Emirates has signed a codeshare agreement with France's national railway company SNCF.
The deal, which comes into operation on June 8, although tickets can be booked from today, connects 19 additional French cities to the Gulf carrier's global network.
Passengers can buy one single ticket combining air and rail travel.
First and business class Emirates passengers will automatically be booked in first class on SNCF's TGV trains.
The new destinations are: Aix en Provence, Angers-Saint-Laud, Avignon, Bordeaux-Saint-Jean, Champagne-Ardenne, Le Mans, Lille-Europe, Lorraine, Lyon Part-Dieu, Marseilles Saint-Charles, Montpellier-Saint-Roch, Nantes, Nîmes, Poitiers, Rennes, Saint-Pierre-des-Corps-Tours, Strasbourg, Toulon and Valence.
Emirates is not the first airline to team up with a railway company and offer a through-ticket. For example, Singapore Airlines, Heathrow Express and First Great Western teamed up last year to form a through-ticketing partnership that allows passengers to travel from Bristol to Brisbane with a single booking (see news, January 2014).
Thierry Antinori, Emirates' executive vice president and CCO, said: "This codeshare agreement with SNCF opens up new possibilities for our passengers and complements our current services to Paris, Lyon and Nice.
"With TGV Air, travelling to the Far East from Bordeaux, or to Strasbourg from Dubai has never been easier.
"Emirates already flies more than 1.2 million passengers to and from France every year. With TGV Air, we're connecting French regions to our global network and facilitating inbound and outbound traffic."
emirates.com, uk.voyages-sncf.com
Graham Smith