Eurostar not serving Kent.

[BRX]

How would departing from Ebbsfleet or Stratford(for instance) be any cheaper than departing from St Pancras? Is the station access charge / border control / security cost different, and by how much? The trains are going to have to travel on HS1 in either case, the Channel Tunnel and TGV lines are going to be the same price, the trains and crews are going to cost much the same.

Well, I was looking at this in the specific current context, at least as presented in the Eurostar letter, where there is a large unsatisfied demand, and the bottleneck is the physical capacity of St Pancras's border processing facility.

I am making an assumption that the current prices from St Pancras are higher than they would be if there wasn't that bottleneck. In other words, Eurostar could sell at lower prices and still make a profit. Ebbsfleet/Ashford don't have to be cheaper to operate from, they just have to provide the processing capacity that can't currently be provided at St Pancras. Once that can be provided at St Pancras then obviously the picture changes.

If every 100 tickets they can sell at £50 profit can be supplemented by another 25 tickets at £10 profit that's still an increase in revenue for Eurostar.

The question about whether, in the longer term, Eurostar or another operator could profitably operate a "budget" service from somewhere like Stratford is a slightly different one, I think.

 

[RT4038]

Well, I was looking at this in the specific current context, at least as presented in the Eurostar letter, where there is a large unsatisfied demand, and the bottleneck is the physical capacity of St Pancras's border processing facility.

From the letter, part of the problem is the physical capacity at St Pancras, partly the staffing by UKBA and the French Border Police , and partly the need to have full trains at high prices to effectively make good the Covid losses. Obviously starting 900 seat trains from Ebbsfleet, which would have to be full to make any economic sense, would put a serious strain on the physical capacity there [not ever loading 900 people before on a train there], would take Border staff (of both sides) away from St Pancras which is already a problem, and presumably at no lower fare than St Pancras to avoid cannibalising that revenue.

Presumably the large unsatisfied demand is going to be that of the lower priced tickets, which will concern Eurostar less anyway.

 

[BRX]

Interesting to look at Eurostar prices for the next week or so, for London to Paris.

Tomorrow only 5 services out of 13 have any seats left. Only 2 services have standard seats left.
On Monday all but one of the morning departures are sold out. On the first six departures of the day, all of the Premier seats are sold out.
Next Friday, 2 of the 4 morning services are entirely sold out. Only 1 of the first 5 services has any Premier seat availability.

The maximum they seem to be charging for Standard seats is £195 and for Business Premier £276 (even if I want to travel right now). So, they must have decided that beyond those prices, people will just opt for a flight. They can't just keep upping the prices on the highest-demand services.

So... take a Friday. A week ahead, the 4 morning departures are near enough sold out. Of the remaining services, the cheapest Standard ticket is £155 and the cheapest business premier is £276. One day ahead, nearly the whole day is sold out completely.

Put all that together, and it makes me wonder, if you could run an additional 3 services on a Friday morning, starting from Ebbsfleet (a 17 minute Javelin ride from St Pancras) couldn't you fill those with people still willing to pay a decent fare?

You'd be providing 13 services from St Pancras plus 3 from Ebbsfleet - 16 total. In 2019 they were running 23 services, 6 of which picked up from Ebbsfleet. And indeed most of the Ebbsfleet pickups were in the morning.

Spread those 3 Ebbsfleet services over 3 or 4 hours, you have a couple of thousand people to process - can you not then use X number of border officials efficiently?

Well, I know it wouldn't be as simple as that, as there'd be all sorts of inefficiencies in only having the station open for restricted hours each week, but then the station is already there and built, as are the trains and everything to support them perhaps with the exception of some maintenance staff.

I'm fully willing to accept it doesn't stack up because if it did they'd be doing it already. Just interesting to think about and I wonder how marginal it would be.

 

[Bald Rick]

Put all that together, and it makes me wonder, if you could run an additional 3 services on a Friday morning, starting from Ebbsfleet (a 17 minute Javelin ride from St Pancras) couldn't you fill those with people still willing to pay a decent fare?

Ebbsflet simply doesn’t have the capacity to process a whole train load of departing Passengers.

 

[zwk500]

Put all that together, and it makes me wonder, if you could run an additional 3 services on a Friday morning, starting from Ebbsfleet (a 17 minute Javelin ride from St Pancras) couldn't you fill those with people still willing to pay a decent fare?

But why would you bother going to additional cost and effort to offer a lower fare when you can run trains that are full from London at the full price fare?

Spread those 3 Ebbsfleet services over 3 or 4 hours, you have a couple of thousand people to process - can you not then use X number of border officials efficiently?

Not really. because you won't get completely full trains each departure from Ebbsfleet. So 3 departures an hour apart each will mean a security team and 2 border teams hanging about doing not very much for large portions of their shift. The majority of the traffic is already in London.

Well, I know it wouldn't be as simple as that, as there'd be all sorts of inefficiencies in only having the station open for restricted hours each week, but then the station is already there and built, as are the trains and everything to support them perhaps with the exception of some maintenance staff.

Note that the luggage scanning and security equipment, metal detectors, passport scanners, computer etc has all been mothballed since March 2020. There's a hell of a lot of phyiscal equipment that will need to be inspected and serviced or replaced, and computer equipment that will need to be updated, upgraded, renewed or replaced. Ebbsfleet's current passenger processing capacity is 0/hr. Even if they only did 1 lane for 120/hr (i.e. a passenger every 30 seconds), it'd cost an awful lot of money to get the security sign-offs.

 

[BRX]

From the letter, part of the problem is the physical capacity at St Pancras,

When you distill down what's actually written in the letter, this seems to be the critical issue.

partly the staffing by UKBA and the French Border Police ,

The letter doesn't actually say there is a shortage of potential staff. Instead it seems to be making the point that they can be much more efficiently utilised at St Pancras (due to the higher throughput) than at the other stations. That's what prompted me to wonder if that could be changed, by deliberately funneling a larger number of passengers through those stations than was previously the case.

and partly the need to have full trains at high prices to effectively make good the Covid losses.

The letter doesn't say that either. They just need to generate as much revenue as they can, don't they? A train doesn't necessarily have to be full to make a profit. I don't see that anything has really changed since pre-Covid: any train that turns a profit is worth running. I don't imagine that they habitually ran loss-making services before - they weren't under any kind of minimum service obligation are they?

Obviously starting 900 seat trains from Ebbsfleet, which would have to be full to make any economic sense,

Again, they don't necessarily have to be full. But obviously ideally they would be.

would put a serious strain on the physical capacity there [not ever loading 900 people before on a train there],

Fair point; never having been there I've no idea what the maximum capacity is or could be.
Of course, another option would simply be to use the intermediate stations as processing points, loading a certain maximum number of people onto certain ex-London services, using whatever the maximum capacity of the station is.

would take Border staff (of both sides) away from St Pancras which is already a problem,

We don't actually know if it would necessarily mean taking staff away - it might mean being able to employ a few more, and utilise them efficiently.

and presumably at no lower fare than St Pancras to avoid cannibalising that revenue.

I think you could lower it somewhat in exchange for the added inconvenience. Fully sold-out trains (at certain times) seemingly at quite high fare prices suggests that revenue cannibalisation wouldn't necessarily be a major issue. My guess is that the fare ceiling is set by air competition rather than Eurostar's limited supply.

Presumably the large unsatisfied demand is going to be that of the lower priced tickets, which will concern Eurostar less anyway.

It would all depend - as long as lower priced tickets can still turn a profit, they ought stlll to be interested in them.

Not really. because you won't get completely full trains each departure from Ebbsfleet. So 3 departures an hour apart each will mean a security team and 2 border teams hanging about doing not very much for large portions of their shift. The majority of the traffic is already in London.

My suggestion relies on a significant no. of people who would usually go from St Pancras using Ebbsfleet instead. They get to St Pancras, get on the SE Highspeed, 17 minutes later arrive at Ebbsfleet and join the Eurostar check-in queue there instead of in the St Pancras concourse.

(Or if they happen to live somewhere where it's quicker to go a route to ebbsfleet that's not via St Pancras, of course they could also do that)

 

[coppercapped]

I appreciate that 'The Letter' is probably 'too long, didn't read' for many but the critical factor that posters here have missed is that management decision making largely concerns the future and regarding this the letter says:

Finally, there is a third main factor in the mid- to long-term. We cannot yet reasonably predict how both business and leisure markets will respond to the various structural changes such as the energy crisis and new work-from-home habits. There is considerable uncertainty about the ability of customers to pay in the context of the current and forecast pressures on the cost of living. At the same time the business itself faces nearly £100m in increased inflationary pressures. Once again, this is most acute on the UK side where the HS1 infrastructure – which is already three to four times more expensive per km than its French equivalent – is now rising in price almost three times as fast.
Recently, Eurostar and Southeastern Trains came together with HS1 to jointly propose a measure to alleviate pressure on charges in the near-term using funds already in the system. The Government did not object but the process considerations tabled by the Regulator have meant that this important initiative has run into the sand. As a result, Eurostar and Southeastern are able to commit to fewer trains next year and into 2025 than they otherwise would have done.

My bolding.

So travel plans and price development is unclear and cost pressures on the UK side are high and getting higher. In addition the regulatory position is - as seems to be usual at the moment - unclear. No management could take the risk of committing to higher expenditure in the face of so many unknowns and run the risk of bankrupting the company.

So, for the next few years, the service offering will be as now and when all the seats are sold the the 'House Full' sign will be hung on the doors. All the waffle about Stratford, Ebbsfleet and Ashford simply adds costs and nobody has suggested that any potential increase in income will outweigh the cost increases. This is not about the number of passengers or convenience but about money.

Edit: Improved unwieldy sentence in first paragraph.

 

[zwk500]

My suggestion relies on a significant no. of people who would usually go from St Pancras using Ebbsfleet instead. They get to St Pancras, get on the SE Highspeed, 17 minutes later arrive at Ebbsfleet and join the Eurostar check-in queue there instead of in the St Pancras concourse.

This isn't going to happen. First off, if you've made the effort to get into St Pancras you're not going to catch another train out to pick it up further along. The draw of Eurostar is that you don't have your journey interrupted. Ebbsfleet was always about intercepting passengers who would otherwise have had to get into London by offering them a Park & Ride facility (with the local SE trains at Northfleet and SE HS a bonus).

The fare from St Pancras to Ebbsfleet on SE HS is £28.30, so you've already eaten into the lure of cheaper tickets by quite a margin.

 

[BRX]

This isn't going to happen. First off, if you've made the effort to get into St Pancras you're not going to catch another train out to pick it up further along. The draw of Eurostar is that you don't have your journey interrupted. Ebbsfleet was always about intercepting passengers who would otherwise have had to get into London by offering them a Park & Ride facility (with the local SE trains at Northfleet and SE HS a bonus).

The fare from St Pancras to Ebbsfleet on SE HS is £28.30, so you've already eaten into the lure of cheaper tickets by quite a margin.

Anytime single fare is £19.10. SE do promotional weekend returns for £20. Surely a deal could be done with SE for £10 a single journey, and include it in the Eurostar price. You'd be offering them 1000s of passengers a week that wouldn't otherwise be there, outside of their peak times.

I'm in London. If I want to travel to Paris on a Friday and Eurostar from St Pancras is £195 or sold out, why would I not be interested in that Ebbsfleet option especially if it were priced a little lower?

My alternatives are all flights. A quick look for Friday next week. Looks like I can go from Gatwick to Orly for £130, if I want a checked bag. Add on £12 for a ticket to Gatwick, and whatever it is at the other end. Eurostar need to compete with something around the £150 mark.

If they can offer me something around that price or less, then me going to St Pancras and changing for a 15 minute ride to Ebbsfleet is really no more hassle than going to Blackfriars and changing for a 35-55 minute ride to Gatwick.

Yeah I know it's not going to happen. But in principle, getting a train out to a peripheral station is really no different to getting a train out to a peripheral airport, something anyone flying regularly accepts as part of their journey.

I appreciate that 'The Letter' is probably 'too long, didn't read' for many but the critical factor that posters here have missed is that management decision making largely concerns the future and regarding this the letter says:



My bolding.

So travel plans and price development is unclear and cost pressures on the UK side are high and getting higher. In addition the regulatory position is - as seems to be usual at the moment - unclear. No management could take the risk of committing to higher expenditure in the face of so many unknowns and run the risk of bankrupting the company.

So, for the next few years, the service offering will be as now and when all the seats are sold the the 'House Full' sign will be hung on the doors. All the waffle about Stratford, Ebbsfleet and Ashford simply adds costs and nobody has suggested that any potential increase in income will outweigh the cost increases. This is not about the number of passengers or convenience but about money.

Edit: Improved unwieldy sentence in first paragraph.

That bit of the letter didn't pass me by - my interpretation is that the purpose of this part (probably the whole letter really) is to put political pressure on the govt to get the Regulator to stop preventing Eurostar/Southeastern/HS1 from doing something unspecified. We aren't told what "measure" has been blocked - it would be interesting to know what this was, exactly.

 

[Bald Rick]

It’s worth putting some numbers on this to explain the costs / revenues of Eurostar.

In 2019 - the last full year before covid, and of course before the full impacts of Brexit, the inflation pressures, and taking on 1/4bn commercially priced debt, Eurostar’s average income per one way passenger was £89, and the average cost was £81. There is no doubt that the average cost per passenger will have risen, both because of those extra costs, but also because of fewer passengers.

any proposals for a service pattern different to that provided today needs to bear the above in mind. Offering a cheaper fare is all very well, but it will need to be, on average, higher than the average cost per passenger in order to be worth doing.

 

[BRX]

It’s worth putting some numbers on this to explain the costs / revenues of Eurostar.

In 2019 - the last full year before covid, and of course before the full impacts of Brexit, the inflation pressures, and taking on 1/4bn commercially priced debt, Eurostar’s average income per one way passenger was £89, and the average cost was £81. There is no doubt that the average cost per passenger will have risen, both because of those extra costs, but also because of fewer passengers.

any proposals for a service pattern different to that provided today needs to bear the above in mind. Offering a cheaper fare is all very well, but it will need to be, on average, higher than the average cost per passenger in order to be worth doing.

Useful to know. Where do you get the figures from?

Presumably that includes Amsterdam and Marseilles passengers but I guess they make up a small proportion and the average would not be loads less with them excluded.

 

[WizCastro197]

What are the possibilities that Eurostar won't return to Kent?

 

[Bald Rick]

Useful to know. Where do you get the figures from?

Presumably that includes Amsterdam and Marseilles passengers but I guess they make up a small proportion and the average would not be loads less with them excluded.

Published Eurostar results for 2019.

 

[zwk500]

Anytime single fare is £19.10.

Good point - I'd been looking at Return fares!

SE do promotional weekend returns for £20. Surely a deal could be done with SE for £10 a single journey, and include it in the Eurostar price. You'd be offering them 1000s of passengers a week that wouldn't otherwise be there, outside of their peak times.

...

That bit of the letter didn't pass me by - my interpretation is that the purpose of this part (probably the whole letter really) is to put political pressure on the govt to get the Regulator to stop preventing Eurostar/Southeastern/HS1 from doing something unspecified. We aren't told what "measure" has been blocked - it would be interesting to know what this was, exactly.

I do have responses to your points, but I don't think you're going to accept any of them. Eurostar aren't going to be cutting deals with SE when they can get more revenue direct. You won't have hordes of people taking domestic trains 2 stops from St P to pick up the train they could board directly in central London, and actually if you book 4-6 weeks out on Eurostar it's far more common to see fares under £100 than over it.

 

[bspahh]

Anytime single fare is £19.10. SE do promotional weekend returns for £20. Surely a deal could be done with SE for £10 a single journey, and include it in the Eurostar price. You'd be offering them 1000s of passengers a week that wouldn't otherwise be there, outside of their peak times.

Wikipedia says there are 340 seats, plus 12 popup ups on a Class 395 and ~ 4 trains an hour stop at Ebbsfleet. How many seats would South Eastern offer cheaply if it means they are booked up for someone looking to travel further. Its unlikely that they would be able to sell the same seat for someone from St Pancras to Ebbsfleet and then from Ebbsfleet further South. How much would that then fill a 900 seat Eurostar?

 

[Chucky]

What are the possibilities that Eurostar won't return to Kent?

If they start calling at Ashford and Ebbsfleet again I'll eat my hat. That ship has sailed (for want of a better expression). The good people of Ashford and Gravesham voted to leave the EU so they can't have too many complaints that the good people at Eurostar are now waving au revoir to them. If they are desperate to get to the continent they can get the ferry, drive onto Le Shuttle or go into London to catch the train. Eurostar have no incentive to serve these stations again, as has been clearly pointed out by many posters above.

 

[BRX]

Good point - I'd been looking at Return fares!

I do have responses to your points, but I don't think you're going to accept any of them. Eurostar aren't going to be cutting deals with SE when they can get more revenue direct. You won't have hordes of people taking domestic trains 2 stops from St P to pick up the train they could board directly in central London, and actually if you book 4-6 weeks out on Eurostar it's far more common to see fares under £100 than over it.

The whole point here is it would be in response to the current, hopefully temporary situation where there's insufficient boarding capacity at St Pancras to satisfy the demand.

In normal/previous times yes, 4-6 weeks in advance you'd find plenty of <£100 fares, but have a look at the Eurostar website now. No Fridays 4-6 weeks from now with anything under £100. If you want to travel to Paris for under £100, your earliest opportunity is currently next Tues or Weds but only on the last train of the day. One train next Saturday. You have to get to Tuesday the week after until there's more than one train available with a sub £100 fare.

Wikipedia says there are 340 seats, plus 12 popup ups on a Class 395 and ~ 4 trains an hour stop at Ebbsfleet. How many seats would South Eastern offer cheaply if it means they are booked up for someone looking to travel further. Its unlikely that they would be able to sell the same seat for someone from St Pancras to Ebbsfleet and then from Ebbsfleet further South. How much would that then fill a 900 seat Eurostar?

Have to say, I've no idea how full an SE HS train leaving London in the morning is. Based on other lines, my guess is quite full arriving and then virtually empty departing but I may be wrong.

 

[Bald Rick]

Have to say, I've no idea how full an SE HS train leaving London in the morning is. Based on other lines, my guess is quite full arriving and then virtually empty departing but I may be wrong.

When I use them, fairly busy. By no means all seats taken, but a long way from ‘a coach to yourself’. Probably in the region of about 100 per unit.