SNCF will sell 500,000 additional seats in trains this summer to meet "record" demand, CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou announced on Thursday.
“We are off to a record summer, even beyond 2019 (…) we have already sold eight million tickets for July and August, this is 10% more than in 2019, so we are seeing a very strong push “, he declared on France 2, specifying that the SNCF was going to “set up 500,000 additional places in the face of this success”.
Strikes in the background
The trains are, according to Jean-Pierre Farandou, full on the days of the big departure but "there are places left" outside of these periods.
Various strike movements are currently agitating the SNCF, particularly in Île-de-France with traffic disrupted by works which lead to last-minute changes to the schedules of drivers, denounced by the unions.
Wage demands have also been added to the protests.
"A difficult time"
Asked about these movements, Jean-Pierre Farandou recognized a "difficult period", particularly in the Paris region for users and drivers, and indicated that discussions with the social partners were "engaged" with "all options" on the table.
“I try to practice a social dialogue of solution and construction and not too much a social dialogue of obstruction (…) which penalizes users and customers”, he said, referring to a social climate “ a little tense but not just at the SNCF", in particular because of the difficulties relating to purchasing power.
Regarding the increase in ticket prices for users who face inflation, the CEO said that it would be "contradictory to want to develop traffic and have high prices" and that, despite the increase of the price of electricity, the repercussion on the costs for the SNCF would not be “too significant” in 2022 thanks to purchases made in advance.
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