Be careful not to wait too long to find your seat when boarding a train. If you are not in your seat on time, the conductor will now be able to give it to another passenger!
The SNCF has just introduced a new rule that could cause some tension among passengers. After the limitation on the number and size of luggage per person, which came into force at the beginning of the year, it is the allocation of seats on board that is undergoing a slight change. On trains requiring reservations, such as TGVs or Intercités, your seat may now be reallocated to another passenger if you do not sit down quickly enough, as noted by the UFC-Que Choisir association.
Indeed, as can be read in black and white in article 7.2.2 of the General Conditions of Sale of the SNCFupdated September 6, 2024: “Failure to claim a reserved seat within 15 minutes of the train’s departure from the station indicated on the ticket may result in the loss of the reserved seat reservation and, more generally, of any seat.”.
In its article, UFC-Que Choisir reports the explanation given by SNCF to justify this rule. The company would only be applying the European regulation of “Rights and obligations of rail passengers”, according to its statements. The consumer protection association emphasizes, however, that it has not “found trace of this provision in the European text in question”.
By consulting European Regulation No. 2021/782 of April 29, 2021we can nevertheless identify the probable cause of this new SNCF policy. In Chapter IV and Article 18, the text provides for the obligation, for railway companies, to offer a re-routing solution to the passenger in the event of a delay, cancellation or missed connection attributable to the carrier.
The text also specifies that the continuation of the journey or rerouting to the final destination must be carried out “under comparable transport conditions and as soon as possible”. Thus, to comply with European regulations, the SNCF must be able to quickly rehouse certain passengers on trains where access is normally subject to reservation.
From this perspective, the new rule providing for the possible loss of a reserved seat, not claimed 15 minutes after the train’s departure, makes more sense. The French transport company can thus reallocate an unoccupied seat, for example that of a traveler who did not show up for boarding, to another customer whose train has been cancelled or who has missed their connection.
If this mode of operation seems legitimate, it remains to be hoped that the SNCF will implement it with discernment. It is difficult to see how the company would justify the withdrawal of a seat from a traveler who has duly paid for their ticket, on the pretext that they were absent during the first fifteen minutes of the journey. As a precaution, and while waiting for the first feedback on this subject, remember to leave a bag on your seat, and ask your neighbor to inform the ticket inspector of your presence if you urgently need to be absent!