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Eurostar has a market share of about 71% of the London-Paris and 64% of the London-Brussels air/rail routes, so it has proved to be the most popular of the two options.

Travel Time

For overall travel time the Eurostar is the quicker option once you factor in travel time to and from airports and minimum required time before flight departure.

There is less hassle to travel on the Eurostar as well. You pass through both countries customs before you board. Clearing customs and baggage screening takes no longer than 20 minutes and you only need to be there 30 minutes before departure.

As you carry your bags onboard and you have already cleared customs, once you reach Paris or Brussels you can walk off the train and straight out of the station.

Wireless

The St Pancras departure lounge has a good laptop work area. Never mind Europe's longest Champagne bar, this may be Europe's longest laptop work bench.



I was soon to be disappointed though as there is no free wireless service on offer. So far none of London's 5 airports offer a free wireless service and there are currently no airlines that are capable of offering wireless inflight (yet).

Surely Eurostar could strike a blow to their airline competition by offering free wireless in the departure lounges and on the train. If a bus can offer WiFi, then why not a train.



Ticketing

This is where Eurostar, and British trains in general, are way behind the pricing reforms that have swept through the airline industry since the low cost boom. Ticket prices are still structured like the airline tickets of old, where a one way ticket can cost more than a return.

Looking for tickets on the UK site I found one way tickets for £150. Then I searched for a return ticket using the same start date and the total price was £60. So it is more economical to buy a return and not use the return half if you want to travel one way.

The one way price is different again on the US version, and there are price discrepancies, as reported by the Independent, where the same ticket is cheaper if you live in Europe rather than Britain (though cheaper prices in Europe than the UK won't come as a surprise for British readers).

In this age of DIY travel booking, it is easy to travel to one destination and leave from another, so it would be a good option to be able to book a one way train ticket, and return via air from another destination.

Finding cheap Eurostar tickets is easy enough. If you book in advance you can find return tickets for £59.

Eurostar

Note: London-Brussels travel was provided by Eurostar.

Labels: brussels, england, eurostar, london, paris, st-pancras, train, train-station

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
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