British border restrictions are forcing company to run with empty seats despite major demand for its low carbon services, CEO warns
Eurostar has formally merged with French-Belgian high speed train operator Thalys, in a move it said will significantly boost the number of people who can take advantage of low-carbon travel across Europe and reduce the damaging impact Brexit is having on its services.
Speaking at a press conference announcing the merger yesterday, the chief executive of the new Eurostar Group, Gwendoline Cazenave, said the "unprecedented merger of international rail operators" was aiming to result in the expanded company carrying 30 million passengers by 2030, up from a combined 19 million across the two companies in 2019.
Under the plans, UK passengers will be able to buy Eurostar tickets for German cities including Cologne and Dortmund, connecting via Brussels, through a new booking system the Eurostar Group expects to launch later this year. It is hoped that the merger will lead to shorter connection times for passengers travelling between London and Germany.
Cazenove, who has been CEO of Eurostar since October 2022, said she was "so excited to be building a new Eurostar, the backbone of sustainable travel across European borders". The company's objective was to provide "a backbone between big cities", such as London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Brussels, she said.
Border checks at British borders due to Brexit have delivered a major blow to Eurostar as it worked to recoup the losses driven by pandemic travel restrictions, according to the company.
Despite "significant demand" for its services from the UK to the continent post-Covid, the company has had to cap the number of seats on early trains between London, Paris, and Brussels to ease bottlenecks in stations now that the UK demands a full passport examination and stamping for citizens, Cazenove told journalists. A lack of space for border checks at Amsterdam Centraal station, its Netherlands terminus, is exacerbating the problem, she added.
On top of having to leave up to 40 per cent of seats empty on early trains from London St Pancras in order to prevent initial delays disrupting the rest of the day's schedule, a lack of border officials is driving an almost 30 per cent increase in the time it take to process passengers departing from the London terminus, she said.
Eurostar is currently running 14 services per day between London and Paris, compared to 18 in 2019, Cazenove said. "Now we are not able to run the same transport offer as what we had before in 2019, because of bottlenecks in stations," she said.
Last year, the company stopped its services from London to the Alps and Disneyland Paris, as well as services that stopped at UK stations, Ashford International and Ebbsfleet.
According to some reports, Eurostar trains no longer required on British routes due to Brexit border requirements may soon be running on Thalys routes on the continent.
With the merger, the Thalys brand will likely disappear by the end of the year with all trains from both brands getting a refreshed logo and new look.
Four organisations own the Eurostar Group, with France's state-owned SNCF Voyages Developpement owning the majority of shares and the remaing 45 per cent split between the CDPQ, Belgium's national rail proviver SNCB and American investment manager Federated Hermes. The UK government sold its 40 per cent state in the company in 2014.
The move is part of a wider push across the continent to offer more high speed and sleeper train services that can replace short haul flights as part of efforts to deliver on national climate goals. The French government is continuing to pursue plans to ban several flights that cover routes where train links offer a viable alternative, while recent talks between the French and German government are set to result in a new direct service between Paris and Berlin.
