Eurostar is planning a major service boost as vaccinated travellers continue to return and people, with the train company planning to increase services.
Eurostar trains at London St Pancras – Image, Economy Class and Beyond
The following is planned From 6 September until 1 November:
- Five Return services between London St Pancras and Paris Gare Du Nord
- Three Return services between London St Pancras and Brussels Midi, with one of these services extended to Rotterdam and Amsterdam.
For those who need to travel, this will provide better flexibility to both business and leisure travellers.
Lead-in fares start from £39 each way.
Eurostar has indicated that all tickets are flexible with no exchange fee up to 7 days before departure, peace of mind should travel restrictions or plans change. To quote:
Customers can exchange tickets in Standard and Standard Premier as many times as they want without paying an exchange fee as long as tickets are exchanged 7 days or more before the departure date of their outbound journey. Where tickets are exchanged for a higher priced ticket, customers will need to pay the difference. Tickets exchanged within 7 days of the individual journey will incur an exchange fee.
All travellers must wear a mask on board and in stations, this continues to apply after check-in in London St Pancras.
Building on August
It’s been a successful month for Eurostar, after months in the doldrums due to travel restrictions, with the train company seeing double the amount of bookings. To support this, they have added 39 trains for travel between the UK and the continent this month alone.
The busiest days for travel are between 27th and 30th August, with Paris the most popular destination from the UK.
Since the easing of travel restrictions by the UK government in August, the high-speed rail operator is seeing the gradual return of the weekend break, with a 105% rise in August and September weekend trips between London and Paris compared to the same period last year and 83% of bookings attributed to leisure travel or visiting friends and family.
An end in sight?
Like airlines, Eurostar has suffered when travel restrictions were hard, forcing them to cut services down to the bone. With restrictions easing, it seems that the train company now has at least some traffic to help it through.
With the losses that Eurostar incurred, the traffic has come at a welcome time for the company.
The trick – like airlines – will be sustaining the traffic, through all the ups and downs that the current environment possesses.
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