[SimonS1]

Charles P – I read in one of the Sundays recently that there is more to that than the price.

If you buy a UK station to Belgian station ticket and you are delayed on your connecting journey to London they are obliged to change your Eurostar ticket. If you buy the Eurostar separately it’s basically tough.

A bit like travelling on one PNR really.

[Charles-P]

SimonS1 – quite correct. There is a similar arrangement in France whereby one can link a Thalys ticket with an Air France flight so a delay with one does not affect the other.

[JohnHarper]

Charles P, it is possible to buy Eurostar tickets beyond Brussels and Paris but that doesn’t mean the connection times are good and certainly in the case of Paris that the connections are easy.

If you were setting out from new I doubt you would invent the current system which may suit Eurostar but not its business customers or for that matter many leisure travellers.

[Charles-P]

I can’t comment on connections via Paris but I can via Brussels where my experience has always been positive. Belgian railways are well integrated into the Eurostar network and I find the system has always worked well for me. For example I know that if I arrive from London in the later afternoon the train to my home town is never more than a 15 minutes wait.

[AMcWhirter]

Many thanks for all your comments so far.

As regards international rail travel, may I refer you to the news piece I wrote on loco2.com and its ability to sell tickets from almost any UK station right through to mainland Europe. It’s important because passengers receive CIV protection so if their UK train is delayed into London (which can happen) then Eurostar is duty-bound (under CIV rules) to place you on its next service.

http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/rail-ticketing-first-for-europe-through-journeys

Also note that for journeys with Eurostar via Brusssels to Germany, there is now a new arrangement with DB (this is important because, as BT has reported, DB has delayed plans to come to London.

http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/100189/eurostar-brings-in-single-tickets-to-germany

Hello Charles-P-

Air France has a number of air-rail deals using the TGVs. This is something I’ve already covered in the magazine. According to airfrance.co.uk it now uses the TGV in place of Thalys on the Brussels-CDG route.

http://www.airfrance.co.uk/GB/en/common/resainfovol/avion_train/reservation_avion_train_bruxelles_airfrance.htm

[Charles-P]

AMcWhirter – you are quite right that officially the Air France link is a TGV service however I know from one of my staff who uses the service a lot that Thalys trains are often still used. I suppose this is ‘train code share’ 🙂

As somebody who books from the Belgian end into the UK rail network it is frustrating that although I have a ticket issued in Belgium I am still unable to have a single ‘through’ ticket in the way I can in other parts of Europe and must have multiple pieces of paper !

For example on Thalys I never even carry a ticket I simply have my frequent flyer card and the system automatically recognises me at all stages of the journey, I get an email with my seat number and that’s it.

When I asked somebody from Belgian Railways why the difficulty I received a very Gallic shrug and the response,

“pfff, ze British – who knows how zey think ? “

[openfly]

Why not go one further? The A320s with 28″ seat pitch, could also follow the Channel Airways Tridents example and have 7 abreast seating!!

[AMcWhirter]

Charles-P- The lack of cooperation between the many rail firms both in the UK and in mainland Europe, which has been extensively covered in the magazine, is the main reason why travellers are forced to make journeys using separate tickets.

openfly – 3-4 seating on a narrow-aisle plane may fall foul of safety regulations. Easiest way (for the airline, not necessarily for passengers) is to remove a toilet.

This is already under consideration by Airbus and a 189-seater A320.

See twitter pic from @karelxwb

http://twitpic.com/e1w7k2

[AnthonyDunn]

Err, one loo and 189 pax? Perhaps the in-flight service should dispense with any liquids and the flight safety card should be revised to include buttock clenching and leg crossing…

[JohnHarper]

Airbus have never publicly come out in favour of dense seating and in fact have spoken out against it.

I suspect this is to demonstrate to those who make decisions how dreadful this would be. It is a move fueled only by greed and any airline that thinks I’m getting on a plane with a 28 inch seat pitch can be sure they will never see another penny spent with them.

Coming out of recession into a climate where there is more money around – I’ve certainly seen a huge uptake in business makes the idea of reducing standards by the airlines even more bizarre and quite frankly misguided.

Video conferencing might be quite pleasant when a train journey doesn’t meet the requirements of short haul travel.

[MarcusUK]

Train travel to Europe, still takes longer than the actual journey time, often as on this thread, not included in a comparison.

You still have to travel to and from the station in London / Paris / Brussels /Amsterdam etc.

Moreover, you also have to clear security the same as at the airport.
You have to go through passport control, more than once. (on a trip from Amsterdam to London using Thalys / Eurostar last year, passport control twice in Brussels, then British at the station, yes…both one after the other. Then, once more on arrival in St Pancras, so 3 times!

There are minimum check in times, usually 30 mins. Well the same is at LCY.

Eurostar and Thalys for eg, Do Not connect or work together. trains that run late will Not be held despite them saying so, as reported in my review of the Amsterdam via Brussels to London trip last year. If you miss your connection, the other train Company is under NO obligation to accommodate you. On this route, you also wait for 2 hrs more! 5.5 -7.5 hrs amsterdam-London.

Rarely is the return price the same cost as flying, often it can be twice the price and up. Thalys services are almost always fully booked days before.

No one wants for less space flying even for short flights, with any Airline. favourites or preferences or not, FFP or not, us travellers will not travel where we feel uncomfortable, we will move to other Airlines or train services.

KLM has “Economy Comfort” seats throughout Europe now, on every type of aircraft (as mentioned in other threads).
LHR-AMS is £6.20 for FFP members who are gold (double for non members).
They give 33-34 inches of room, exactly the same in Business Class, but without the service. The rows vary on each flight, and each aircraft type, but are never the same. Some could have 6 rows, the others 2 on the same route, and aircraft type.
This means they retain Business Class (often 203 rows max now with the middle seat free), Economy Comfort, and Economy.

If the legacy carriers continue this road, then travellers will opt for the Low cost alternatives. They have to decide, if they wish to remain full service Airlines or not. This “Middle way” is annoying and they should brand themselves as one or the other.
The Low costs, add services of the legacy Airlines also for a fee, so both sides have moved to a new closer, Middle service Airline.

I certainly would not pay for a Business seat, long or short haul of 2-4 x the economy fare, with a seat the same space as in the economy cabin.
Especially as a Gold FFP member, you have all the other benefits anyway. BA will lose custom in Europe if they follow this through.

[LuganoPirate]

Marcus, you’re quite right in your like for like, and using Eurostar there is passport control and security. I’ve always found the 30 minute check in time for a train quite ridiculous. However on this side of the channel you can arrive 30 seconds before the train leaves and still travel. No passport controls as we’re part of Schengen and in my case a 7 minute walk to the station.

Mrs. LP reported on her trip to Vicenza today that after departure from Milan they came round with newspapers, food and drink, all included in the ticket price of £85 return in first class for a 280 km journey each way. Much nicer than a plane she said!

[SimonS1]

I think I would rather have a 30 minute check in and retain border controls.

[MarcusUK]

Certainly direct from city to city, Eurostar to Brussels and Paris would be far better than flying time wise, but not necessarily by price, depending on how far ahead and flexibility of your travel dates.

I would not advocate for removing border controls at all i agree, but merely that it takes time, especially at Brussels with two of them!

For Amsterdam, it simply adds hours, and great uncertainty, due to the lack of communication between the train Companies. Effectively, you have two separate Companies, which accept no responsibility for connections to the other.
It was good to be from Amsterdam Centraal to home here in 15 minutes by tram. However, St pancras still needs up to an extra hour to travel from / to North london for me. The check in times, security and passport mean with London traffic or transportation, always unpredictable, that passengers arrive far earlier to account for delays.

returns to Amsterdam used to run from £99, Standard Premier around £139+, Business far more than an airline. The Standard premium was very comfortable and a nice meal, though Thalys Comfort 1, was completely full, dirty inside with food on the floor, in-between the seats, people moving seats creating arguments, and poor Management on board. That alone means i will no longer use these services.

The shifting ideas of the Airlines, means we have to make new choices for our travel.
I certainly would not pay for a Business Class seat, when I am a Gold FFP member of any Airline, when all i get is an economy seat, and a small food offering, when i have just eaten in the lounge anyway!

[Charles-P]

Can’t say as if I worry that much about border controls (perhaps because I live in a Schengen country). If the UK dropped its borders tomorrow there may well be a few thousand migrants extra arriving but nowhere near as many as the Daily Mail would have you believe.

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