Yahoo Finance France blocks efforts to increase Eurostar services as holiday chaos spreads
France is resisting efforts to increase daily Eurostar services in a fresh twist to a row between border guards and travel companies that last week tipped millions of summer holidays into chaos.
In a dispute that will draw parallels with a row that brought Dover to standstill on Friday, border officials in Paris are at loggerheads with the Channel Tunnel train operator over its plans to add to the number of trains running between London and Paris every day.
Eurostar, whose future was put in doubt last year in a funding row between France and the UK, is understood to be pushing to increase the number of services between the two capitals to 17 a day.
City sources said that the desire to ramp up services was in part to honour commitments contained in leasing agreements for Eurostar’s fleet of Velaro trains, built by Siemens at a cost of €600m (£510m).
Failure to hit this frequency could cause financial issues with honouring lease payments in the fullness of time, sources said. However, they said that there was no suggestion of an immediate threat to the company.
French border and security officials at Gare du Nord are understood to be insisting that they can only cope with a maximum of 13 trains a day, causing a significant headache for Eurostar bosses and hurting hopes of capturing a boom in demand for overseas travel this summer.
An extra four services would allow thousands more people to travel to the Continent every day, easing pressure on ferries and airlines after passengers suffered a wave of flight cancellations and hours-long traffic jams around Dover.
Eurostar ran around 25 services each day prior to the pandemic, including to destinations such as Brussels and Amsterdam as well as Paris.
French border police and security scanning personnel claim that they are suffering from chronic staffing shortages and cannot handle more train services, sources said.
One said: “It's in no-one's interest to upset the apple cart. Getting on top of the post-pandemic surge in demand requires goodwill and collaboration on all sides.”
On Friday, border officials from Police Aux Frontières (PAF) sparked chaos at Dover amid claims that staff failed to turn up to work.
France was accused of ruining the great British getaway, with less than half of the booths to check passports open.
Speculation was rife that France had deliberately targeted holidaymakers following tensions in the wake of Britain’s acronymous split from the European Union.
The Port of Dover accused PAF of ruining British holidays. French officials denied the allegations, insisting that there was “joint responsibility” for the chaos.
The chaos in Dover abated this weekend as PAF increased border resources to their full capacity. The turmoil instead moved to Folkestone as the Channel Tunnel grappled with the fallout from a car crash that closed the M20 for most of Friday.
Eurostar, ferry operators and the Channel Tunnel have noted a sharp uptick in summer bookings as holidaymakers turn their backs on flying following months of chaotic scenes at airports.
A spokesman for Eurostar said: “The pressure on the travel industry post-pandemic has been well documented. We have deliberately chosen to increase our services gradually over the summer period, on all of our routes, to ensure we can deliver the quality of service our passengers rightly expect, and to protect our operation and our teams whilst we recover from the pandemic.
“We have had constructive discussions with the authorities on how we can work together to continue to increase our services. In Gare du Nord, the French border police have committed to increasing resources, the douanes have added staff and opened more lanes, and in autumn there will be an increase in the number of UK border gates which will help to further streamline the check-in process.”
Majority-owned by French state train operator SNCF, Eurostar faced a bleak future 18 months ago as the UK Government refused to bail out the company.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, clashed with French counterpart Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, who insisted that Britain should play its part in saving Eurostar — despite a stake owned by UK taxpayers being sold by David Cameron for £750m in 2015.
After securing a £200m bailout from its shareholders last May, which also include Federated Hermes, which invests on behalf of UK public sector pension funds among others, Eurostar this year merged with French-Belgian operator Thalys, paving the way for Eurostar-branded trains to run intra-Continental services for the first time.
