The French are world champions at striking and rioting. Would it have been different if the UK government hadn't sold its share in Eurostar?
so it's Eurotunnel staff on strike.
yes afaik its Getlink who are striking
do you think rules would get between the French and a strike?
Giving no notice is the height of meanness.
They could cause equal financial damage to Eurotunnel, with far less social damage by striking on any other day than immediately before the most important Europe wide family-orientated holiday of the year. Notably, the GDL union in Germany pledged not to Strike over Christmas despite having a successful ballot with 97% voting for unlimited strike action.
I would love to hear what the size of a Christmas Bonus has to do with "exploitation". If the workforce had concerns about their working conditions no doubt we would have heard and felt about it already. They want a bribe not to strike, and probably they'll get one. That's all it is.
What makes you think anyone here cares about that? The purpose of the railway is not to get passengers from A to B, but to act as a large-scale cash-generator for the most ruthless of railway workers.
if they cant add on a extra service or two today i suspect the other option will be bussing people on le shuttle
To be fair to Eurostar they've done probably as well as they can here - adding a few extra services in each direction between now and Christmas Eve and making all of today/tomorrow's services super expensive for new travellers to book, to maximise the chance of passengers from yesterday being able to move onto these new services.
They have put on a few extra services today, tomorrow, and Sunday.
There are still seats available today, see the Eurostar website. Even in 2nd class, but even if only 1st would have been left, that wouldn't matter and availability of pass holder seats doesn't matter either in such cases. If you want, you can still travel today, you "just" have to convince Eurostar staff to do their job and rebook you in any free seat.
What does this mean please
You can change seats on eurostar.com but to change train you have to go back to b-europe.com and pay, I believe. So in disruption you need a human being.
Not entirely true - you can change train (paying the associated amendment fee, and only on trains with Interrail availability) but it makes it clear that this makes it a Eurostar-owned booking and you then can't do anything with it via the original party. So presumably in disruption, Eurostar have a mechanism to take over the booking entirely, which then allows modification.
And unfortunately in the last 30 years ferry companies have reduced their foot passenger capacity to less than half a Eurostar a day
It was a wildcat strike. Where would Eurostar have suddenly found a lot of extra staff to cater for this? Not sure how Eurostar could have anticipated this and sent texts and emails before they knew it was happening?
I don't suppose Eurostar knew what to do either. It was a wildcat strike - will it be over in one or twenty hours? Unknown. Don't forget that the strikers want this effect on the passengers as leverage to blackmail the employers (however indirectly). They don't care.
Yes, it is too difficult. It is not an option. South Eastern, the ferries and SNCF are unable to cope with this, which would just lead to even more complaint if they tried. I am sure it has been considered and realised that it is just not an option, so forget it.
You can't rely on any public transport. It is one of the reasons people are wedded to their cars. But don't single out Eurostar - the airlines, LeShuttle, the ferries are just as susceptible to such disruption (for this and a myriad of other causes) and you just have to put the journey on hold or find another way, worrying about refunds later. Annoying as it is. The operators simply don't have the resources to individually help thousands of stranded customers at once.
