train tickets for spring break and May bridges will go on sale on Wednesday

It will be possible to reserve tickets for trips up to May 22, for TGV Inoui and Intercités, and until July 5 for Ouigo trains.

Ready, set, book! In anticipation of the many bridges to come and the spring holidays, the SNCF invites its customers, Sunday January 21, to plan their train trips. The railway company will put on sale from Wednesday tickets for trips between March 25 and May 22, for the TGV Inoui and Intercités, and until July 5 for Ouigo trains, it warns on its website.

After recording new attendance records in 2023, the SNCF is facing a lack of trains to meet the explosion in demand. So, booking as early as possible allows you to have “room, the trains are not yet full, with more chance of being seated together when you are in a group”, explains the company, recalling that the most far-sighted have “more choice of timetables”. Especially since the year will have several bridges in May.

As for travel prices, they evolve under the practice of “yield management”, a sales technique used by the company and according to which the price of tickets increases according to demand and the occupancy rate of trains.

Price freeze on Ouigo and Intercités

In December, the president of the SNCF group, Jean-Pierre Farandou, assured Franceinfo that the increase in ticket prices for the TGV Inoui, in 2024, “would not be greater than inflation”. A few days earlier, the then Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, announced the freezing of fares for Ouigo and Intercités trains as well as on the Avantage card in 2024.

SNCF will face further increases in operating costs in 2024, +6% compared to 2023. “The main reason is the increase in toll costs”specified the boss of the SNCF, also pointing out the costs linked to the maintenance and production of infrastructure, since the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine. The increase in the cost of tickets in 2024 for the TGV Inoui is also due to the investment of the SNCF, which “ordered 100 TGV trains which will arrive from 2025”, reported Jean-Pierre Farandou. The objective is to increase the capacity of the most popular trains.