by No one could have foreseen the disastrously soggy end to 2023 which resulted in a flooded rail tunnel outside London forcing Eurostar to cancel its services in and out of the city on December 30, affecting around 30,000 passengers. The train operator was already reeling from the last-minute strike by French Channel Tunnel workers on Dec. 21, which caused travel chaos before Christmas as passengers struggled to get home for the holidays.
It was what the French newspaper The Figaro It was considered a “nightmare end to the year” for Eurostar, which finally seemed to be finding its feet after the double blows of Brexit and the pandemic. Following an emergency refinancing deal in 2021, the company’s 2023 merger with European operator Thalys offered a ray of hope. “As Eurostar Group, we will be more resilient to external crises in the future,” a spokesperson told The Telegraph at the time.
Although the new Eurostar Group reaches more destinations than a year ago, reaching them means a change in Lille, Paris or Brussels for UK customers. Meanwhile, a direct service to Disneyland Paris has been removed from the schedule indefinitely, along with stops at Ebbsfleet and Ashford International. Will 2024, Eurostar’s 30th anniversary, bring better news for British customers?
“Eurostar services will not stop at Ebbsfleet or Ashford International or go directly to Disney in 2024, and we cannot make any commitments for 2025,” a representative told The Telegraph. “While we are close to returning to normal, with 11 million passengers traveling with us on our cross-Channel routes in 2023, we will continue to face the financial consequences of the pandemic for several years. Borders have also become more complex, and the long-awaited launch of the EU Entry/Exit System invites us to be cautious. “We continue to focus on our core routes, where demand is highest, and on stabilizing our business, operations and customer experience.”
Anticipating ETIAS
Given the problems post-Brexit border controls have already caused, rail expert Mark Smith of The Man in Seat Sixty-One believes the brand is right to be wary of new European regulations for third-country nationals, which they will be implemented by the end of 2024. “There are still some peak hour trains leaving with empty seats because they can’t process everything at St Pancras,” he said. “The ETIAS travel authorization system and the entry/exit system are going to ruin everything again, potentially.”
Eurostar says it is preparing for the changes by investing in improved electronic gates for Paris and London, as well as adding a new manual control cabin and electronic gates in Brussels. It also hopes to implement the use of Smartcheck, which allows customers to register their passports before arriving at the station, in order to use facial recognition to speed up border controls.
In the correct way?
One of the operator’s recent successes was the launch of a direct route between London and Amsterdam in 2020. But a section of the route will be paralyzed for six months from June 2024, because the improvement works at Amsterdam Central Station They mean there will not be enough space to facilitate security checks for British passengers returning to the UK. It is a frustrating pause, although Eurostar hopes to increase train frequency once the works are completed.
The company reintroduced another popular service in late 2023. The much-loved ski train to the French Alps was canceled in 2020 and the route was taken over by Travelski, a tour operator that chartered trains so British skiers could head to the slopes. by rail between December and April.
For 2023/24, Eurostar has regained the route with a service serving five Alpine stations and running until early February. However, unlike the Travelski option (and the original Eurostar service), Eurostar Snow involves a change in Lille for passengers and all their ski paraphernalia. Even more frustrating is that anyone planning a ski trip after February 4 will need to book two separate train tickets and take a tour from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon to continue the trip from Paris.
“[The initial closure] It affected the resorts in the French Alps because it’s their livelihood, which is why they rented a ski train,” Smith said. “But Eurostar didn’t want to play with that anymore, so now we have this Eurostar/Thalys hybrid. “It is a great shame.”
Another of the group’s new routes (albeit with more changes) should please more people during 2024. Football fans in England will be able to head to Euro 2024 matches by train thanks to a service to Cologne and Dusseldorf via Brussels. Eurostar is also the official travel partner of the British Olympic Association and expects to transport 1.7 million fans to the Games via its Paris routes.
With no competitors on the London-Paris service, Eurostar should be able to maximize its profits during the tournament, but that could change in the future. New operator Evolyn hopes to operate trains between London and Paris North as early as 2025, although experts believe this is an optimistic target.
Sir Richard Branson also has his eye on the route, while Railtech reports that newly formed Dutch company Heuro wants to offer a service between London and Amsterdam until 2028, with up to 15 trains per day.
“That’s crazy,” says Jerry Alderson, director of campaign organization Rail Future. “Not even in 20 years will they reach that number. “The big problem is that St Pancras simply doesn’t have the capacity.”
rate fair
Once the configuration issues are resolved, Eurostar may need customer loyalty and affordable prices to help it retain passengers against the competition, so it would be wise to focus on a few issues in the meantime. The operator recently got into trouble with the Advertising Standards Authority after a £39 summer fare offer sparked a customer complaint due to a perceived lack of available seats.
And while none of the festive season disruptions were Eurostar’s fault, passengers took to social media to bemoan the lack of customer service in the aftermath. A representative defended the brand: “On both days, when external factors caused a very difficult situation, customers were offered the option to exchange their tickets or receive a refund. Those who were stranded received help with hotel and taxi compensation. “Additional services were also organized in the days following the incidents.”
However, the Reverend Canon Dr Rob Marshall, whose train to Brussels was canceled on December 30, was saddened to see families and elderly passengers stranded at a “severely overcrowded” St Pancras.
“The start of the journey for a large number of Eurostar passengers is not London,” he said. “They had already spent enormous amounts of time and money getting to St Pancras in time for their respective trains (on trips to London and hotels for early departures) and Eurostar is treating them as ‘local passengers’ who only need to return. on another day. Most of them simply can’t. “While the flooding was not Eurostar’s fault, the complete failure of any communications strategy in terms of proactive information and empathy was appalling.”
