Train tickets are going like hot cakes, but even if they are a certain number to be sold out, the SNCF ensures that there are still large availabilities.
While many French people are taking summer vacations, many are panicking at the thought of not being able to travel by train. Reservations have jumped 20% on the SNCF network this year compared to last year, and places are expensive, literally and figuratively. But all may not be lost. To remedy this and leave no one on the platform, the railway company is going all out by mobilizing all of its trains.
7 out of 10 tickets are still available
The summer will be hot at the SNCF. To compensate for the lack of places, the 364 TGV trains available to the company will be on deck for the upcoming summer period. Be careful, however, not all of them will circulate in France, since the SNCF, through its low-cost company OUIGO, provides connections in Spain, between Madrid and Barcelona.
In a few years, things should be a little less complicated. Indeed, dozens of trains for the TGV M, the future SNCF train which was presented at the last edition of VivaTech, have been ordered from Alstom, which will gradually supply them to the company.
In the meantime, the company claims to have put all the trains and trains available on the rails. It indicates that 70% of tickets are still available for the months of July and August, with places which can sometimes even be reserved for destinations such as the Côte d’Azur, Languedoc or Brittany, where only half of the tickets have been sold.
Fewer and fewer tickets available for the coming weekends, hurry up!
If the offer is still substantial, many trains are already full. On axes such as Marseille-Paris (in both directions) or Paris-Bordeaux (in both directions as well), it is not uncommon to see the mention “Complete”.
We did the test, and for weekends in July, the offer is scarce, especially in the middle of the day. You still have the option of traveling early in the morning, where places are more numerous, and a little more accessible.
For this summer of 2023, the SNCF is offering 450,000 additional seats compared to 2022, by chartering new trains on certain popular routes. But there are bound to be disappointments.
Sources: Clubic, TF1SNCF
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