The German intercity coach company FlixBus announced Thursday that it would resume its connections in France from Friday, May 7, with 100 lines and 140 French and international destinations.
"
We reopen bigger, right away,
" told AFP its director general for France, Yvan Lefranc-Morin.
The company of "
Macron cars
" had only offered 70 destinations in June 2020, after the first confinement, and had not exceeded a hundred last summer, against more than 200 in normal times.
Read also: When stopped, FlixBus is counting on the vaccine to restart
“
We reopen with greater confidence than last year.
We hope in any case that we will not need to close behind,
”noted the leader.
"
The health situation is certainly not extraordinary, but the big difference is the vaccine,
" he added.
A "very intense" summer expected
FlixBus had interrupted its connections in France from March 17 to June 18, 2020 during the first confinement, then from November 2 to December 17, and again since April 6 with the ban on non-essential trips of more than 10 km in France (which will be lifted on May 3).
Demand should not immediately return to its pre-pandemic level, acknowledged Yvan Lefranc-Morin.
"
We expect - and we cross our fingers very strongly for that to be the case - a very intense summer
", with a network called to grow, he nevertheless predicted.
To read also: BlaBlaCar and Flixbus believe in the restart of "Macron cars"
In the longer term, France remains a “
key market
” for the German company “
on which we were far from having reached a critical size in 2019
”, noted the manager, who intends to “
offer even more possibilities of travel to the French, whether by adding frequencies or adding new destinations
”. FlixBus guarantees that "
a very strict sanitary protocol
" allows safe travel in coaches cleaned between each trip and disinfected daily, wearing a mask being compulsory on board from 11 years of age. Its competitor BlaBlaCar, for its part, announced that its coaches - formerly called BlaBlaBus - would be back on the road on May 12.
