The Spanish national railway company Renfe, which will launch its high-speed trains on the French market on July 13 with the Lyon-Barcelona line first, has already sold 31,000 tickets for its trains in France, it announced Thursday. . In addition to the Barcelona-Lyon line, which travels five hours, Renfe trains will run between Madrid and Marseille from July 28, with numerous intermediate stops in both Spain and France, i.e. 17 stations in total.
“We are very happy to start this way,” said Susana Lozano, the international manager of Renfe AVE (Alta Velocidad Espanola, Spanish high speed), at a press conference in Lyon, welcoming the sale in two weeks of 31,000 tickets. “One of the key aspects (of our strategy) is the internationalization of the company, and logically the French market is a natural expansion market, where we plan to settle, grow and become a reference operator”, specified to AFP Sonia Araujo, general manager of Renfe Viajeros, who presented one of the AVE trains at Lyon Part-Dieu station.
For a trip between Spain and Marseille or Lyon, the first ticket price is currently 29 euros and for a trip between Spain and Narbonne or Montpellier, 19 euros. Renfe will have “absolutely competitive prices in the air world”, affirmed Susana Lozano, while specifying that at the start of the school year, prices should adjust according to the market. The Lyon-Barcelona line, which is the most requested so far, will provide departures from Friday to Monday during the summer, then will become daily at the start of the school year, like that between Marseille and Madrid a month later.
In October, the Spanish operator will offer up to 28 weekly trips on French territory. The arrival of Renfe opens a new chapter in the liberalization of rail, desired by Brussels in order to increase competition between operators and lower ticket prices. The Spanish company hopes to extend its AVE operations to the Lyon-Paris corridor in the medium term. In France, Trenitalia was the first foreign company to take advantage of this opening, offering a service between Paris and Milan via Lyon from December 2021.
