Eurostar ‘not confident’ in talks to prevent London-Amsterdam train suspension
Eurostar has said it is not confident it will be able to prevent the closure of its popular London to Amsterdam route next year, amid backroom discussions with Dutch officials.
Speaking to City PM at a conference in London, chief commercial officer François Le Doze said: “We’re optimistic. We’re not confident.”
The high speed rail group has been holding talks with Dutch ministers and industry figures in a bid to keep the route open, or reduce the length of time it is shut for.
“There is a solution that is workable. So if common sense wins, then we don’t have a gap,” Le Doze stressed.
Eurostar runs four daily trains between London and Amsterdam, all of which would be halted from June 2024 unless an alternative solution is found.
“Amsterdam is really a key destination, the key for us and we want to do our best to keep operating. Or if there is a gap, keep the gap as small as possible,” Le Doze told City PM
Amsterdam is really a key destination, the key for us and we want to do our best to keep operating. Or if there is a gap, keep the gap as small as possible
Eurostar Chief Commercial Officer François Le Doze
“It would be a shame because we’ve we’ve become a big player, with a similar market share to airlines on that route,” he added.
The Amsterdam link’s potential closure coincides with a long-awaited resurgence in leisure demand to pre-pandemic levels, a critical factor in Eurostar’s bid to shore up its finances and expand.
Eurostar chief executive Gwendoline Cazenave told City PM “we’ve worked hard with all the stakeholders in Amsterdam… to find a solution.”
Cazenave said railway experts had informed her there were ways to “organise the work so there’s no gap between the close of the current terminal and the opening of the next one.”
“We are still working on this, looking for a compromise, and by the end of October we should have the decision as to how we’re going to deal with this.”
She was speaking as the group launched a new brand identity and logo, highlighting its expanded network following a merger with Thalys last year.
Post-Brexit red tape and the lasting impacts of Covid-19 have contributed to a number of route closures at Eurostar in recent years, including its direct train to Disneyland Paris and the line to Marseille via Avignon and Lyon.
If a solution to the Amsterdam debacle is not found, Eurostar’s network will have shrunk from 13 year-round stations pre-Brexit, to just four.
But Cazenave insisted that Brexit and pandemic-related woes were now “in the past.”
“I would say that the situation where we are now is that these periods are behind us, we have such a strong demand, we are dealing with growth challenges.”