Iryo stands up to Renfe’s AVE and has already transported 14 million passengers in Spain since the first Frecciarossa was launched on the Madrid-Barcelona line on November 25, 2022. The company’s CEO, Simone … Gorini defends the commitment to the “quality” of his brand in an environment of very aggressive competition, and points out that rates will rise to adjust to the value that the high-speed rail product “deserves.”
-How has 2024 been for Iryo? Can you say something about the results?
-The numbers for 2024 are phenomenal. We have opted for quality with the risk that it entails when there is competition quite focused on price. Almost eight million passengers traveled with us last year and we have already reached 14 million passengers since we started two years ago. These are incredible numbers, we have had occupancy rates of 73% on average per train. It is a lot because there are trains that are less full at certain times and we have many at 100%.
-Do you then consider that Iryo is already profitable? What do you expect from 2025?
-No, we cannot say this yet. The results are not yet available. In 2025 we have to consolidate. When you offer quality at this level, the most important challenge is to continue to live up to it and improve.
-Have the alliances in multimodality (Alsa buses been the last to partner) borne fruit?
-They are very young alliances and at first you don’t get big numbers. But it has helped us grow in passengers.
-The Italian state railway company Trenitalia already has 51% of Iryo. Do you change anything about your strategy? Why does the Italian State want to have control of the company?
-It doesn’t change anything. We have three partners (Trenitalia, Air Nostrum and Globalvia, the last two Spanish) who support us a lot and believe in us and this helps us achieve the good results we are achieving. The relationship between the three is very good and this is what generates the necessary climate in the company to continue growing.
Ouigo prices
«It seems ugly to talk about the competition’s prices, I prefer to look at what I have at home»
-Is Trenitalia going to continue climbing its shareholding?
-No, it is not something that is talked about today. It has increased by 6% more to 51% of the shareholding, but the two partners Air Nostrum and Globalvia continue to maintain their position and participation in this project.
– Can the fact that Italy already controls the majority of Iryo prove Minister Puente right when he says that the price war in high speed is between States and not between private companies?
-We continue to be a private company with three partners. Two private and one public, but with the same attitude of a private partner, so we want profitability. The three partners are betting on this private company, the only private high-speed company in Spain. We have a very good, constant and constructive relationship with the Ministry of Transport, as we also have with Renfe and Adif.
-Does Puente think that Ouigo’s prices are very low?
-I prefer to look at what I have at home because our job is to provide a different product. The market values it well at a certain price, which is now rising little by little. I find it a bit ugly to start making comments about competitors. I prefer to look at my company.
-Now it does seem that operators are beginning to gradually raise prices.
-In all markets that are liberalized there is a first phase that is more aggressive in prices. But little by little prices have to rise to make it profitable. High speed is an important product that deserves the price it deserves. Prices will rise, but they will never return to those of the monopolistic system. It’s happening in Europe.
-Do you think there is railway chaos in Spain?
-I don’t see that there is railway chaos in Spain. The punctuality of our trains is very good, 83%, and this depends on the infrastructure manager (Adif). Such high punctuality means that the system works well. It is true that you can have two or three difficult days, but for some specific incident. But this does not mean that there is railway chaos. When there are complicated situations I think they are managed quite well.
-Adif is going to launch the second phase of the liberalization of high-speed railway lines. Will Iryo show up? Which brokers are you interested in?
-The information is still scarce. The number of operators per route and frequencies remains to be known. To say whether it is interesting or not for us we need more information. We would not like to take a step back, because we are interested. There are routes that are a little more interesting like the Madrid-Galicia route, but there are others that should be valued more like Asturias or the South (Cádiz, Huelva).
-Are you concerned about Talgo’s industrial capacity problems? The Avril train is the only alternative apart from CAF to go up North…
-We have always worked with Frecciarossa and now we have to buy different trains than the ones we have. That is the question for us. We know the Frecciarossa very well and that is why we have had no problems when we started with the new ones in Spain. But we don’t know Avril. If we have to buy it, we have to value it well. We must take into account that we already have an internal organization with Hitachi, a maintenance workshop… many details must be examined from an organizational point of view. But for the moment our interest will depend largely on what Adif determines in the tender. Then we will evaluate well from the technical point of view.
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