Although they were put on sale on February 28, it is today, March 31, when the Iryo trains begin to operate between Madrid and Andalusia. Renfe sees how the competition enters four lines in which until now it operated alone. And Iryo’s intention is to get a good part of the cake.
Thus, Iryo also offers trips between Madrid, Malaga, Granada, Seville and Cordoba. Just when the Easter festivities for schools begin in a large part of the national territory, the red trains make their way south.
for now, Iryo offers two trains per day on the routes Madrid-Seville and Madrid-Malaga. In both cases, the travel time is 2 hours and 35 minutes and they arrive at the following times:
- Madrid-Seville: 6:55 and 17:55
- Seville-Madrid: 10:15 and 21:15
- Madrid-Malaga: 07:55 and 14:55
- Malaga-Madrid: 11:30 and 20:45
Of these trips, they take advantage of Cordova. All the previous trains have a stop in this Andalusian city, so up to four trains pass every day to Madrid, two of them connect it with Seville and another two with Malaga. Next, we leave you their schedules.
- Córdoba-Madrid: 10:59, 12:21, 21:36 and 21:59
- Córdoba-Seville: 8:42 and 19:42
- Córdoba-Málaga: 9:41 and 16:41
In addition, from June 2, trains from Malaga will also stop at the Antequera-Santa Ana station, located 17 kilometers from Antequera, shortly before arriving in Malaga. At the moment, it only remains to reveal when Iryo will start operating in Granada, its last stop in Andalusia and which, for the moment, does not have a date set on the calendar.
Lines in which Iryo already operates (Alicante will be available in June)
The consequences are already noticeable
Even before Iryo has begun its deployment on the Andalusian railways, your only ad It has already had its consequences on the price of tickets. The impact, evidently, has not been as striking as in the lines where Iryo and Ouigo share the limelight with the AVE and AVLO, but it has also been noticeable.
Although the best deals are yet to come, the CNMC has calculated that the cost of Andalusian trips has dropped 8.5% to go to Seville and 10.5% on the Malaga/Granada line. Although Iryo has not campaigned as aggressively as Ouigo, who has come to offer tickets for nine euros, his tickets cost, on average, half that of Renfe’s.
It is also to be expected that the number of travelers will increase significantly. From Trainline They already calculated in November that the number of travelers between Madrid and Barcelona, 68% had shot up in the first days with the liberalized railways. Without maintaining this average, finally the number of trips did grow significantly, with an increase of 35.6% on the Madrid-Barcelona routes and 100.9% on the Madrid-Valencia line.
In the same period (last quarter of 2022) trips between Madrid and Malaga and Madrid and Seville had also grown but they had done so by 20.1% and 18%, respectively, so we will have to wait to see how far the trend. What they did point out from Iryo, in words collected by The Spanishis that “the Costa del Sol is a key region in the growth of Spain” and that “Málaga is one of the destinations that has had the most demand”, since the tickets went on sale.
In Xataka | Ouigo continues to squeeze Renfe at Easter: it has launched a 10-euro discount between Madrid and Valencia
Photo | iryo
