Operators are losing ground to platforms in ticket sales: Trainline already sells 13% of Madrid-Barcelona seats

The success of the liberalization of Spanish high speed has allowed the number of travelers to increase by 47% since 2019 and ensure that in the last two years the use of this mode of transport has grown as much as in the previous ten. The keys to this commercial boom are basically two: the competition of Iryo and Ouigo to Renfe that has made cheaper the prices by more than 40% in practically all brokers and the largest offer on the market.

But liberalization and the trade war between operators has brought more news. With the arrival of competition and the greater use of the train, the capacity of the platforms that consolidate the offer of all operators to reach all travelers has also increased. Among them stands out Trainline, which despite being present in Spain since 2016, is now growing at dizzying rates compared to the Renfe monopoly stage.

«In the last two years we have gone from a minuscule market share, of around 1% on the main routes, to a share of 13% on Barcelona-Madrid, one of our three best-selling routes in all of Europe. We also sell 16% of tickets on the Madrid-Valencia route, and one in ten on the Madrid-Seville, Madrid-Málaga and Madrid-Alicante routes,” he explains. Pedro García, head of Trainline in Spain.

The plans of the platform of British origin involve raising these quotas, sometimes with the help of the operators and other times by making available their offer, which they must share with the marketers. With market data from the CNMC, reaching a share of 16% of the seats sold in a corridor like Madrid Barcelona – which with an occupancy of 102.7% and utilization of 84.1% is the most profitable in the network – would make Trainline the third largest brand on the network, at the same level as Ouigo (16.2% share in the corridor) and AVLO, Renfe’s low-cost brand. The obvious difference is that Trainline – which does not give figures about its turnover in Spain – does not have trains. García assures that almost one in five tickets they sold last year were “incremental”, that is, they would not have been marketed without the platform having offered them in a single showcase with all the options, simplifying the trip.

In fact, the commercial logic of the high-speed market evolves in parallel with the maturation of the market and the platform follows it closely. On the most profitable routes such as Madrid Barcelona, ​​lThe drop in prices caused by liberalization has already hit rock bottomto the relief of the Ministry of Transportation, which on more than one occasion has indicated that price competition had exceeded what was reasonable or even legal. In the last quarter, prices for this corridor grew by 1% for the first time since the entry of competition.

In these two years, the high-speed train has carved out a niche for itself that has taken over the train and the car. “The Spaniards are very clear about their preferences,” says the person in charge of Trainline regarding the role that the railway has assumed, “While the majority (65%) choose the train over the plane for its comfort, they are followed by the speed of the trains (46%) and the more affordable prices (42%). %)”, he explains.

In any case, there is a stage that seems to be making its way. «We expect a diversification of the offer, with operators adjusting their services to different user profiles and expanding hours and frequencies. The introduction of additional services and the improvement of the onboard experience will also be key to strengthening competitiveness,” says García. In this scenario, the person in charge of Trainline sees an advantage for offer aggregators in presenting travelers with combinations of all available services, facilitating comparison and simplifying it not only in prices but in everything else.