It’s a pretty obvious point if you think about it.
If all of Ryanair’s planes were all running full, all the time, what would Michael O’Leary (CEO of Ryanair) do?
He’d order more planes.
And yes, that’d mean more maintenance facilities and more staff and more costs. But it would also mean more passengers transported and more profit for Ryanair.
And if Ryanair were not in a position to do this, someone else in the airline industry – be it Easyjet or Wizzair or Lufthansa – would.
What does the railway industry do in a similar situation?
Complain at worst. Do little at best.
What do I hear from the state owned railway companies, represented by Community of European Railways in Brussels, in response to the idea that the European Union needs a new legal framework to fix cross border railway ticketing? It is essentially – and I paraphrase – “why do we even need to solve this ticketing problem because our international trains are already full?”
Well yes, this is largely true.
But what would O’Leary do?
He’d buy more planes.
So, rail companies, how about buying more trains?
“But the infrastructure is full” – and that is where we end up (see Alberto’s insightful comment here).
Except – borne out of my by now ridiculously comprehensive research and travels EU-wide by train – in very, very many cases it is not the case.
You could almost triple Bruxelles-Paris capacity on existing infrastructure. You could easily up Paris-Barcelona from 2 or 3 trains per day to 6 by extending services to Perpignan across the border. You could easily run an hourly service on Berlin-Warszawa. An hourly service on Verona-München. Direct trains Madrid-Lisboa. Some sort of service on Leipzig – Wrocław – Kraków via Horka where currently there is none. Hell, SNCF has even reduced its number of available TGVs from 482 to 377.
Don’t get me wrong – there are places in Europe where lack of infrastructure capacity is the constraint. Germany’s rail network is in particular overloaded and decrepit. On some routes – especially anything through the Ruhrgebiet or Frankfurt am Main – it’s next to impossible to squeeze in anything extra.
But to put this another way: there is a hell of a lot more railways could do with existing infrastructure.
That then is one reason why this EU-wide ticketing business matters. Make it easier to book cross border trips, that should mean an increase in passenger numbers, and that then should force railway companies to provide more services (and yeah, something better than a token once a day Paris-Berlin that we’re supposed to applaud).
But more widely if we want more trains, someone has to build more trains and run more trains. And the message, pretty clearly, from many of the state owned railway companies is that they are not really interested in that (not least as protection of national market is more important than improved international services). There are some exceptions – ČD, ÖBB, SNCB, NS, Trenitalia and PKP IC are steadily expanding their international offer. Some private firms like European Sleeper and Westbahn would like to expand as well. But a major step up is hard – due to a lack of rolling stock. Furthermore if you are a small private operator it is hard to raise the funds to acquire new trains.
Overall though, perhaps this is an issue of mentality above all: does the railway sector really want to step up? Really want to make the step change in international services that customers would need? Faced with the climate crisis and the urgent need to decarbonise our transport systems, that rail needs to do a lot better is obvious. And even – dare I say it – learn a little from Michael O’Leary.
Yes, on paper, airlines would place more orders.
BUT:
– the order booklets of Airbus+Boeing are full I until 2028 or so, not too mention the bottlenecks arising from quality problems at Boeing. Comac has no substantial capacity at the moment.
– airport congestion is a rising issue
– airlines run on very thin and fragile profit margins, and Ryanair now has to cope with this issue, as some of their cost savings were not sustainable
Granted, railway operators often lack ambitions and so do the transport authorities when it comes to PSO.
In 🇲🇫, there will never be 860 Regio2N/Omneo EMUs. Not will we ever see 1,000 Regiolis/Coradia Liner in use. Unlike the framework orders placed in 2010.
Accross the Pyrenees, orders placed for S-452, 453 and 480 will hardly be enough to retire older stock. Suffice it to say that in 2024, the workhorse of Renfe-MD remains S-440/470 delivered 50yrs ago…
Sure, I am not saying airlines do not have constraints. It is simply that how the companies set about finding ways around those constraints is very different. The attitude is different.
Would it be possible that SNCF is suffering from the shock of the 2010s mindset and changes (very high TACs, higher prices, loss of ridership, looking at the profitability of individual types of trains and routes), and is not able to react quickly enough to the current increased demand?
I’m just speculating here, but if Ryanair faced a similar situation—new taxes, harsh external competition— they would probably close down these routes and start others (vote with their feet) elsewhere, in smaller airports/regions they could bully—they don’t have any commitment with any land after all—, wouldn’t have trouble making people redundant, and would also benefit from the existing flexibility of the aviation sector: fewer models of aeroplanes, quickly and cheaply delivered, mature leasing sector, planes can be moved to any other part of the world.
Ryanair is of course not a great role model. They don’t care if they are just inducing demand or externalising harm of any kind. But Europe needs to consider how to materially deliver certain flexibility to the railways: Flexible, standardised material, able to run anywhere, available for hire.
You can sort of explain how SNCF has got itself into the predicament in which it finds itself, but absconding them of all blame here is also wrong in my view – faced with similar sorts of constraints other state owned railway firms in Europe have responded rather differently, and none has gone into the sort of reduction spiral that SNCF has. There was a meltdown on Twitter/X by Krakovitch from SNCF a few weeks ago when he was angry that customers were angry at SNCF. Well hello! Behave like shits towards your customers and – surprise, surprise! – they’ll be angry. Compare how SNCF has behaved to the way ČD has behaved when facing external pressures and they’re miles apart.
And SNCF shows no real willingness to even try to react to increased demand – they are indeed proud of the high percentage of trains that are fully booked. NO! Run more trains! But they (and the French government) do not see it this way.
(and sure, I loathe O’Leary too – but his “I’m going to solve this problem in front of me” approach is rare in the rail sector, sadly)
Well. part of the raison d’être for Proxxima is that the 🇲🇫 Government has recently rejected plans by SNCF Voyages to buy another 15 TGV M sets that would have been running on Paris – (South)West, where demand keeps increasing steadily.
OK, and fair enough to whoever sees an opportunity, *but* what nags at me here is how to allocate responsibility in this SNCF vs the French government game. Sure, the government keeps a tight reign on spending, but likewise SNCF does not make a positive case for expansion either. It looks like a sort of mutually managed cycle of comparative decline. That’s no good for anyone.
Not good for anyone, I wish it were considered likewise by decision-makers.
All the contrary, SNCF Voyages management sees this as a promise for guaranteed higher yields.
Meanwhile, the government is happy to cash in rising dividends…
And even if setting those dividends aside, SNCF-Voyages pays track user charges for LGV PSE and ATL way ABOVE full infra costs… Not really in line with EU Law.