The BlaBlaCar carpooling platform announced Monday that it would resume its coach connections in France from March 31, a relaunch that will correspond to the abandonment of the BlaBlaBus name.
To read also: Frédéric Mazzella (BlaBlaCar): "We think about the happiness of the team"
"
We relaunch the buses at the end of the month, early April, for the Easter holidays
," General Manager Nicolas Brusson told AFP.
At the same time, "
the BlaBlaBus brand disappears, and everything is called BlaBlaCar
", he added.
Tickets are already on sale online, with low prices and "
flexible
"
exchange conditions
, the official said.
Desire to travel
“
When we stopped operations in November, we were considering restarting in the spring.
It was imagined then that the sanitary conditions would be better than they are now.
But what is quite surprising - and positive for us - is that we have seen that, for several weeks now, there has been a constant increase in carpooling,
”he explained.
The carpooling offer is currently back to the level of the beginning of last summer, which corresponds to 60% to 70% of the level of March 2019. “
There is very clearly a desire to travel, and a demand which is very high. higher than what one could have imagined,
”he noted.
This makes him confident in the viability of the coach lines on the most demanded routes.
100 destinations
BlaBlaCar intends to offer first 100 destinations in France, that is to say according to Mr. Brusson, "
a little less than half of a fully deployed network
", before having this summer "
a larger bus network than what is available. 'never deployed
'.
"
The only thing that could happen that would go against this rise in power, it would be a new confinement
", observed the official.
“
In this case we would adapt!
"But"
we expect the months of May, June and a summer with figures well above 2020, and probably record,
"remarked Nicolas Brusson.
Read also: The boss of BlaBlaCar on the board of directors of Renault
BlaBlaBus - a brand created after the acquisition of Ouibus from SNCF in 2019 - had interrupted its connections in France from March 17 to June 24 during the first confinement, and suspended them again on November 2.
Strict sanitary measures are observed on board, according to management.
