The problems that the French are causing Renfe to be able to reach Paris are giving the Spanish public operator time to put together a better prepared offensive the day the battle begins. The connection between Barcelona and the French capital by AVE is already planned at a commercial level, just waiting to obtain permits from the infrastructure manager and the approval of the new trains, which it is not known when they will arrive.
Once it is assumed that this will not happen before the Olympic Games this summer, the staff of the Renfe International division are focusing all their efforts on shaping a domestic high-speed line that will one day circulate exclusively through France: the Paris- Lyon, which in some of its circulations will extend to Marseille. It is the most sought-after corridor in the neighboring country, the closest thing to the Barcelona-Madrid in which the French operator SNCF has become strong through its low-cost brand Ouigo.
What Renfe intends to do, in a certain way, is to play the same card that its French counterpart SNCF has done between the two large Spanish cities, relying on a liberalization of the sector at the European level that should be the same for everyone in both places. although today it is much more open in Spain than in France. Of course, those responsible for the Spanish operator are clear that they will not offer a low-cost service in the neighboring country. Although they will obviously enter the battle with low entry prices, they want to maintain the AVE brand in France with staff on board and new trains unlike what SNCF has done with Ouigo in Spain.
“We are making a decisive commitment to a corridor with a lot of mobility,” says Susana Lozano, head of Renfe Internacional, who calculates a potential “five times greater in Paris-Lyon than Madrid-Barcelona” to account for the magnitude of the business. which opens with these high-speed domestic trains when the French infrastructure manager gives them the green light. At the same time, this aspect also helps to explain the attitude full of obstacles that SNCF Reseau is putting towards the entry of competition.
The Renfe International team, distributed between Madrid, Barcelona and Lyon, is now focused on preparing an attractive offer in the main French corridor, in which the French public company (SNCF) and the Italian one (Trenitalia) currently operate. The day the Spanish company obtains permits to enter, the “train game” that Renfe coined to receive the competition in Barcelona-Madrid will be replicated on the opposite terrain.
Apart from the domestic circulations that are being planned in France, Renfe’s objective is to quadruple its current offer of international trains, expanding the number of circulations and incorporating the new Talgo Avril trains, which will represent an increase in capacity by carrying more than 500 seats per train.
The waiting time to reach Paris is also helping the Spanish company to deploy its commercial strategy in the cities in the south of France through which it already passes with its daily circulation to Lyon and Marseille. “Use and occupancy are above expectations,” says Lozano, who estimates that the number of seats occupied is around 80% and more than half a million passengers have been transported since the Barcelona-Lyon route was launched last July. a few weeks later the Madrid-Marseille with a stop in the Catalan capital, as well as in Girona and Figueres in both cases.
They started circulating only on weekends and since October they have been doing so daily. Although at the launch there was a very aggressive pricing campaign, over time they have increased and the dynamic pricing system is applied just as on Spanish high-speed lines. The same fare policy will be followed on the undetermined day that the train to Paris is launched.
