Eurostar allows passengers at St Pancras to board 30 minutes earlier to ease overcrowding

Cross-Channel train work Eurostar is allowing passengers to committee trains earlier successful an effort to trim overcrowding astatine London’s St Pancras station.

Travellers tin now return their seats 30 minutes anterior to departure, alternatively of waiting successful nan departure lounge.

The move is portion of a three-stage scheme to summation capacity astatine nan position amid predictions that request for world obstruction recreation is group to triple.

It besides comes arsenic portion of nan carrier hub’s preparations for nan motorboat of nan EU’s caller Entry/Exit System (EES), owed to travel into unit successful October this year.

Eurostar services are much celebrated than ever

As request grows for world obstruction travel, St Pancras position has been emotion nan pressure.

So acold this year, Eurostar has already recorded 2 of its busiest ever weeks, reaching 136,000 passengers.

The usability says rider numbers from St Pancras are up 4.23 per cent year-on-year - which useful retired arsenic an further 101,000 travellers betwixt January and June.

While it’s a occurrence for nan obstruction company, it has resulted successful overcrowding astatine St Pancras station.

The historical building has constricted space, resulting successful agelong queues for check-in, information and separator checks. The departure lounge is often truthful crowded that location is often only opinionated room available.

The carrier hub and Eurostar opportunity nan move to let passengers earlier boarding will easiness nan queues.

International obstruction recreation from St Pancras projected to triple

Earlier boarding is portion of a phased scheme to double passenger capacity and ‘future proof’ St Pancras arsenic world obstruction recreation soars successful popularity.

Both nan carrier hub and usability Eurostar opportunity they want to connection a work that competes pinch nan precocious standards of Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5.

The purpose is to boost world rider postulation astatine St Pancras from 1,800 group an hr past twelvemonth to up to 5,000 an hr complete nan adjacent fewer years.

“St Pancras and Eurostar astatine nan highest level are perfectly committed to creating abstraction astatine St Pancras that is perfectly astonishing for nan travelling public,” Richard Thorp, main operating serviceman of London St Pancras High Speed, told UK newspaper The Standard.

Demand for international obstruction travel is projected to triple astatine St Pancras by 2040, from 11 cardinal to 35 cardinal passengers per year.

“We are very conscious of what nan title offers. We request to outperform that and beforehand what is awesome astir nan metropolis centre to metropolis centre carrier acquisition – nan ‘café to café’ travel experience,” Thorp added.

Eurostar prepares for nan EU’s EES

Border checks betwixt nan UK and nan EU that came successful arsenic a consequence of Brexit person already caused delays.

There are concerns these will beryllium exacerbated by nan EU’s EES - an physics strategy which will switch nan beingness stamping of passports erstwhile you spell done passport control.

It requires caller exertion and scanning systems to beryllium implemented astatine nan EU and Schengen Zone borders.

At St Pancras, arsenic good arsenic doubling nan number of separator staff, Eurostar will besides double nan number of manual booths.

There isn’t abstraction for each of nan caller EES kiosks, up to 49 from 24, successful their accustomed location, truthful they’ll beryllium installed astatine various different places astir nan station, presently utilized by some home obstruction operators and nan HS1 service, a high-speed railway linking London pinch nan Channel Tunnel.

Eurostar has besides assured passengers that location will beryllium “specially-trained unit disposable astatine each times​” astatine nan caller booths.

The EES will beryllium followed by nan European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) successful precocious 2026. This will require British and different non-EU passengers to pre-register much specifications and salary €7 earlier crossing nan Channel, including connected nan Eurostar.