High-speed link 'rebirth of Eurostar'

EUROSTAR today promised it will be making a profit within four years as September's opening of the high-speed Channel Tunnel Rail Link has brought passengers flocking back to the Continent-bound train service.

Twenty minutes lopped off the Waterloo-Paris service, plus heavy fare discounting, took loss-making Eurostar's passenger numbers to 1.69m in the last three months of 2003, a year-on-year rise of 15%, on services that also extend to Brussels.

'It's early days but we are talking-about the rebirth of Eurostar,' said director Paul Charles, who forecast passenger growth of at least 11% continuing into 2004.

After a bleak first half, when Iraq war fears ravaged business and leisure travel, Eurostar's passenger tally for the year was 6.3m, a year-on-year fall of 8%.

With three consecutive years of falling passenger numbers from the 2000 peak of 7.1m, Eurostar has now dropped to 1999 volume levels. When Eurostar started a decade ago, it forecast it would be carrying 12m passengers a year through the tunnel by 2003.

Revenues in the year fell 8% to £375m. But Charles today pledged that a cut in tolls to use the Eurotunnel operated Channel crossing in 2006 and the opening of the second high-speed link a year later will see it turn profitable 'by either 2007 or 2008'.

Annual losses have previously topped £100m for a company majority-controlled by French State railway SNCF, but which had to be bailed out by the UK Government in the 1990s.