The companies may be merged from as early as the beginning of next year, Nygård told public broadcaster NRK, and the process could take up to three years.
As part of the merger, travellers will be able to use the same ticket on both services.
“Our aim is to give everyone who travels by train in Eastern Norway a better offer, at the same time that the state gets more for every kroner we spend on railways,” he told NRK.
“Making Flytoget a subsidiary of Vy will contribute to this. Vy will bring the very best from Flytoget. Now we are getting a powerful state passenger train company of which I have great expectations,” he added.
Under current rules, travellers with Vy cannot use their tickets on Flytoget services and vice versa, even though both companies stop at several of the same stops and use the same lines.
Tickets for Vy’s services from Oslo to the airport are currently around 100 kroner cheaper than Flytoget’s and can be bought via the Ruter transport app, but these services also take around 10 minutes longer to get to the airport from the city centre.
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The government has seen merging the two companies as a solution to increase capacity for trains in and out of Oslo without building new infrastructure.
Union officials working in Flytoget have previously criticised the prospect of a merger.
Vegard Einan, regional director of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) in Viken County, told the newspaper VG that the merger could make services worse overall.
“If Flytoget is swallowed up by Vy, I fear that the passengers and business will be the ones who lose. Oslo and Eastern Norway as a travel destination will also come out of it unluckily if air passengers experience being delayed…, and not making it to their flights,” he said.
Opposition parties, such as the Conservative Party and the Progress Party, have also criticised the merger.
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