The Twiliner night bus, billed as Europe’s first overnight coach service with fully lie-flat seats, can now be booked through Omio, the multimodal travel booking platform. The move puts a premium sleeper bus alongside trains, flights and ferries in one search for travellers moving between some of Europe’s busiest business cities.
For UK business travellers, the appeal is simple. Board in a city centre in the evening, sleep through the journey and step off in another city the next morning, without the airport transfer, security queue or an extra hotel night on the expenses claim. It also offers an option on routes where convenient night trains are thin on the ground.
Which routes does the Twiliner night bus serve?
Two European routes are bookable on Omio at launch. The first runs Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg, Basel and Zurich, linking the Benelux business hubs with Switzerland’s financial centre. The second connects Barcelona, Girona, Bern and Zurich.
Departures run almost daily on both lines, and Twiliner has announced plans to grow its network over the coming years, with the aim of reaching around 30 European destinations.
Seats fold fully flat and come with bedding, onboard Wi-Fi, charging, a reading light, a fold-out table and storage. Passengers also get a spacious restroom and a separate changing room, complimentary coffee and water, a luggage allowance and an onboard snack bar.
Facundo Viguie Aleman, CMO at Omio, said: “Travellers are looking for more choice in how they move across Europe, especially when it comes to comfortable, low-stress overnight journeys. By adding Twiliner to Omio, we are making it easier for customers to discover and book a premium night bus experience that helps them travel while they sleep and arrive ready for the day ahead.”
Luca Bortolani, CEO at Twiliner, said: “We built Twiliner on a simple idea: overnight travel across Europe can be comfortable enough that you don’t have to choose between resting and getting somewhere. But no single operator can make sustainable travel the obvious choice on its own; it takes an ecosystem of partners working together. Being part of Omio means more travellers discover that option exactly when they’re comparing how to get from A to B, and can choose to arrive rested instead of rushed.”
What a sleeper bus means for business travel
The practical case rests on time and cost. A traveller finishing meetings in Brussels at the end of the day would normally face either a late flight or a hotel stay before an early departure for Zurich. An overnight bus folds the journey and the accommodation into one booking, freeing the evening and the following morning for work.
It is worth being realistic about the trade-offs. A coach journey through the night is longer than a flight, and how rested a traveller arrives will depend on how well they sleep on the move. Travel managers weighing the Twiliner night bus against flights may want to trial it with a few willing employees before writing it into travel policy, and check that expense rules treat a combined transport and overnight fare fairly.
There is also a sustainability angle. Many companies now report on the carbon footprint of work trips, and ground transport on these corridors gives them a lower-emission alternative to short-haul flying. It sits alongside the growing number of new overnight sleeper routes making Europe easier to explore by train, as well as EU moves to make cross-border rail travel a one-ticket affair.
Booking overnight bus travel in Europe through Omio
Adding the Twiliner night bus to Omio means travellers can compare it directly with other ways of making the same trip, rather than visiting a separate operator site. Omio works with more than 3,000 transport providers across more than 50 countries, covering train, bus, flight and ferry options.
For businesses that already use the platform, that makes it easier to see whether the night bus beats a morning flight on price and journey time for a particular meeting. It also follows other moves to simplify European ground travel for corporate bookers, including Trainline’s expanded partnership with Amex GBT for European rail.
