Renfe’s ‘low cost’ service brand, Avlo, will substantially increase its services from next year 2024 to intermediate stations, it will also take advantage of the commissioning of its new 106 series high-speed trains to increase the number of seats and routes that offer reduced prices.
First, the cheap tickets will reach two new destinations: Galicia and Murcia. This same week Renfe has begun the tests of these new units through Galician lands. It does so with a view to launching a new route between Madrid, Zamora and Ourense from the first quarter of 2024, where it will have to be changed with other medium-distance trains. There will be four trains per direction per day that, in the future, could be extended to Santiago de Compostela, something feasible thanks to the variable gauge technology that these new units have.
For the Murcian region, where until now the low cost service is not offered and only the AVE arrives, the Renfe planes connect Madrid and Murcia with a daily train to go and another to return, also starting next year . Here it will compete, if everything continues its course, with the French operator Ouigo, which intends to launch two daily frequencies on the same route. Both offers will multiply the options of the people of Murcia to use even the capital for prices much lower than the current ones.
Renfe has also opened the door for its Avlo to reach León and Asturias, although it has conditioned its date on the opening of the Pajares variant, scheduled for the month of November. Also to the demand for the new AVE services that are launched, which will also be done with these new trains, which will double the seats offered up to now.
More Avlos to Barcelona, Valencia and Andalusia
In addition, the expected increase in the high-speed train fleet will allow increasing the offer of services to some of the destinations where Avlo already arrives. This is the case, for example, of the routes linking Barcelona and Valencia with Madrid, where competition between Renfe, Ouigo and Iryo has substantially lowered ticket prices.
The Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, obtained in an act in Catalonia that from 2024 the frequencies and the number of seats available on the AVE and Avlo routes between Madrid, Barcelona and Figueres will be increased. With the new commercial policy, the ‘low cost’ brand will also stop at intermediate stations: Girona, Tarragona, Lleida, Zaragoza and Guadalajara, meeting the demands of several of these cities.
As he revealed, the operator’s idea is that there are, altogether, 10 more frequencies in the Madrid-Barcelona corridor, going from 27 to 37. In addition, the entry into operation of the new high-speed trains of the 106 series (known as Talgo Avril) will increase the capacity of these services by 33%, up to 581 seats per train. This will allow Renfe to offer 300,000 more seats each month, increasing its offer by 40%.
The frequencies of Avlo Madrid-Valencia will also increase, from the current six (three in each direction) to ten daily (five in each direction). This will increase low-cost seats by 24,000 per week, something that not only has to do with the number of trains, but also their capacity: Renfe has announced that the models that make this route will be changed, which will go from 356 seats current to 440. This same formula will be replicated for Malaga, which will go from one to three daily frequencies in each direction with Madrid, offering 16,000 additional spaces each week.
