SPAIN (Metro Rail News): Spain competition regulator CNMC has granted Iryo, the brand of company Ilsa, which is owned by regional carrier Air Nostrum and Trenitalia received approval for its planned services. Iryo is aiming for up to 80 daily connections with the majority travelling between Madrid and Barcelona. Zaragoza, Valencia, Alicante, Sevilla, Cordoba, and Malaga will also be served by the operator.
Gorini said that Iryo wants to attract business travellers by targeting early morning arrival times since it does not want to compete on pricing with Renfe, Renfe’s Avlo brand, and SNCF subsidiary Ouigo. The new CEO from Trenitalia and joins Iryo, has stated that a marketshare of 30% is feasible.
The start of operations was initially scheduled to begin earlier this year, operations were delayed due to a disagreement with infrastructure manager Adif over Iryo’s capacity needs on the portion to Alicante.
Iryo will operate high-speed Frecciarossa 1000 trains, similar to Trenitalia. In Spain, they’ll be categorised as Series 109. The first group of 30 drivers finished their training programme last month. Drivers began their training earlier in the year.
