On Wednesday 20 October, at Geneva station, teams from SNCF and CFF, the Swiss railways, celebrated the 40th anniversary of Lyria (known as Ligne de Cœur until 2002). The Franco-Swiss service was inaugurated on 27 September 1981.in the wake of the opening of the Paris-Lyon high-speed line. From a journey time of almost 6 hours, Paris-Geneva was then down to 4 hours 15 minutes, with two connections a day. By comparison, the journey time today is 3 hours 11 minutes, with 8 round trips a day. The cities of Lausanne in 1984, then Basel and Zurich in 1997, were then linked to the French capital. " Lyria is an undeniable success with almost 5 million passengers in 2019. The train is the modern, environmentally-friendly way to travel" said a delighted Jean-Pierre Farandou, CEO of SNCF, which owns 74% of the joint venture.
17 round trips between France and Switzerland from April 2022
Planned for 2020, Lyria's major expansion project has been scuppered by the health crisis. Frequencies have dwindled along with traffic levels, penalised further by the quarantine required of passengers by the Swiss authorities from December 2020 to last June. A somewhat tedious form must always be completed online via smartphone or laptop when entering Switzerland.
This " supply shock" as Lyria CEO Fabien Soulet puts it, is back on track, with a two-stage ramp-up in December and April 2022. Paris-Geneva will thus increase to 7 return flights next Decemberthen to 8 in April 2022. For their part, the Paris-Zurich route will increase to 5, then 6 frequencies and the Paris-Lausanne route to 6 return flights in April 2022, including 3 via Geneva. " Lyria will then offer 17 daily return services, representing no fewer than 18,000 seats between France and Switzerland, compared with more than 13,000 in 2019, prior to Covid." he enthuses.
Lyria's Business Première rivals air travel
The 30 % increase in capacity does not seem to frighten the company, which is still far from having recovered its pre-crisis volumes. " Two-thirds of business passengersas well as our global travellers, were back in September." admits the CEO, who believes that the fundamentals of Lyria are still there. He goes on to cite the centre-to-centre connections, which optimise working time, the 15 renovated trains, wifi and a high quality service. business-class catering in Business Première.
Prepared by Michelin-starred chef Michel Roth, a hot meal will be served during mealtimes and a light snack in between. At Paris-Lyon station, customers in this class, created in 2017, also benefit from theaccess to the Business Première corner of the Grand Voyageur lounge and fast passage through platform entry controls. To take advantage of these services, passengers must pay €195 for a single ticket between Paris and Geneva or Lausanne, €199 to Basel and €225 to Zurich. To boost traffic, attractive Standard and Standard 1st fares are available, from €29 and €49 respectively.
The health crisis has heightened environmental concerns
Lyria is all the more confident in this strategy of relaunching its offer as this long crisis at Covid is generating additional business customers. " We have never signed so many business contracts as we did this spring. There are a clear change in policy as part of their CSR commitments which favours rail over air. This shift is particularly noticeable in Zurich, 4 hours from Paris, as Lyria already has a market share of 50 % in Geneva, 3 hours 11 minutes from the capital. These new travel policy rules are also very well respected by Swiss-German travellers." says Fabien Soulet.
While Lyria faces competition on these three routes from the airports of Geneva, Zurich and Basel-Mulhouse, a study commissioned from the Swiss consultancy Infras clearly shows its case. The carbon emissions of a global train journey would be twenty times smaller than a plane, 14 times less than a car and even 8 times less than an electric vehicle. " We had to carry out this study, which takes into account all of the ecosystems linked to the train, because companies were asking for highly accurate carbon balances" he explains. Some of the new company contracts signed relate to the carbon savings made by their employees. " Lyria has contracts to suit all types of company, depending on their size and annual consumption on our lines" added the Lyria CEO.
What about tomorrow?
At the ceremony, SBB CEO Vincent Ducrot also expressed his desire to expand. With the holidays of his compatriots in mind, these desires include more towards the southLyon and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes or Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regions. Maybe even Barcelona one day...
