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Mounting losses for Channel Tunnel operators as travel bans and Brexit hit business

Getlink, the operator of the Channel Tunnel link between France and Britain, reported on Thursday deepening losses in the first half of the year as Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic hit traffic flows hard.

Mounting losses for Channel Tunnel operators as travel bans and Brexit hit business
Photo: Christophe Petit Tesson/AFP

Revenues came in at €326 million in the first six months of this year, a drop of 12 percent from the same period last year when Covid-19 first hit. That is a 38-percent drop from the pre-pandemic level in 2019.

Net losses swelled to €123 million, compared to €88 million in the first six months of last year.

That also surpassed the €113-million loss it suffered in 2020 as a whole.

The company said the results reflected “the effects of the pandemic as well as by the new administrative formalities for Brexit.”

It said traffic by high-speed Eurostar train service was “severely disrupted as a result of government travel restrictions” as were other passenger services through the tunnel.

Eurostar services suffered a 96 percent drop in traffic from the 2019 pre-pandemic level to just over 200,000 passengers.

Eurostar had been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, but secured a €290 million bailout in May.

The decline in car traffic was 78 percent and coach traffic 87 percent.

Meanwhile, the company said lorry traffic, which was “impacted over the first three months of the year due to stockpiling before the end of the (Brexit) transition period at the end of December and the adaptation to new administrative formalities, picked up in the second quarter.”

Lorry traffic dipped by just 3 percent from the level in the first half of 2020, with a 21 percent drop in the first quarter followed by a 23 percent gain. It was still down 20 percent from the pre-pandemic level in the first half of 2019, however.

The company said it was impossible to provide any performance forecasts “as long as the governments fail to take a stable long-term position on international travel restrictions”.

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STRIKES

Ryanair cancels 300 flights set to fly over France due to strike

The budget airline Ryanair announced on Wednesday that it had been forced to cancel more than 300 flights set to fly over French airspace on Thursday, due to strike action by air traffic controllers that was cancelled at the last-minute.

Ryanair cancels 300 flights set to fly over France due to strike

In a press release published on Wednesday, Ryanair announced that 300 of their flights had been cancelled due to a planned strike by French air traffic controllers (ATC).

“Even though it’s French ATC that are striking, most disrupted passengers are not flying to/from France but overfly French airspace en route to their destination (e.g., UK – Greece, Spain, Italy),” the company said.

According to Ryanair estimates, 50,000 passengers would be affected in some way. 

The main union participating in the strike announced on Wednesday morning that it had reached a deal with management and would be calling off industrial action, but the announcement came too late and many flights had already been cancelled. 

As a result, significant delays and widespread cancellations were still expected on Thursday.

READ MORE: ‘75% of flights cancelled’: Which French airports will be worst affected by Thursday’s disruption?

Why are overflights affected?

The overflights pass through French airspace on their way to another country, and they make up a significant percentage of the flights handled by French air traffic controllers on a daily basis.

During strikes by French air traffic controllers, overflights are likely to be delayed or diverted as airlines seek alternatives routes that go around France, rather than over it. Often, there are also cancellations, as is the case for Ryanair. 

Can I still get a refund due to a delay or cancellation of an overflight?

In terms of compensation, it makes little difference whether your flight is to/from France or simply over it, as EU compensation rules apply to all flights that either arrive at or depart from an airport in the EU/Schengen zone, or are operated by an EU-registered carrier.

Find full details on your rights and how to claim refunds HERE.

Are there plans to protect overflights?

Ryanair has been pushing for greater overflight protection for a long time, and they made several calls for change during the 2023 protests against pension reform when a number of air traffic control strikes were called.

READ MORE: Cancellations and compensation: How French strikes affect European flights

In their Wednesday memo, the company called again for the EU Commission to take action to protect overflights.

“French air traffic controllers are free to go on strike, that’s their right, but we should be cancelling French flights, not flights leaving Ireland, going to Italy, or flights from Germany to Spain or Scandinavia to Portugal.

“The European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen has failed for 5 years to take any action to protect overflights and the single market for air travel. We’re again calling on her to take action to protect overflights which will eliminate over 90 percent of these flight cancellations,” Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary said in the memo.

The company has also released a petition to ‘‘Protect Overflights: Keep EU Skies Open’, which has over 2.1m signatures.

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