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Volcano forces early end to Swedish rail monopoly

Travel disruption caused by the volcanic eruption in southern Iceland has prompted the Swedish government to announce that it will lift the monopoly on key routes run by national rail operator SJ.

Volcano forces early end to Swedish rail monopoly

The move is intended to boost capacity by encouraging more rail operators to ply the routes which were due to opened up to market competition in the autumn.

“It is important that all means of transport are optimised and we have therefore taken the decision to allow more rail operators to use the network. The decision is valid from today (Thursday),” said infrastructure minister Åsa Torstensson in a government statement.

The Swedish government had announced in March last year it would end the state railway company’s monopoly on passenger traffic on October 1, 2010.

“The decision covers the time from now until the new law is passed in the autumn. The two decisions are separate from each other but in practice this is a permanent measure as it will cover the entire interim period,” said Henrik Hansson, a spokesperson for the infrastructure minister told The Local on Thursday.

Torstensson also referred to an ongoing “close dialogue” between the government and the aviation sector to find measures with which to offer support. According to the minister, the government is active in the EU process to develop guidelines for how member states can establish support mechanisms.

The government is prepared to review charges levied on airlines once traffic has returned to regular levels.

SJ has been unable to meet the extra demand caused by the flight chaos as much of its rolling stock has been undergoing service in April as a result of damage caused by the heavy snow falls during the winter.

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TRAVEL NEWS

Swedish rail company SJs site crashes on Christmas tickets release

The booking site of Sweden's state-owned rail company SJ crashed on Tuesday evening after the company released long-awaited tickets for the Christmas period.

Swedish rail company SJs site crashes on Christmas tickets release

The company on Tuesday night released tickets for the period from December 11th to March 12th next year, only to see the site crash under the volume of booking requests. 

“There are enormous amounts of customers who want to buy tickets, even though it’s the middle of the night,” Lina Edström, a press officer for the company said shortly after midnight. “The home page quite simply can’t cope with responding to so many requests at the same time. 

The site started to work again a few hours later, only to crash once again as people woke up and started booking on Wednesday morning. 

“The reports we are getting is that it’s working for some people and not for others. That’s what we’re seeing as Sweden wakes up and more and more people try and get onto the site,” said Jonas Olsson, another press officer at 7.30am. 

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The release of Christmas tickets in Sweden has been severely delayed because of late publication of the Swedish Transport Administration train plan for 2023, which coordinates the times for all passenger and goods trains in Sweden. 

The train plan should have been published at the start of August, giving companies 18 weeks to set tickets from December 10th. It was only released on October 19th. The administration said that it has had problems due to change over to a digital system. 

Many customers have been complaining that they have seen prices for Christmas trips double in the time it has taken them to book a ticket. 

Olsson told the TT newswire that SJ’s pricing system is based on the level of demand. 

“I understand the frustration, and we may well look at this going forward,” he said. “But even if many people have ended up in this situation, there are many others who have been able to buy cheaper tickets.” 

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