High-speed trains continued to gain ground compared to airplanes on the Madrid-Barcelona route during 2022, leaving the airlift with a share of 21.7%, much lower than what it reached before the pandemic, around 35 %.
In this way, according to the Annual Report of the railway sector for 2022 prepared by the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC), with respect to 2021 there was an increase of 2.5 points in the share of the train compared to the plane, going from 75.8% to 78.3%.
The CNMC attributes a large part of this increase in the use of trains compared to planes to the entry of new operators in the railway sector, since the operator Ouigo achieved a share of 26.4% on the Madrid-Barcelona route.
In fact, thanks to liberalization, the number of users on the Madrid-Valencia route doubled (110%, reaching 2.9 million), and increased significantly on the Madrid-Barcelona line (80%, up to 10.2 million) and in the rest of the corridors (60%).
Rail passenger transport in Spain was opened to competition in December 2020, although it was not until May 2021 and November 2022 when Ouigo and Iryo, respectively, began operating on the Madrid-Barcelona high-speed line.
Then, in October and December 2022, both broke into the Levante corridor (Valencia and Alicante) to compete with Renfe’s AVE and Avlo trains.
In total, during the year, 23.7 million passengers used high speed, 76% more than during the previous year.
As a whole, rail transport registered 440 million passengers, 36% more than in 2021, but 14% less than in 2019. The vast majority of these travelers (85%) used the Cercanías service.
The CNMC values ??that the subsidies approved by the Government for the lines with public service obligations boosted the number of travelers. The Cercanías (totally free) registered 31% more passengers than in 2021; and the Conventional Media Distance (also free) exceeded pre-pandemic levels: it had almost 26 million travelers, 68% more than in 2021.
On the other hand, High Speed ??Media Distance (with a 50% discount for recurring users) transported 8.5 million passengers, 90% more than in 2021 and only 3.5% less than in 2019. Conventional Long Distance registered 9.5 million passengers, 45% more than in the previous year.
Lastly, the CNMC report indicates that infrastructure access fees and railway fees reached 1,166.43 million euros in 2022, 21% more than in the previous year.
Traction energy costs grew to 376 million euros (90.5% more than in 2021 and 126.9% more than in 2019), driven by the increase in energy prices.