wrote in message
...
On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:47:29 -0000, "tim....."
wrote:


I am sure that you can work out that Friday afternoon/evening
is going to be the peak traffic flow of the week.
Had it been travel solely in the UK yes but I would but never had
thought the same thinking could be applied to Eurostar services
has I thought most people would fly to European destinations anyway.

E* has more than 50% of the market for the destinations that
it serves. So, most people who want to go to Paris go by E*.

Paris being a significant tourist destination means that many
of the people that do go from London to Paris are tourists.
Tourists like to travel to short destinations for the weekend,
so Friday is a significant day for travel to these destinations.

And then there is the business people who like to do the
reverse, travel out on Monday and back on Friday, so many
of those will travel on Friday as well.

Plus all the day trip people which probably doesn't change
much from day to day (in the same season)

All in all, Friday is going to be the busiest day of the week
by far for this type of destination.

tim

I had to smile when I read what you wrote here and I am sure you must
know more than I do Paul BUT every time I have traveled
London/Brussels/London with the exception of once two coaches would
have been sufficient. I usually travel outward by the 15.40 on a
Tuesday and return Wednesday by the 14.59 the first time I traveled it
was on a Monday afternoon and the train was heaving .

The reason the tickets are cheaper Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons is
because these are the least crowded services.
--
Michael Hoffman

Looking at the eurostar website it seems the cheapest tickets for this
Wednesday are £120 each way to either Brussels or Paris, even though I
expect there will be huge numbers of empty seats. (easyjet in
contrast are charging about £130 return to Paris). When I went to
Brussels a few months ago there was only one other passenger in my
coach, but tickets would have been over £200 return had I not bought a
youth fare. Eurostar's ticketing seems like BA's used to be - gouge
those travelling on expenses, and don't bother chasing those on a
budget. This is in contrast to, say, the TGV (where most fares are
reasonable) or Ryanair (where the prices start at zero and are managed
carefully to get a very high load factor.)

brixtonite wrote:

Looking at the eurostar website it seems the cheapest tickets for this
Wednesday are £120 each way to either Brussels or Paris, even though I
expect there will be huge numbers of empty seats. (easyjet in
contrast are charging about £130 return to Paris).

If Eurostar achieves more than half the sales at £120 that they would
have at £60, then they have made more revenue.

Eurostar's ticketing seems like BA's used to be - gouge
those travelling on expenses, and don't bother chasing those on a
budget.

If you had bought far enough in advance it would have been cheaper than
the Easyjet cost today. I would say their approach is to expect those on
a budget to book in advance.

This is in contrast to, say, the TGV (where most fares are
reasonable) or Ryanair (where the prices start at zero and are managed
carefully to get a very high load factor.)

I would contrast that with Ryanair, where the fares start at about GBP
30 each way, but they deceptively advertise it as "zero." Which
coincidentally is about where Eurostar fares start on a return basis,
although you save money on having to get to an airport.
--
Michael Hoffman

In message ,
writes

Had it been travel solely in the UK yes but I would but never had
thought the same thinking could be applied to Eurostar services

Eurostar's main traffic is in short-stay visits to Paris and Brussels.
People from London tend to want to leave on the early morning services
and return on the late evening ones in order to maximise their time
abroad, whether for work or for pleasure. These tend to be heavily
loaded, as do the outbound Thursday/Friday pm services for those taking
a weekend break. Inbound services on a Friday afternoon are also heavily
loaded with those who work in Brussels or Paris and who are returning
for the weekend. Hence a problem on a Friday afternoon was always going
to be the worst possible time.

One of Eurostar's difficulties is that it has failed to attract anything
like the same number of French and Belgians wanting to come to London -
so passenger loads on morning inbound and evening outbound services tend
to be much lower.
--
Paul Terry

Paul Terry wrote:

One of Eurostar's difficulties is that it has failed to attract
anything like the same number of French and Belgians wanting to come
to London - so passenger loads on morning inbound and evening
outbound services tend to be much lower.

Is it still the case that everyone cheers when they emerge from the tunnel
into France, but no-one cheers when they arrive back in England?

In article ,
John Rowland wrote:
Paul Terry wrote:

One of Eurostar's difficulties is that it has failed to attract
anything like the same number of French and Belgians wanting to come
to London - so passenger loads on morning inbound and evening
outbound services tend to be much lower.

Is it still the case that everyone cheers when they emerge from the tunnel
into France, but no-one cheers when they arrive back in England?

Is that one of those questions like "how do you know when your
Eurostar's arrived at Waterloo" ?

Nick
--
http://www.leverton.org/blosxom ... So express yourself

On Sat, 17 Mar 2007, asdf wrote:

On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:34:12 +0000, Tom Anderson wrote:

Isn't crossrail going to Stratford too?

Yes, but Eurostar isn't.

Might not be. Once the dust has settled after the Olympics and the area
starts to fill up with suits and trendies, and Crossrail arrives, stopping
international trains there will make a lot more business sense.

I assume it suffers from the same cost issues as keeping Waterloo
International open (i.e. lots of staff needed to run the security
checkpoints, duplicating those over at St P), and I'd have thought a
station at Stratford is less useful/desirable than one at Waterloo...

True. A service running over the CTRL would, however, be a lot more
practical/reliable than one running over the south London suburban lines.

tom

--
Destroy - kill all hippies.