Iryo recorded losses of 79 million euros in 2023, which means increasing the “red figures” of 25 million euros that it had recorded the previous year, even though in 2022 it only operated during the last weeks of the year. In the latest annual accounts filed with the Commercial Register, collected by Europa Press, there is a total income of 212 million euros, compared to 4.8 million of the previous year.
The operating result was also negative, at 67 million euros, after having transported six million passengers on its trains in 2023 with an average occupancy rate (proportion of seats occupied on the train) of 65.7%.
Iryo, but especially Ouigo, have been criticized by the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, for lowering sales prices and thus dragging Renfe down. “The two companies that operate in our market outside of Renfe (…) are losing a lot of money and they are losing it by lowering prices, which is dragging Renfe into these bad results,” he said in a radio interview.
Iryo is 45% owned by the Italian state operator Trenitalia, while 31% is owned by AirNostrum and 24% by Globalvia. The company concentrated 27% of the high-speed rail supply in Spain (compared to Renfe and Ouigo), although its share of demand was limited to 24%.
In its income statement, Iryo’s parent company, Intermodalidad de Levante, explains that 51% of its costs corresponded to the fees it pays to Adif for the use of the infrastructure, while 10% corresponded to electricity.
Similarly, the workforce increased from 169 employees to a total of 522 at the end of the year.
Iryo assures that the losses suffered last year are in line with expectations, since it is now launching its operations, facing at the beginning a significant investment that will be amortized over the years.
In this sense, its shareholders approved in April an increase of 44.7 million euros, to which was added an additional contribution of 34.2 million euros agreed in June to compensate for the losses.
Likewise, the shareholders formally expressed their intention to provide all financial support to the company in order to ensure the continuity of the company to honor its payment commitments to third parties.
A few weeks ago, Ouigo presented results showing losses of 42.7 million euros and revenues of 139 million euros, with 4.6 million passengers carried on its double-decker trains.
