Eurostar emerges from darkness to post 5% jump in first-quarter sales

EUROSTAR, the Channel Tunnel high-speed train group, helped accelerate away from the public relations fiasco of its December breakdowns by unveiling a 5 per cent jump in first-quarter revenues yesterday.

The news came as new chief executive Nicolas Petrovic said that, while the economic outlook remained uncertain, leisure traffic through the tunnel had increased strongly in the first three months of the year and fresh rail destinations were in the works.

Eurostar made revenues of 178 million in the first three months of 2010 – up from 168m between January and March 2009. Passenger numbers for the first three months of this year rose by 100,000 to two million.

Eurostar, owned in a partnership structure by London & Continental Railways, SNCF and SNCB, said: "Interestingly, the number of passengers from overseas markets outside Europe increased by 22 per cent."

Leisure passengers travelling between the UK and continental Europe rose 6 per cent to 1.76 million, up from 1.65 million in the same period of 2009.

But the continued fragile recovery of economies on both sides of the Channel saw business traveller numbers remain flat.

Eurostar took comfort from what it believed was a continuing "bottoming out" of the business market that began in the latter part of last year.

Petrovic said: "Whilst there is still uncertainty about the economic outlook, we have seen a big increase in leisure travel over the past three months, not just from the Continent but from overseas markets."

Directors said moves to restructure from being a partnership between the three railway companies to a single corporate entity were well advanced.

Petrovic said: "I am very pleased that we are moving closer to the new corporate structure which will streamline decision-making, deliver consistency of service standards across the three countries (Britain, France and Belgium] and ensure that the business is well placed to compete in an open- access world."

The company said it was trialling a service with SNCF where Eurostar passengers could travel between the UK and Provence, connecting at Lille, in specially reserved coaches on connecting TGVs.

"Over the coming months Eurostar will seek feedback from passengers, and if the service proves popular will look to extend it to other destinations", the group said.

Eurostar, which runs trains between London, Paris and Brussels, had a miserable end to 2009 when five snow-affected trains got stuck in the tunnel just before Christmas.

Passengers endured hours of misery and Eurostar had to cancel all services for three days in a blizzard of negative publicity.

An independent inquiry sharply criticised the company's operating procedures. Eurostar said yesterday it was making improvements to ensure there would be no repeat of the chaos.