Passenger train services • Main line services / Ticketing • High speed Rail • New mainline operators • Spain • iryo
➤ See also: AVE (Renfe) – Avlo (Renfe) – Eurostar (since 2024) – Frecciarossa – ICE – InOui – Lyria – NTV-Italo – Ouigo SNCF
➤ See also: High speed train in France – High speed train in Germany – High speed train in Italy – High speed train in Japan – High speed train in Taïwan – Economics
Note: For educational purpose only. This page is meant purely as a documentation tool and has no legal effect. It is not a substitute for the official page of the operating company, manufacturer or official institutions. It cannot be used for staff training, which is the responsibility of approved institutions and companies.
Key points
- Spain’s liberalisation of the market through traffic rights packages ;
- The FS Group enters the Spanish market, its second country after France ;
- Initial difficulties regarding the results achieved
On this page
Summary
iryo is an operator that has benefited from the high speed railway liberalisation with traffic rights plan initiated by ADIF in Spain. It was originally an initiative of ILSA, a consortium that includes Air Nostrum.
In September 2018 the company was allocated the Package B bundle of train paths auctioned by infrastructure manager ADIF AV. It was essential to find an industrial partner with rail expertise, and Trenitalia, a subsidiary of the state-owned FS group, was chosen. Trenitalia knows all about competition, as it faces it in Italy with NTV-Italo.
The shareholding then changed again in 2022 with the arrival of Globalvia, just before the launch of the first services between Madrid and Barcelona.
iryo found itself up against competition from Renfe and Ouigo España, but was able to make its mark by differentiating itself from the French low-cost operator, while offering quality at a better price than Renfe with its AVEs. The Spanish high-speed market has undergone considerable upheaval.
| COMPANY TYPE | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name: | iryo | |
| Subsdiary/Branding from: | Levante S.A. (ILSA) | |
| Country of registration: | Spain | |
| Year founded (under this name): | 25 November 2022 | |
| Sector: | Passengers long distance | |
| Investor(s) / Owner: | 51% of Trenitalia, 25% Air Nostrum and 24% Globalvia | |
| Headquartered at: | Madrid | |
| Management of infrastructure: | no | |
| Management of stations: | no | |
| ACTIVITIES | ||
| Regional & local traffic: | no | |
| Long distance traffic: | yes | |
| Freight traffic: | no | |
| Traction: | In house | |
| Urban transport: | no | |
| Leasing: | no | |
| Infrastructure works: | no | |
| Rolling stock maintenance: | In house |
Regular routes
➤ Madrid Atocha – Zaragoza – Barcelona Sants (since november 2022)
➤ Madrid Atocha – Valencia (since December 2022)
➤ Madrid Atocha – Sevilla (since March 2023)
➤ Madrid Atocha – Malaga (since March 2023)
➤ Madrid Atocha – Albacete – Alicante (since June 2023)
Rolling stock (past and present)
Hitachi Rail
2020 – …
Birth of the company
On September 17 2018 ILSA received approval to launch an open-access high-speed passenger services in Spain. At the time, people were wondering how an airline could get into the rail business. The answer came in November 2019, when the public operator Trenitalia was chosen.
The high speed liberalization process is Spain, overseen by Spain’s infrastructure manager ADIF, was structured around three packages or “lots”—A, B, and C—each offering different levels of traffic to the high-speed network.
➤ Lot A was awarded to Renfe, allowing the incumbent operator to continue running a significant portion of high-speed services while adapting to the new competitive environment.
➤ Lot B was assigned to Iryo, a consortium involving Italy’s Trenitalia and Spanish airline Air Nostrum, which positioned itself as a premium alternative offering high-quality service.
➤ Lot C was granted to the French railway company Ouigo Espana, which introduced cheaper alternatives for travelers, particularly on the Madrid-Barcelona corridor.
The aim is to increase the number of services on a network that is known to be underused, and to bring in new revenue for ADIF.
In August 2020 Trenitalia ordered a fleet of 23 ETR1000 (Class S-109 in Spain) from Hitachi and Bombardier Transportation (now Alstom).
2021
ILSA unveiled iryo (with a little “i”) as its customer-facing brand in a ceremony at Madrid Atocha station on November 18 2021. The brand name is a contraction of the words “ir” (to go) and “yo” (I), a nod to the passenger’s central role.
2022 – Launch of the service
In September 2022, two months before the start of the first iryo services, the spanish company specialising in infrastructure concessions, Globalvia, completed the purchase of 24% of the shares in the iryo operator, becoming the third partner in the entity and leaving Trenitalia as the majority shareholder.
The company began its first services branded ”Iryo” on November 25 2022, running on the Madrid – Zaragoza – Barcelona. iryo was the latest to enter the market, as Renfe had already been doing so for some time with its AVEs, while SNCF subsidiary Ouigo España launched in May 2021.
The service expands then to Valencia, Sevilla, Malaga, Albacete and Alicante. The company also has plans to operate services using the cross-border line beyond Barcelona to Perpignan, Narbonne and Montpellier.
2023
The National Commission for Markets and Competition approved the Resolution (STP/DTSP/015/22) allowing Iryo to continue operating on four routes subject to public service obligation: Madrid-Cuenca, Madrid-Albacete, Albacete-Cuenca and Barcelona-Campo de Tarragona. These routes were being operated by Renfe Viajeros through its Avant service and Renfe considered that Iryo’s presence would harm its revenues as agreed in the public service obligation contract.
In its first year of operation, Iryo reached 5 million passengers, with a market share of 24% in seats and 22% in passengers, which is “much more than expected, a sign that the product is well established,” according to its president, Carlos Bertomeu, during a recent meeting on the Mediterranean Corridor.
2024
Market shares changed over the summer: Trenitalia increased its stake to 51% by offering €15 million to Operador Ferroviario de Levante (OFL), the shareholders of Air Nostrum, who then reduced their stake to 25%. The remaining 24% of the operator is owned by infrastructure concessionaire Globalvia.
The balance sheet improves
Despite losses in Spain’s competitive high-speed rail market, Iryo expects profitability soon, having carried over 14 million passengers in 2024. With an average occupancy rate of 73%, its Madrid–Barcelona route remains the busiest. Iryo is also exploring further expansion within Spain, including Madrid–Galicia services.
2025
Iryo announced plans to expand into Portugal, potentially becoming the first open-access passenger operator in Portugal, where all services are currently run by Portuguese Trains (CP).
The consortium aims to operate on two routes: the Atlantic Corridor, linking Lisbon with Porto and northern Spain, and Lisbon–Madrid. However, CEO at that time Simone Gorini stated that expansion depends on the completion of planned high-speed lines between Lisbon, Madrid, and Galicia. The Spanish and Portuguese governments have committed to finishing the Lisbon–Madrid line by 2030 and the Atlantic Corridor by 2032.
In February iryo has partnered with ITA Airways to offer seamless travel between Spain and Italy. Passengers can book single-ticket journeys connecting ITA Airways flights to Madrid and Barcelona and join iryo’s high-speed rail service to cities like Córdoba, Valencia, and Málaga. Conversely Iryo travelers also gain access to over 20 Italian airports. The combined air-rail ticket includes services from both companies and is available on ITA’s website. However any spanish airports were at that time connected by an iryo service.
Since April 2025, the company has been led by Fabrizio Favara, a 50-year-old Roman executive with a long-standing career within the FS Group and international experience in Germany and Spain. Under his leadership, the company—employing more than 600 people—has driven internal innovation, completing the digitalization of procurement processes, resulting in estimated savings of €3.4 million and a return on investment exceeding 200% over two years.
2026 – Adamuz disaster and worshop access
The year 2026 would likely be the darkest in the company’s short history, and by extension that of Trenitalia, its reference shareholder. On 18 January, a Frecciarossa train that had just departed Córdoba saw its last three cars derail and foul the loading gauge near a technical facility in the municipality of Adamuz. At the same moment, an Alvia Madrid–Córdoba–Huelva service travelling in the opposite direction struck the last car of the iryo train and disintegrated 600 meters further on. The disaster claimed a total of 45 lives, including 6 passengers on the iryo train. It was later revealed that a broken rail was at the origin of the catastrophe.
Worshop access
Renfe’s refusal to grant Iryo access to its La Sagra (Barcelone) heavy‑maintenance depot has become a central test of Spain’s high‑speed rail liberalisation. Iryo’s Frecciarossa 1000 fleet approached in mid-2026 the three‑million‑kilometre threshold requiring R2 overhauls, and the operator wants this work done in Spain rather than sending trains to Italy for weeks at a time. After 18 months of negotiations, Renfe abruptly withdrew from a draft agreement, citing “real capacity constraints and critical equipment limitations”, and warning that accommodating Iryo could jeopardise its own public‑service fleet.
The CNMC, the spanish regulator, intervened in March, ordering Renfe to provide access for bogie removal and repair, estimating that Iryo would use only around 7% of La Sagra’s annual capacity. Renfe disputes this, arguing that only a few tracks can handle Iryo’s trains and that the real impact exceeds 10%, potentially costing up to €60 million in lost revenue. It also insists that “no contract was ever signed” and that Spanish law does not oblige it to provide heavy‑maintenance services to competitors. Renfe has sought urgent suspension of the CNMC order, but courts have so far refused.
The dispute exposes a structural weakness in Spain’s liberalisation model: while track access is open, essential workshop capacity remains controlled by the incumbent. If Renfe prevails, Iryo faces higher costs, reduced fleet availability and the risk of trains being sidelined from 2027. With all three operators still loss‑making and margins thin, the case will determine how much capacity incumbents must surrender to make competition viable — a tension already seen in other European markets.
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