The first stage of the liberalization of the railway sector culminates today with the entry of the third low-cost high-speed operator, Iryo, in which Air Nostrum, Globalvia and Trenitalia participate, and which this Monday begins its maiden voyage on the Madrid-Valencia route, before to begin business trips to Zaragoza and Barcelona this Friday.

In Valencia it is the coming-of-age, but this route will not officially start operating until December 16.

With the incorporation of Iryo to the low cost high speed offer, the first part of the liberalization of the railway sector in Spain is completed.

This process began on December 14, 2020, but was interrupted by the pandemic.

The other two competitors are already on the route to Barcelona: Avlo, Renfe's low-price high-speed line, which launched its first route to Barcelona on June 23, 2021, and Ouigo, from the French operator SNCF, which did so a little earlier, in May 2021.

Iryo will begin its commercial operations to this destination on Friday and on December 16 it will connect with Valencia, where Ouigo arrived in October and Avlo almost a year ago.

In March 2023 Iryo will connect with Seville, Malaga, Antequera and Córdoba and in June it will reach Alicante and Albacete.

Arrana with a fleet of 20 trains.

Its competitors have not yet specified the dates on which they will arrive at these destinations.

The objective of the operator owned by the airline Air Nostrum is to reach eight million passengers on its routes in this first phase.

Iryo won package B (the second with the highest number of frequencies after the one awarded to Avlo de Renfe) in the tender launched in 2019.

Prices

The objective of the railway liberalization was to offer a greater offer with cheaper prices to all train users.

"The liberalization has been positive because it has allowed us to have more services and offers," they acknowledge from Renfe, who believes that "the AVE, due to its commitment to punctuality, makes us the best option."

Since its launch, between Avlo and Ouigo they have already transported more than 10 million passengers on the routes on which they are present: Barcelona and Valencia.

Liberalization in theory was intended to offer better prices to the consumer.

Neither Avlo nor Ouigo specify data on the average prices of tickets sold to date.

These start from nine euros in the case of Ouigo and seven in Avlo, although they have a dynamic system, similar to that of hotels or airlines, which causes the cost to vary depending on supply and demand.

Just as there is a minimum price, there is no maximum limit.

passengers

Iryo also already has tickets for its routes for sale starting at 18 euros, although these, unlike its competitors, are open to changes by passengers.

On the first anniversary of its debut with Avlo, Renfe has transported 6.3 million passengers, both by AVE and Avlo, on its Madrid-Barcelona route.

In this line they have 54 daily frequencies, 44 for AVE and eight for Avlo.

In Valencia, Renfe has 30 (24 from AVE and six from Avlo).

The SNCF low cost has a weekly offer of five daily round trips (10 journeys) with 35,630 seats.

Today the company has a total offer in Spain of almost 100,000 weekly spaces, nearly three times the offer with which it started its operations on the Madrid-Zaragoza-Tarragona-Barcelona line (35,630).

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  • AVLO

  • ouigo

  • Renfe

  • Valencia

  • Barcelona

  • bird

  • Saragossa

  • Alicante

  • tarragona

  • Albacete

  • Cordova

  • Malaga

  • Seville