You have 15 minutes to be seated, otherwise your seat may be reassigned

This new rule should allow passengers boarding a train without a reserved seat to find a seat.

Not taking your seat (or at least leaving your belongings there) when boarding a TGV or Intercités train could lead to a nasty surprise.

In fact, a new and recent rule requires travelers to take their seats within 15 minutes of departure, noted the UFC Que Choisir association?

“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,” can be read in a September update of the T&Cs (General Terms and Conditions of Sale).

If your seat is vacant during this period, for example if you have decided to go and have a coffee in the bar car, it can potentially be reassigned to another passenger.

It’s not about “catching customers out”

Contacted by the association, SNCF Voyageurs justifies this rule which would result from a European regulation of 2021. Above all, it must allow travelers without a reserved seat to be able to sit if seats are free (or considered as such).

For the operator, this is in fact a matter of “facilitating the replacement of customers on board in the event of a passenger’s absence”.

These travellers without a reserved seat are not numerous but the case sometimes arises, it could be people who have missed their connection, or their train and who have boarded the next one… Instead of making them travel standing or on the folding seats, the idea is therefore to be able to find them a seat.

It is therefore not a question of “catching customers out but finding solutions in particular/exceptional situations (and) if, ultimately, the traveller (who has not taken their seat within the allotted time, Editor’s note) shows up, the head of the train is there to find a solution to this situation”, underlines SNCF Voyageurs.

Furthermore, objectively, very few passengers do not sit down immediately after boarding, even if it means leaving their belongings on the seat before going to the bar car, for example.