Not everyone is losing out to the strike movement that affects the SNCF and interrupts the TGV network this Christmas week. With two thirds of the service guaranteed for Friday, some 200,000 travelers will be directly affected. Many are forced to resort to alternatives. Among the latter, bus companies claim to do well.
For its part, Blablacar registered a doubling in the number of reservations yesterday, the day the SNCF traffic forecasts were announced, compared to the previous Tuesday “which was already before the first big weekend of departures,” recalls the carrier Nicholas Michaux. For its Blablacar buses, the company forecasts an increase in the number of passengers on its network in the coming days, while forecasts had 200,000 people.
Strong anticipated activity
In reality, bus companies did not wait for the famous SNCF announcements to prepare for this Christmas season, which intrinsically corresponds to a high point of the year. “We had planned a great month of December with a maximum deployment of the device, either due to the number of buses or drivers, which can resemble the great days of departures during the summer holidays, explains Charles Billiard. towards a record month of December in the history of Flixbus, after a summer that was already one”.
The company, which has been on French roads for 7 years, expects to completely fill its 330 buses that will circulate this weekend. Flixbus hopes to capture around 10% of the 200,000 disappointed SNCF passengers to reach a total of 115,000 passengers, a surplus concentrated on the Paris-Lyon, Paris-Bordeaux, Bordeaux-Toulouse or Lyon-Marseille axes.
Emphasis on carpooling for Blablacar
Having already mobilized all its bus capacity, Blablacar even had to resort to partners to reinforce its connections with Lyon, Nantes or Strasbourg and cope with the increase in demand.
However, the spokesman highlights carpooling, which is the one that has the greatest room for maneuver for the company, due to its flexibility. “We are seeing a very strong influx of passengers and we are going to send SMS and notifications to our registered drivers to call them to solidarity, he underlines. Many may think that it is too late to offer trips for this weekend as they manage.” to fill up your car by then.”
Source: BFM TV
