Opening up to rail competition is set to accelerate in 2025 with the announcement today of services to Marseille by Trenitalia on a Paris-Lyon-Marseille axisIt is the busiest and, above all, the most lucrative for SNCF. " We are currently waiting for the final authorisation to go on the road in 2025." the Italian airline confirmed to us this morning, without divulging any further details about this new offer. However, some reports suggest that there will be two daily return flights to Lyon. This would reinforce the five rotations currently offered between Paris and Lyon.
Having entered the French high-speed market in 2021 with its Paris-Milan service, Trenitalia has been looking for new avenues of development for several months following the outage of this line in August 2023 after major rockfalls in the Maurienne valley. The complete reopening of this route, which has been postponed several times, is now scheduled. in the first quarter of 2025. But some of the professionals interviewed are not very confident about this new timing.
SNCF strikes back with transalpine service in 2026
Faced with Trenitalia's growing power in France, SNCF has decided to respond by launching a number of high-speed lines from 2026. in Italybetween Turin and Venice, but even more so between Turin, Milan, Rome and Naples. As with Spain, this attack on the transalpine market should be carried out under the Ouigo brand, its low-cost offering, in order to stand out from Trenitalia's Frecciarossa trains and the Italo trains of the NTV group, which belongs to the Italian-Swiss shipowner MSC. Ouigo will enable SNCF to quickly establish itself in Italy, where the company is aiming for a 15% market share by 2030.
