More than thirty years the highspeed AVE began operating in Andalusia, the low-cost offer from Iryo, privately owned by Air Nostrum, Globalvia and Trenitalia, becomes the first Renfe competitor to offer services to Córdoba, Seville and Málaga.

The Iryo high-speed train, like Renfe’s AVE, takes just two hours and 30 minutes between Seville Santa Justa and Madrid Puerta de Atocha stations. It will also connect these cities with Córdoba and Málaga en route.

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The three Andalusian routes begin to operate this Friday with four daily services, two in each direction. The company has stated that they offer schedules from early in the morning until late at night, with competitive prices in four classes.

To open the routes, the operator launched the sale of 250,000 flexible tickets at €18 to travel on any date in 2023, a promotion that ended last Sunday, March 26th. Due to these sales, the company expects an average occupancy rate of 75 percent on its trains until the end of the year.

Iryo has even predicted that occupancy will reach 100 percent on some routes, which would be “good data driven by the start of Holy Week”, according to sources from the company.

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The Iryo brand began operations in Barcelona in November 2022 and has also expanded to ​​Valencia, planning to continue opening new destinations this year. The services are due to arrive in Antequera, Alicante and Albacete on June 2nd and, Tarragona, on June 15th.

The company will also continue to increase the frequency of its services with the aim of consolidating the routes that it already has available until it has 100 percent of its fleet in operation from September 2023.

Iryo has invested more than €1 billion in its Andalusia services and plans to have a direct contribution to the Andalusian economy of €28.7 million in wages and regional taxes in 2025. It will also create 660 jobs for ground, crew, operations, maintenance and administrative personnel in this same period.