2023-09-07 12:21:19
Too expensive, not reliable enough… While the train has long suffered from a degraded image, the French seem to be returning to rail. SNCF Voyageurs broke its 2022 record this summer with 24 million passengers on the main lines. A figure up 4%, announced Thursday its CEO Christophe Fanichet.
“The French, for a long time, take the train in the summer, and they have largely anticipated their trips,” observed the leader before the Association of Transport and Mobility Journalists. TER traffic increased by 10%.
The TGV occupancy rate exceeded 80%, and 40% of them were full. The order of magnitude was the same last year, but SNCF Voyageurs sold 450,000 additional seats this year.
The competition has not overshadowed the SNCF
The Atlantic coast and the Mediterranean were particularly popular this summer, while growth is driven by “green destinations”, in particular the Alps, Burgundy and Alsace, noted Christophe Fanichet.
“We have not seen a drop in the number of passengers on our trains with the arrival of competition” from the Italian companies Trenitalia and Spanish Renfe, noted the CEO of SNCF Voyageurs, for whom “it is leisure that boosts rail traffic”. Business travel is still down 10 to 15% from pre-Covid, he regretted.
Booming night trains
International high-speed trains (including Eurostar, Thalys and Ouigo in Spain) at the same time transported 6 million passengers (+4%) and night trains 215,000 rail sleepers (+15%).
As for the TER, they saw their attendance increase by 10% in July and August, with spectacular performances in Occitanie, Pays de la Loire and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
Asked about the price of TGVs, which is often considered high, Christophe Fanichet pointed out that one out of two leisure tickets was sold this summer for less than 45 euros. One in two travelers used an Avantage card or took a low-cost TGV Ouigo, according to him.
Towards price increases in 2024?
If the rules for calculating the price of tickets with “yield management” (prices increasing as the train fills up) have not been modified, “the price increase curve has been anticipated by eight days” because the French prepared their trips earlier, he explained.
SNCF Voyageurs has increased the price of TGV tickets on average – which is not subsidized – by 5% this year, while its costs have increased by 13%, recalled the CEO. It is still too early to talk about price increases for next year because the group’s budget has not been finalized.
While the year 2022 was already radiant, the group anticipated an increase in flows this year. It had thus put on the market 450,000 additional tickets compared to a year ago. And the tickets are torn. At the beginning of September, there was a bang: the railway company put 100,000 Ouigo tickets on sale at 10 euros.
A craze that encourages the SNCF to launch new destinations to grab market share on the car. The railway giant thus plans to strengthen the offer of its “OUIGO Classic Train”, these connections on board slow trains, but at low prices. Two new trips could be offered by December 2024: a Paris-Bordeaux connection as well as Paris-Rennes.
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