Eurostar boss confident of reaching 30 million passenger mark by 2030
Ilaria Grasso MacolaEurostar boss Gwendoline Cazenave is confident the operator can scale its operations up to 30 million annual passengers, despite the challenges it has faced rebounding from one of the toughest periods in its 29-year history.
Cazenave, who has headed up the line for just over a year, told TTG Eurostar was gearing up to increase the frequency of services on its five core routes, with renewed "willingness" of – and demand from – passengers to travel more sustainably.
Citing Eurostar data, Cazenave revealed business travel bookings for Eurostar have now reached 80% of pre-pandemic levels, while leisure bookings are nearing 100%. Bookings from Eurostar’s overseas market, meanwhile, are running 205 ahead of 2019 volumes.
Cazenave said bookings had rebounded so strongly that Eurostar is currently struggling to meet demand due to a lack of policing and security resources across the network.
“We are challenged by the market growth,” she said. “How do we manage to put enough trains and offers on sale between our big cities to answer to such demand?"
Cazenave told TTG Eurostar was working with police forces in the UK, France and Belgium to ramp up the number of police officers available at customs, and investing too in new scanning technology.
“We are also working with them to invest in eGates,” she added. “We are testing smart checks at St Pancras, where we use biometric recognition to scan people.”
Cazenave said she was confident these talks would contribute to Eurostar achieving its objective of carrying 30 million annual passengers by 2030, as well as through closer partnerships with domestic rail networks in Europe and with airlines too.
She previously hinted to TTG that the travel trade could play an important role in achieving this. Chief commercial officer Francois Le Doze, meanwhile, said Eurostar and its new partner Thalys were looking at additional B2B hires and at revamping its trade portal.
“From St Pancras, we can connect to northern England, while in Brussels we have connections with Deutsche Bahn [serving Germany]. It’s a new way of bringing in customers who are not into trains because they can now have a seamless experience between different rail operators.”
As for airlines, Cazenave said partnerships with carriers such as KLM – which offers passengers flying with the airline the option of boarding a high-speed train to Brussels – will help Eurostar tap into the overseas market.
“The airline connection will enable overseas tourists to travel by train when they are in Europe,” she added.
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