Ticket prices have been set to compete directly with budget airlines. A standard single fare from Berlin to Vienna will cost seventy-nine euros, with advance booking discounts bringing the price as low as thirty-nine euros. First-class passengers will pay one hundred and twenty-nine euros for wider seats, complimentary meals, and access to a lounge car.
Not everyone is celebrating. Airlines operating on the affected routes have criticised what they describe as unfair state subsidies for rail. Ryanair issued a statement calling the project an expensive vanity exercise that would never recoup its fourteen-billion-euro construction cost.
Rail advocates dismiss such criticism. "Every major transport investment in history has been subsidised at the outset," said Professor Thomas Berger of the Vienna University of Economics. "The question is not whether the state should invest in rail but whether we can afford not to."
Early signs suggest the public agrees. Advance bookings for the first month of service sold out within seventy-two hours, and operators have already announced plans to increase the frequency from eight to twelve daily departures in each direction by the end of the year.