“Rest assured, we will not pass on 100% of the costs to the customers”, guaranteed this Tuesday the boss of the SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, in reference to the increase in the price of electricity – of which the company is very concerning, alone representing 1 to 2% of national consumption. For SNCF Voyageurs, the bill should increase by 1.6 to 1.7 billion euros, he explained.
Despite the hedging system which has allowed SNCF Voyageurs to avoid buying most of its electricity at market price until today, the bill will double to around 600 million this year. “Next year, we are still covered but a little less. (…) With the price of the moment, we would have at this stage an additional cost for electricity alone of 1.6 to 1.7 billion” euros, warned Jean-Pierre Farandou.
What increase?
Half of the sum will concern the TER and Francilien (in Ile-de-France), and should be compensated by local authorities. “That’s several tens of millions a year for each of the regions,” he noted. The other half concerns the TGVs, operated at its own risk by SNCF Voyageurs. “If we directly reflected (this increase) on the cost of the ticket, we would have to increase the TGV tickets by 10%”, indicated the boss of the SNCF, speaking of a quick “table corner calculation”.
Are ticket prices really going to increase? “We have not yet decided what we are going to do,” noted Jean-Pierre Farandou. SNCF is also faced with rising wages, supply prices, cost of works, etc. “Rest assured, we will not pass 100% of the costs on to the customers,” he said, noting that “the government is following this closely too”. “In the name of the sobriety plan, there will be no cancellation of trains,” he also said.