reason for the unpopularity of the short-lived code-share between SN-Brussels and Thalys on the Paris Gare du Nord - Brussels Airport sector was that rail travel was in Confort-2 class and not Confort-1.

I'm not sure what happens on other rail-air code-shares.

It was also interesting to see that American Airlines now offer what they call Express Seats! Customers can buy seats in the first few rows of Coach, including bulkhead seats. In addition to sitting in the front of the main cabin, the Express Seats option also includes being in Group 1 of General Boarding, providing the benefit of being among the first Coach customers to board the plane. Express Seats can only be purchased at airport Self-Service Check-In machines between 24 hours and 50 minutes before flight departure, on flights within the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

This has been done by Ryanair for a while - passengers can pay a priority boarding fee to be among the first to board - and therefore to have the best choice of seat. I do not know whether there is any limit on the number sold - could everyone buy priority boarding?

So what do you think? Should first class rail be re-branded? To what?

This station has recently become much more important to Heathrow Express users. This is because of the change in the operating pattern of the Circle Line, which now no longer serves the City directly from the Circle and District Line platforms. It's good to see that the platform environment has been much improved over the last few weeks.

The main visual impact is light. The station is much more light and airy. At the London end in particular, the area has been significantly enhanced with the demolition of some walls and overhead structures, so there is now much natural daylight.

At the other end, the out-of-use footbridge which only went to the adjacent platform has been removed. This too has created more light and more space.

Some of the clutter has also gone from the platforms.

In addition, the Next Train information system is much better.

As yet, there is no sign of a lift (elevator). This would be a major benefit to passengers with heavy luggage - and at a major London terminus handling a lot of holiday traffic as well as the Heathrow Express, this is a major issue. However, there is space, so we can hope!

Indeed, the facilities for changing level constitute the major remaining drawback. The stairs to the footbridge, the only exit from the platforms, get very congested in the peak (although the staff do their best). And there is also congestion by the ticket machines as you emerge onto the main station overbridge.

But overall, the station is significantly better than it was.

In the course of some research, I recently used a bus, rather than the Airport Express, to get from Hong Kong International Airport to downtown Hong Kong.

The A11 bus costs HK$40 (rather than the $100 of the Airport Express). Once it started off, it took over 45 minutes to get to Wan Chai (the Convention Centre area). However, it started loading 7 minutes before departure. At that time of night buses were running every 20-25 minutes: they are every 15 minutes in the peaks.

The train, running every 10 minutes, would have taken 23 minutes to Central: the free connecting shuttle bus would have taken about 10 minutes to get from there to Wan Chai but I might have had to wait for it since they run every 24 minutes.

The buses on the A11 route are the massive six-axle double deckers operated by Citybus (and others) throughout Hong Kong. They have 94 or 102 seats - reasonably comfortable, to the extent that I didn't notice the level of comfort. This one, at 20:55 on a weekday evening, was almost full.

Many of the passengers had bags: there was a big luggage stack by the exit door which got quite full.

One problem when boarding was that some passengers had self-help baggage trolleys - sometimes very full self-help trolleys. They had to load the contents and themselves onto the bus and pay their fare - something which seemed to make them forgetful of the fact that their trolley was then left lying abandoned in the way of other intending passengers!

The bus was so full that I went upstairs, where the headroom was quite low - I couldn't stand upright. A nice touch was that I could see a television screen which showed the luggage stack - so if I'd had a bag there, I could have kept it under some kind of surveillance from my upper-deck seat.

On the journey to the city on open and relatively uncrowded roads, the motion was a kind of back and forward roll, as if the top deck was trying to overtake the bottom deck and was being reined in. In the city, where speeds were lower, the ride was much more bumpy. I did manage to make notes for this blog on the move, and to transcribe them afterwards - but smooth it was not!

Before (and to a degree at) each stop, there was some shuffling of bags in the luggage stack as people extracted their own from the heap. People didn't board the bus in the reverse order of disembarkation! However, stop times seemed quite short.

There are 12 scheduled stops between airport and Wan Chai: not all were made. They were shown on LED displays.

The bus then continued to North Point. Generally the bus was limited to 80 km/h.

The Airport Express would have been more comfortable, more frequent and almost certainly quicker. However, unless passengers were just going to Central they would have had to make an easy interchange between train and shuttle-bus there. The waiting area at the airport - unlike the bus station - is under cover and air conditioned. Luggage accommodation, passenger information, headroom and seating are significantly better on the train.

From this unscientific test, value of comfort looks quite low!

The Malaysian Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat, is discussing with ERL, operator of Kuala Lumpur's Airport Express, the planned extension of the rail service to the new Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT).

He is reported to have said that financial implications as well as the overall operation and technicalities needed to be studied.

Malaysia Airport Holdings, the airport authority, is to start construction of the RM2bn terminal in the middle of the year, for completion in 2011. It will be some 1.5km from the main terminal.

The Transport Minister said he was proud of ERL for its 99.7% punctuality record over the last 6 years.

This is all eminently sensible.

The present LCCT is very difficult to access from the main terminal and the train service. This leads to major congestion in parts of the city - in particular, at Sentral Station - as buses struggle to cope with demand. The new LCCT will have a capacity of 30 million passengers: a rail link is certainly justified.

Moreover, as the Minister said, ERL has clearly demonstrated its competence over the last six years of operation: KLIA Ekspres and its associated commuter operation have always shown excellence in their operations and their commercial policies.