View From Afar S2, E7: IPW 2026 | Brightline’s New CEO on Getting Americans Out of Their Cars—and Onto the Train

Welcome to a special IPW 2026 series of View From Afar. In this episode, recorded live from the conference floor, Brightline Holdings CEO Nicolas Petrovic sits down with Afar editorial director Billie Cohen to talk about what it actually takes to build a new mode of travel in the United States—and what that could mean for travelers, destinations, and the industry at large.

Nicolas stepped into the CEO role at Brightline in early 2026, bringing decades of high-speed rail experience from leadership positions at Eurostar, Siemens, and rail projects in the UAE. He arrived at a pivotal moment. Brightline’s Florida service is growing—up 20 percent year-over-year, with 3 million passengers last year—and the company has big ambitions to build a high-speed line connecting Las Vegas and Los Angeles. But it’s also navigating a significant debt load and the deeper challenge of convincing Americans to leave their cars behind.

Transcript

Billie Cohen: I’m Billie Cohen, an Afar editorial director. Welcome to View From Afar, a podcast that spotlights the people and ideas shaping the future of travel. And in this special series, I’m coming to you live from the floor of IPW, the annual travel conference organized by the U.S. Travel Association, to share the best of America with the rest of the world. It’s a big moment in US travel. Our country is preparing to cohost the FIFA World Cup and celebrate its 250th anniversary. All this is happening even as international arrivals are down and global events are affecting travel across the world. But the reasons we all travel haven’t changed. In fact, they’ve become more important. Joy and connection. So we’re talking to industry leaders about how their destinations are adapting in a tough world, and how they’re finding ways to give visitors experiences that make them smile and make them feel welcome.

My guest today is Nicolas Petrovic, the new CEO of Brightline Holdings, Brightline is the privately operated passenger rail service that connects some of Florida’s biggest destinations, and that has a broader ambition to build modern, high speed train systems in other places in the U.S., too. Nicolas brings decades of international rail experience from leadership positions at Eurostar, Siemens, and with projects in the UAE. And in February, he stepped into the CEO role at a pivotal moment for Brightline.

At a time when travelers are rethinking how they move around, driven by cost, convenience and a growing interest in more sustainable options, Brightline is trying to offer an alternative to both driving and flying, but this project is still a big bet, with real questions around scale, economics and whether Americans are even ready to embrace train travel in a new way. So today, I’m talking to Nicholas about what it actually takes to build a new mode of travel in the U.S. and what that could mean for destinations, travelers and the industry at large.

Thank you so much for being here.

Nicolas Petrovic: Oh. Thank you. I’m delighted to be here.

Billie: I always like to start with a tough question, which is there is a special fragrance for the Brightline stations. Can you describe what it smells like?

Nicolas: I know it’s amazing. The first time I, you know, I took the Brightline and I went into the silver. Oh, it smells so good. I don’t know, it’s a bit citrusy, a bit of lemongrass. I don’t know. It’s very, um. It’s very bright line, I don’t know.

Billie: Like the yellow. The yellow. That is the theme of bright lights. Brightline.

Nicolas: Yellow. It’s, uh, sunny. You feel like it’s energy. You know, there’s, um, that’s, you know, there’s a bit of zing.

Billie: So citrusy with a zing. So you’re brand new. You’ve just started. You just got here.

Nicolas: Actually, I just arrived a few months ago and I had heard about Bright Line. I’ve worked for a long time, always in a high speed rail systems in Europe, in the Middle East. But I’ve always heard about Brightline and how good the service was. And so when I had the opportunity to come and visit. Obviously that’s first. I smelled the station. I was like, wow, they’re doing something right here.

Billie: And that clinched the deal. You’re like, okay, that’s here now.

Nicolas: I’ll sign anywhere.

Billie: I should know this, but can you purchase the scent?

Nicolas: Oh yeah.

Billie: To look for that next time I’m on the train.

Nicolas: Yeah, yeah. We would send you a Kindle or something if you.

Billie: You wouldn’t think you want your home to smell like a train station. But in this case, you do. We’ll get into into the real work of it. So you stepped into Brightline. Now at a moment when it’s growing, right, there’s a lot going on, but there’s also pressure to prove that this model can work. So when you think about everything that it takes to build what’s basically a new mode of transportation here in the US, talking about getting people to change their habits, making the numbers work, and defining the audience that you have to reach out to. What’s the hardest piece of that puzzle right now?

Nicolas: First of all, is that what has been already achieved is amazing when you think about it. It’s to build a new railway in a very urbanized area, you know, between Miami all the way to Orlando, it’s very organized, it’s very tough to build there. And there is a brand new railway which is of very high quality, and I have seen a lot of them. So I can tell you it’s very high quality. And if you take the train, the service is amazing. You know, Brightline managed to do that in Florida. So I would say that that’s that’s an incredible part. And the two paths here has been about growing Orlando to South Florida, that market. And here. Yeah. You hit the sort of how do you convince people to get out of their cars? Right? Because, you know, we all love our cars. And so you need to have a great experience. You cannot just be a, you know, a mode of transport, A to B, you need to have the right experience on board the right distribution, the right marketing, the right pricing, and to align everything to your market to grow the market.

And so at the moment I joined because there’s been a lot of growth, but we want to have more. So I’ve got a bit of experience of other railways, and I’m trying to bring what I know, what I’ve learned over the years. You know, I work for Eurostar for a long time. It’s a train between London and Paris. It was in the same situation as Brightline a few years ago. Like, how do you grow from your the new guy on the block to being the dominant player on the market? And that’s what we try to do with Brightline, Florida. It’s going to be how do we serve even better people of Florida and from abroad or from the rest of the US. When they come, they should take the train because it’s the best way to travel around.

Billie: What did you learn from your time with Eurostar that you’re going to apply here?

Nicolas: I think I think there are a lot of parallels. Uh, Eurostar when I joined had launched a few years before and the growth was good, but you know, it was not as good as expected. I joined with a new team and we looked at it and we looked at, okay, let’s look market per market segment per segment, you know, as you would do as a marketer. And we looked at, okay, leisure is good, but a lot of people think it’s too expensive. How do we get the more price sensitive people? And so we cut our lead in price and the business market.

You know, very few business people took the Eurostar at the time. So we completely developed a new product distribution sales force for the business market, and we went from 10 percent market share to 80 percent market share at the time. That is very relevant here at IPW. The only customers who were living in London and Paris, and we thought, wow, you know, people come from all over the world to London and Paris. They should discover the train. And so we started to sell Eurostar to people in the US, in India, in China. And, you know, when I left in, nearly 20 percent of the ridership was from outside of the of Europe. So there are a lot of parallels with Brightline. Brightline is very strong with the Florida market, leisure passengers, people visiting friends and relatives.

But I think the business market, we can do better and we will do better. And people coming from all over the world or the rest of the US, you know, they want to see the theme parks in Orlando. They want to go to the beach. But what they don’t know yet, what they really want to do is to take the bright line between them. So we need to extend our distribution networks. We need to look at our pricing. So we change our pricing. We have now $39 fare you know starting from. So really what I love about trains is that you have a lot of seats on board. And so you need everyone on board. You want to see families, you want to see students, you want to see billionaires, you want to see retired people, businessmen and women. You want everyone. So our job, and that’s why I’m trying to bring with my experience, is to segment the market and to try to find the right offer for each segment so that we grow our market share as much as possible and fill the trains.

Billie: Let’s talk about Americans for a second. How are you getting them out of their cars and into the train? What does the train experience like and what do you want it? Where do you want to grow it to?

Nicolas: It’s a great question because everybody was like, when I, when I, when I came, everybody was like, I cannot work in the US, everybody’s in their car and you know, they will never take the train. I don’t believe that because my experience is that if you got a good product at the right price and well distributed, people will take it. And that’s what we see. I mean, last year there were 3 million passengers on Brightline and this year we are up 20 percent at the moment. So we want to be very easy to buy for everyone.

Billie: What is the right price. You mentioned pricing a couple of times. Are you looking to make it even cheaper or. Yeah we want there were commuter passes for a while and then those disappeared. Bringing those back.

Nicolas: Yeah. The commuter passes are back. We took them out because we had a problem of capacity. Last year we didn’t have enough seats on board, so the decision was made. It was before my time, you know. I understand. But now we have more trains, so we bought some trains, so we have more seats. Okay, so now commuter passes are again available for everyone. And we see the number of commuter passes going back up to where they were before. So that’s great news.

Billie: That is great news. Yeah.

Nicolas: Yeah. We have great fares for families as well. You know if you’re a family you want to go, you know, you live in Miami. You want to go to the theme parks in Orlando. If you have the parents, two or three kids, etc., you know, it can be expensive compared to the car. So we offer good discounts for groups and families. So it’s all about finding the right fair product that really matches what people want to buy.

Billie: And for people who haven’t been on it, I will just say that you think maybe you think you can picture what a train looks like. But the bright line, the interior is lovely. It’s bright as the name, I guess would imply, right? It’s very comfortable. The seats are spacious.

Nicolas: I mean, it’s amazing. I mean, honestly, as far as I’m concerned, I think it’s really in the top tier of train experiences in the world. It’s a great service. The trains are very.

Billie: This is coming from someone who knows trains. Oh yeah.

Nicolas: I’ve seen a lot of trains, maybe too many for my own good. But you know, the trains are very, uh, wide, so you have a lot of space on board the seat pitch. You know, the space between seats is very big. The seats are very comfortable. Windows are big and the staff is amazing. The staff is always there to help. Very friendly because at the end of the day, what I love about trains compared to all other modes of transport, that when you’re on a train, it’s your time. You can do what you want. If you drive, you drive. You shouldn’t do anything else, by the way.

Billie: Right? Right.

Nicolas: It’s safer when you fly, you know, you tend to be quite constrained as well. You know, you wait a lot in the airport and then on board. You cannot do everything you want all the time on the train. You do what you want. You can walk around, you can sleep, you can work, you can chat. And that’s what people love about it. And on the Brightline, it’s so comfortable and so nice. You can see it when you’re on board. There is a great buzz all the time.

Billie: Yeah, yeah. I remember on one of my trips, the attendant almost turned into an impromptu tour guide. She was like, oh, come look at this. There’s a bridge. Here’s the water. This is where we are. So I don’t know, everyone was very friendly and it, it became like a sightseeing adventure in a way.

Nicolas: And I’m not surprised because people are passionate when you work for the Brightline. You know, it’s like you’re doing something special and you’re making people’s life easier, nicer. And so we attract people who, yeah, who want to be want to serve you well.

Billie: From a tourism perspective. How do you see the train shaping how people travel within Florida? Is it changing where they go and how long they stay?

Nicolas: So what we see is it’s classic. You know, there is always a first phase where people just discover the service, right? And what we see now is that people, they understand it and now they use it the way they want. I met some people. They commute to work every day. I met even a customer who was commuting every day with his dog. Wow. To his office. Other people, they will do things they would not do necessarily without the train. You can see that families, they go for the day to Orlando, to the theme park. Would you drive all the way up and the way down in a day? Maybe not. You know, it’s a lot here. You know you’re on the train on the way up. You have breakfast with the kids. You can relax, read a book. It’s no pressure. You have your day, and on the way back, everybody sleeps, right? And so I think people, you can see they take advantage of the train. And what we see from people coming from abroad coming to Florida is more and more they combine the trip instead of just going to a theme park or just going to a beach, they will say, oh, well, we can hop easily between each of those destinations because the train is there.

Billie: And it seems like this is a good moment for rail travel in the US in general, Amtrak rail travel hit a record in 2025, both in ridership and revenue. And you said Brightline. Brightline was good, so maybe it is indicative of a shift in habits for American.

Nicolas: Yeah, I think once again, I think Americans are like everyone. If they see a good product, a good service, they will take it.

Billie: But even with this momentum, there’s been a lot of reporting lately on bright lines, debt load. At the same time, as you said that ridership and revenue are growing. So what do you want your peers in the travel industry and travelers to know about that situation?

Nicolas: Yeah, I mean, obviously it’s another topic I’m working on very actively. When Brightline was set up, and it’s the same with any greenfield project like that. Eurostar was the same in Europe, and I’ve seen that many times. You don’t know what to expect in terms of ridership, etc. you make a forecast, but you don’t know. And in our case, well, the reality is lower than the forecast and we have a lot of debt. So the business is very good. It’s going strong and people love it, but we have too much debt. And so the job we have to do now is to work with our bondholders, our shareholders to see, okay, what would be the right size for the balance sheet for the business we’ve got. And that’s what we’re working on at the moment, but for the business itself, it’s business as usual. The business keeps going. Business as usual. The customers love it.

Billie: They won’t notice a difference.

Nicolas: No. But you know, there is a discussion, I would say, which is more a financial discussion about what is the balance sheet. Right. What should it look like? And so that’s what we are working on at the moment.

Billie: And at the same time, there’s a, The Brightline West project, is being discussed and other expansion plans. So you have a much bigger vision for the whole company. What does success look like over the next decade?

Nicolas: Oh yeah. It’s very exciting because same it’s a great city, Las Vegas, Los Angeles. The distance is perfect. There is a very good way to get from one to the other by following the motorway. And so we want to build a high speed line, you know, running like in China or in Europe at what is it, a bit more than 200 mph. So a great product and we are about to start work. So for me the success would be that in 10 years, we have a great Florida operation with millions of passengers every day. Not every day, every year. I’m getting carried away. And same on the west side between Las Vegas and Los Angeles to have a great service where people. Once again, what’s great about train is that once you put it in place, people take advantage of it and you create more trips that would not exist otherwise.

Billie: So the hardest part is getting it built.

Nicolas: The tough part is getting built.

Billie: So how realistic is it that Brightline West is going to happen? I mean, you’re dealing with the debt issues on one side, but is that affecting the growth of the other project.

Nicolas: So the two are separate. But on the west side we have great partnerships. We are talking to also the FRA, the Federal Rail Authority. We are talking to a lot of partners. There is a lot of excitement and support. It’s a complex project. It’s a much bigger project because you have to build the line all the way. But I’m very confident we’ll get it done, because I think everybody can see the benefit that it will bring both to the two cities, but generally to the US economy.

Billie: You talked about the infrastructure is a challenge and that’s something that travelers don’t see. You know, the bridges, the crossings for the current Florida route. Did Brightline build its own tracks or is that on on cargo rails that were already there?

Nicolas: Oh, it was the corridor that existed that actually existed before Florida existed. It was built by a guy called Flagler in the 19th Century.

Billie: Flagler? Yes.

Nicolas: And he built a railway to develop his chain of hotels. That’s right. In Florida. And so he built a railway at the time all the way to Key West. And later it became more of a freight railway with a bit of passenger. And it was bought 10 years ago. And that’s where the idea of rebuilding tracks on the same corridor for high speed passenger railway was broached. And that’s what happened on a corridor that existed. But the tracks are new, the stations are new, the trains are new, so everything is new.

Billie: Did you run into any constraints with that process and with the new process that are shaping how you have to pivot or like, what roadblocks are you running up against that you have to solve for when you’re building.

Nicolas: Out in Florida? You know, there was a right of way. You know, there was a line, so you just have to.

Billie: Go with.

Nicolas: It. You just go with it. There was the extension to Orlando into the airport, which is also great. In the West. It’s a different proposition. There is no railway there. So it’s a brand new railway. But you know, the line will go in the middle section of the highway, which is a great way not to. It’s easier and you don’t waste any space. The right of way is there. And that’s usually the toughest part is what we call the alignment. You know where the line will go. It’s always the toughest part. So we’ve got it in the West. In Florida it was done.

Billie: It was.

Nicolas: There. It was there. Uh, and I don’t know, hopefully maybe after that we’ll find other places in the US.

Billie: Knows where next.

Nicolas: Yeah.

Billie: Thank you so much, Nicholas. It was great talking to you.

Nicolas: Thank you so much. It was great. Thank you.

Billie: Thanks for joining us for this episode of View From Afar. In the show notes, you’ll find links to everything we discussed today, as well as Brightline social media handles and website. And be sure to follow along this week to hear more interviews with industry experts. You can find more Views from Afar on Afar.com, and be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok. We’re @AfarMedia. If you enjoyed today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great interviews. Subscribing always makes that easy, and be sure to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform. It helps other travelers find it.

This has been View From Afar, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland, with assistance from Michelle Baran and me, Billie Cohen. Music composition from Epidemic Sound. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to its other fine shows like Culture Kids and The Explorers podcast.