Why is the train more expensive than the plane? Alexis Chailloux's analysis
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Published on 4/5/25, modified on 4/3/26
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Over the past few weeks, the media has been buzzing about one figure in particular. +75 %. This is the increase in the average price of OUIGO tickets between 2017 and 2024, as widely reported in the press. Surprising, given OUIGO's association with trains in the collective imagination. low-cost blue and pink symbols of a high-speed train finally accessible to all.
Except that in the meantime, this figure has been called into question. Did Fnaut (Fédération Nationale des Associations d'Usagers des Transports) and the media exaggerate? Or, on the contrary, is the brand actually betraying its initial promise? And how can an offer that raises its prices continue to attract ever more passengers?
To untangle the truth from the falsehood, we took the time to analyze the figures, to go back to the origins of the OUIGO model, and to understand what has profoundly changed in the French rail landscape. Because behind a simple train ticket, there are rail tolls, energy costs, new competing players, and a reality far more nuanced than the shock figures repeated in unison in the media...
An important clarification, in the interests of transparency: SNCF Voyageurs (and more broadly the SNCF Group) are HOURRAIL! customers. They have in no way financed this deciphering and have not intervened in its editorial treatment.
In this controversy, the difficulty lies not only in the price, but also in the way it is measured.
The starting point for the debate is the average price of an OUIGO ticket. Based on open data from the Autorité de Régulation des Transports (ART), which was then used by Fnaut, we arrived at the following idea: in 2017, a ticket cost an average of 19.80 euros, compared with 34.70 euros in 2024, an increase of around 15 euros, or +75 % in percent.
Put like that, it's huge. Except that Fnaut itself then published a correction, explaining that the data used for 2017 were not "immediately comparable" to those of subsequent years, mainly due to a problem with the reference mileage distances. With this correction, the increase falls to around 50 % over the 2017-2024 period, or 65 % in 2016. The increase is still real and significant, but as this correction has received far less media coverage, it's important to highlight it.
ART, for its part, tracks price trends over a more recent period: between 2019 and 2024, it measures an increase of around 24 % for OUIGO, versus 9% for conventional high-speed services. A very real increase, but far less spectacular when we look at neither the same period nor exactly the same indicator.
Several analyses converge to place the bulk of the increase between 2017 and 2019, the period during which OUIGO is profoundly changing dimension. But this does not fully explain why the average price per kilometer is also increasing. According to the Fnaut correction, the increase is even slightly higher: +67% per km compared with +65% for the average ticket.
This is all the more counter-intuitive given that, in high-speed rail, the price per kilometer generally tends to fall as distance increases. ART confirms this: a 100 km journey is structurally more expensive per kilometer than a 500 km journey. And for the same distance, connections to and from the Île-de-France region remain on average more expensive than cross-regional connections.
Part of the explanation lies in the notion of commercial distance. Unlike the actual physical distance of a line, the commercial distance is a statistical reference that can deviate significantly from it. ART cites the example of the Paris-Lyon route: the high-speed line measures around 427 km, but the commercial distance used in some databases can be as much as 511 km. As a result, for a ticket costing 30 euros, the price per kilometer drops from 7 centimes to 6 centimes, depending on the distance used, without the ticket itself having changed one centime.
The OUIGO price debate is almost always coupled with a comparison with the INOUI TGV, and this is where the readings diverge the most. According to Fnaut, over the same 2017-2024 period, INOUI prices would have risen by only +8% on the average ticket and +11% per kilometer, which, when set against the OUIGO increase, gives the impression of a sudden drop-off.
But as Alain Krakovitch, Managing Director of SNCF Voyageurs, points out: "OUIGO remains 30% cheaper on average than INOUI. So OUIGO is really an indispensable product if you want to be able to take the train on a budget." It can even happen, at the very end of a sale on very busy trains, that an OUIGO ticket overtakes an INOUI ticket, but these situations are exceptional and concern the very last tickets available.
So it all depends on the question you ask. Have OUIGO prices gone up? Yes, undeniably. Is OUIGO still cheaper than the classic TGV? Yes, in the vast majority of cases. And it's precisely this tension between these two realities that fuels the controversy.
To grasp the price trend, we need to go back to the context in which OUIGO was created. Against all odds, this low-cost train was born in a world in crisis.
In the 2010s, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the classic TGV is beginning to lose steam. Purchasing power was under pressure, travel was slowing down, and competition from low-cost airlines (EasyJet, Ryanair...) was intensifying on the same routes. The SNCF faces a clear challenge: to make high-speed rail accessible to those who have abandoned it or never had access to it, without destabilizing the existing TGV fare model.
The answer? OUIGO. A distinct product, with its own rules: more seats in the same space, optional paid services (choice of seat, access to an electrical socket...), a controlled baggage policy and maximum optimization of rotations.
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But on one essential point, nothing changes: OUIGO runs on the same high-speed lines as the other TGVs. The first train runs in April 2013 between Marne-la-Vallée and Lyon, with an introductory price of 10 euros which caused an immediate sensation.
The first OUIGO train runs in April 2013
However, this "10 euros" is a floor price, not an average price. And this is one of the keys to understanding the pricing evolution that will follow. From the outset, the model has been based on yield management the fuller the train, the higher the prices. OUIGO is not a train "always at 10 euros", it's a train "always at 10 euros". from 10 euros".
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It was during this period that OUIGO really changed dimension, and that the vast majority of the fare increase observed took root.
Geographically, the network extends far beyond the original Paris-Lyon and Paris-Bordeaux routes, reaching Brest, Hendaye and Perpignan.
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OUIGO becomes a a truly national network to reach new audiences. The stations are also evolving: in 2017, the brand moved to Paris Montparnasse and Gare de Lyon, gradually abandoning its image as a "peripheral" train departing from Marne-la-Vallée or Massy. Lastly, the fleet of trains will increase from 4 units at launch to almost 50 planned for 2026-2027, with optimized rotations to maximize frequency.
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So it's not just a question of price, it's a profound transformation of the product itself: more destinations, more central stations, modernized services. And this transformation comes at a cost.
Now that the context is set, we can analyze the concrete factors driving prices upwards.
According to SNCF Voyageurs, changes in scope (central stations and longer journeys) explain more than half of the increase. 80% of the observed increase with the remainder attributable to rising costs. This reading is debatable, but it puts the finger on a real phenomenon.
On the one hand, central stations cost more. Fnaut illustrates this with the "toucher de quai", a fee for the use of a station platform: around 587 euros at Paris Gare de Lyon, compared with 146 euros at Marne-la-Vallée. On a per-passenger basis, with an OUIGO train carrying around 634 passengers, the difference represents around 70 centimes per ticket. Not insignificant, but insufficient, according to Fnaut, to explain an average increase of 13.70 euros per ticket.
On the other hand, longer journeys mechanically raise the average price: if we add more tickets for distant destinations, the average price rises, even without changing the price of existing tickets. This is a mix effect, comparable to that of a shopping basket in which certain low-cost products are gradually replaced by more expensive ones: the average price rises, even if entry-level products remain available.
Part of the increase can also be explained by the logic of penetration price This is a classic strategy for any new market entrant: attract customers with low fares, then adjust them once the offer is established. This is what we saw with the arrival of Trenitalia in France, and was also the strategy of OUIGO España when it was launched.
Added to this is the dynamic pricing inherent in yield management, which varies prices according to purchase date, occupancy level, travel period or time slot. Tickets purchased late or during periods of high demand can reach high levels, and even if these cases remain in the minority, they contribute to boost average prices.
The SNCF is France's biggest industrial consumer of electricity, consuming 9 TWh per year. And since 2022, the bill has skyrocketed: the fee for supplying traction current has risen from 111.95/MWh in 2022 to €473.51/MWh in 2023a fourfold increase. For SNCF Voyageurs, this meant an increase of 700 million euros energy bill in one year. At Group level, the share of electricity in costs rose from 7% to 14%.
It was against this backdrop that the group launched SNCF Renewables a subsidiary dedicated to the production of clean electricity, with the aim of installing 1,000 hectares of solar panels by 2030 (enough to cover 15-20% of energy needs) and achieving energy autonomy by 2050.
In addition to energy, a number of other items have an impact on rates:
And one final point, often overlooked in the debate: the French government requires the SNCF group to transfer almost all its profits to a "special fund". assistance funds dedicated to rail network regeneration.
Conclusion: low-cost under pressure, but not dead
OUIGO today embodies a permanent tension between accessibility and profitability. The brand has evolved (longer routes, central stations, increased frequencies, modernized offer) and these transformations justify some of the fare increases observed. But despite these increases, trains still boast occupancy rates close to 95%, and the brand boasts over 180 million passengers since 2013, including around 90 million who would not have taken the train without it.
The initial promise hasn't disappeared; it's just adapted to a radically different context from that of 2013: energy markets under pressure, rising tolls, inflationary pressure, European competition. And perhaps it's the 2022 launch of OUIGO Train Classique which is the most striking demonstration of this: these old Corail trains, repainted in blue and pink, link Paris to Nantes, Lyon or Rennes via the classic lines, with tickets starting at 10 euros. The journey takes 4 hours instead of 1h30, but maybe that's what learning to travel differently is all about.
The blue and pink train is still very much alive. And as Alain Krakovitch sums it up: "OUIGO has the Europe's highest occupancy rate in the rail world. We're between 92% and 94% full. This is the most eloquent demonstration that this is a successful low-cost service.
Issue du monde de la communication et des médias, Sophie est Responsable éditoriale chez HOURRAIL ! depuis août 2024. Elle est notamment derrière le contenu éditorial du site ainsi que La Locomissive (de l'inspiration voyage bas carbone et des bons plans, un jeudi sur deux, gratuitement dans ta boîte mail !).
Convaincue que les changements d’habitude passent par la transformation de nos imaginaires, elle s’attache à montrer qu’il est possible de voyager autrement, de manière plus consciente, plus lente et plus joyeuse. Son objectif : rendre le slow travel accessible à toutes et tous, à travers des astuces, des décryptages et surtout, de nouveaux récits.
