Memo from London
From: Ray Moseley.
Re: The many reasons that Eurotunnel passenger numbers are disappointing
6 Officials of Eurotunnel, looking at another dismal set of figures on passenger numbers aboard the train that runs under the English Channel, may wonder what’s gone wrong.
They had anticipated carrying 6.7 million passengers in 1997. The final figure is likely to be 700,000 short of that. They predicted the train would take 2.51 million cars through the tunnel. At the end of November, the figure was just 2.04 million. They hoped to carry 80,000 tourist buses, but managed only 56,500 through November.
It is the third straight year in which traffic has failed to live up to forecasts on the debt-ridden Eurostar (passenger) and Le Shuttle (car, truck and bus) services.
For what it’s worth, officials might consider these observations by one mildly disgruntled Eurostar customer, namely me.
First of all, prices are too high. A first-class round-trip ticket to Paris or Brussels costs around $490, and a second-class ticket between $205 and $308 (the cheaper ticket can’t be changed). Eurostar should be trying to undercut overpriced airline fares, not match them.
Second, the food is rather dismal– certainly not as good as the meals served on either British Airways or Air France. This may not seem too surprising at the London end, but it is when the train comes from Paris, leaving one to wonder whether Eurostar has somehow contrived to find a British caterer in France.
The only enjoyable meal I’ve had on Eurostar was on a train from Brussels to London.
The tea is abominable. Eurostar uses the cheapest brand of British tea, the kind one imagines that only impoverished students living in garrets ever buy. The brand is easily identifiable from its vile taste, and the tea is invariably served at something less than a lukewarm temperature. In the greatest tea-drinking nation in the world, this is inexcusable. The coffee isn’t a great deal better.
Eurostar could save money by not serving a full meal at, say, 3 p.m. On a recent trip to Brussels, everyone in my coach (there were only four of us, alas) turned it down.
In the hand-washing department, Eurostar is a total failure. It supposedly provides liquid soap from a dispenser in the lavatories, but on my last three trips the dispensers have been empty.
But my biggest complaint about riding Eurostar is something that, unfortunately, is beyond remedy. Most of the business people traveling on the train seem to carry cellular phones and, because the train is actually under the channel only 20 minutes, spend most of the journey talking to their head offices in extraordinarily loud voices.
One of the few advantages of air travel is that this problem does not arise. I wouldn’t mind too much overhearing people arranging an assignation with a French lover, discussing a fantastic Parisian dinner or even plotting a major crime.
But the business conversations on these trains are so mind-numbingly boring that it’s a wonder both parties do not fall into a coma.
As for those forced to eavesdrop, the constant loud talk makes it difficult either to work or to sleep.
For all that, it is still difficult to understand why Eurostar is not more popular. It spares the traveler the long and expensive taxi ride to and from airports, involves a check-in 20 minutes before departure rather than an hour and offers a far more comfortable ride than the small seats with narrow leg room on planes. It also involves no wait for luggage at the destination.
The train still moves at just 100 m.p.h. on the English side–the construction timetable for a high-speed link is predictably not being met–but it whizzes through France and Belgium at 186 m.p.h., and there are never the bumps one gets on ordinary British trains.
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The high-speed link in Belgium was completed only a few weeks ago, shaving travel time by more than a half hour to just under three hours, and that may help attract more travelers.
The construction of the tunnel, and the design of the trains that function on overhead wires on one side of the channel and rail-based current on the other, are among the engineering marvels of the late 20th Century.
With a little more attention to some of the minor irritations that arise, and perhaps another look at fares, Eurostar might start to attract the business it deserves.
But at the moment, Eurotunnel officials may have their minds elsewhere. They are talking of building a second channel tunnel, this one a road rather than a rail link.
Whether it would be a better bet for investors remains to be seen. Eurotunnel shares are trading at roughly $1–a long way below their high of $10.