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As Eurostar faces a long-term outlook for competition in cross-channel services, it plans to meet the growing demand for business for greener travel to launch new services from London to Frankfurt and Geneva.
The Railway Group has announced plans to expand to two European financial hubs, with the timing of the “early 2030s” including new services from Amsterdam and Brussels to Geneva.
Last year, Eurostar said it had invested 2 billion euros in 50 new trains and aimed to expand its fleet to 67, but it had not yet confirmed train orders. He said new services will be launched after the trains are introduced.
To work further destinations, the Railway Group will require the government to agree to establish expensive and troublesome security and border infrastructure in Frankfurt and Geneva.
The complexity of the intersecting boundary means that over 30 years ago, Eurostar will only move to three major destinations from London: Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris.
“We can’t call these ‘plans’ these ‘plans’ until we see the trains they order, and when they’ll be delivered, but it’s kind of a vague idea,” said John Worth, a cross-border railway consultant.
The difficulty in running international rail travel and lack of capacity on cross-channel lines have also slowed the mutual efforts to challenge Eurostar’s existing services.
In 2024, it visited the Eurostar in 2024, increasing by about 5% since 2023, and increased due to the Parisiolmín Games. The Railway Group said it carried a total of 8 million passengers until the end of May this year. This is an increase of 6.4% from the same period in 2023. Reservations were made by corporate customers with 677,000 passengers.
Geneva and Frankfurt are “big finance hubs (and) European cities” and were chosen by London as “big cities (and) European cities.”
The number of business travelers carried by railway operators is now “at the same level as before Covid,” she said.
“With corporate travelers, we really see growth for sustainability purposes,” she said. “Companies really want staff to travel by train.”
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Deloitte and BCG were one of Eurostar’s biggest business customers, and said the rail operators encouraged staff to travel by rail, an alternative to help them achieve their sustainability goals.
JPMorgan has decided to place a major EU trading hub in Paris in 2021 after Brexit. Currently, Paris has 1,000 employees. It’s four times the previous Brexit. Although there is no “first railway” policy, staff were encouraged to choose the most “sustainable method”.
Eurostar estimated travel time from London to Frankfurt and Geneva would be around five hours. We plan to offer four services daily to Frankfurt and three services daily to Geneva.
“We’re more motivated to travel long trains. Ten or 15 years ago, people didn’t want to go on trains for more than three hours. That’s now increasing to four and moving towards five hours,” says Cazenave.
Cazenave said the challenges of increasing competition: “In the end, the demand is enormous.”
Additional Reports by Eleshefba Kissin
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