News

Rail companies urge early booking for Olympics travel

30 Apr 2012 by ScottCarey7

Business travellers planning trips to London during the Olympics are being urged to book their rail tickets when they go on sale this week.

Train companies attending Capita Business Travel’s rail forum in London last week told an audience of travel buyers that there would be capacity on their trains travelling into the capital during the games which run from July 27-August 12.

Tickets for rail travel during the Olympic period are due to start going on sale on May 4 - although passengers with tickets for Olympic events have been able to book their train travel since June 2011.

Martin Turner, head of sales at East Coast Rail, said: “The over-riding message is don’t be put off coming to London if your only reason for not coming is that you won’t be able to get on a train. We will be able to get you to and from London during the Olympics.”

UK train companies have planned extra services to cope with the expected influx of passengers coming to see the Olympics but rail operators told the forum that demand for train tickets from the UK regions had been slow so far.

“There will be less people travelling from the north by train for the Olympics than originally anticipated,” added Turner. “The long distance train operating companies’ message to business travellers is that there will be capacity.

“Additional services are being run and the evening peak for business travellers is not expected to be particularly affected, as people going to Olympic events are going to be travelling back a lot later than business travellers.”

Turner said that fares during the Olympics would be “fair” and are due to be announced imminently. Rail tickets can be booked 12 weeks ahead of travel for those without tickets to Olympic events.

“We cannot just add 40% to the price of fares as the structure doesn’t allow us to do that,” he added.

“Fares will be no higher than the minimum walk-up fare on each route. But cheap advance purchase tickets will sell out fast. If you know you have to go to London during the Olympics buy it straightaway and make a reservation.”

Jayne Moyses, sales and customer relationship manager at East Midlands Trains, added: “Managing demand is going to be a challenge. There will be an additional eight million journeys due to the Olympics.

“We always see a dip in business travellers during this time of the summer – it’s normally about 30% for East Midlands but the drop will be more this year.  Public transport will be the key to the games as 80% of spectators are expected to arrive by public transport.”

For more information visit nationalrail.co.uk

Report by Rob Gill

Loading comments...

Search Flight

See a whole year of Reward Seat Availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Business Traveller March 2024 edition
Business Traveller March 2024 edition
Be up-to-date
Magazine Subscription
To see our latest subscription offers for Business Traveller editions worldwide, click on the Subscribe & Save link below
Polls