RegioJet to stop operating trains on Bratislava-Košice line

Private rail passenger carrier RegioJet will stop running trains on the Bratislava-Košice route, its CEO Radim Jančura confirmed for the TASR press agency. "I decided that we're leaving for sure. Transport Minister Jan Počiatek hasn't done anything about below-cost fares on the loss-making InterCity [IC] trains of the state-owned rail carrier Železničná spoločnosť Slovensko, via which he's trying to kick us from the market on purpose. We'll have to set a deadline by which we would leave in a way that would be fair to passengers and employees", said Jančura, promising that it won't be before the end of this year. The company will have to give notices and severance pay to some of its employees. Currently, around 120 people work on the line, but the company wants to employ most of them on the Prague-Košice route, a connection that the company plans to strengthen. "I think that three quarters of the employees will get a job", said Jančura. RegioJet has been running trains on the line since last December. The state-owned rail carrier Železničná spoločnosť Slovensko has rejected RegioJet's claims, accusing its rival of purposefully lying and attacking it while providing the public with fabricated and untrue information about company's financing, operations and processes. It said that its ICs aren't cross-financed with state subsidies and that the trains contracted by the state are financed separately. It also argues that it isn't attempting to push RegioJet off the market with its policies and that it isn't the one waging a price war but RegioJet.