Trains versus planes: when it all goes wrong, your rights are very different

The Man Who Pays His Way: Rights for airline passengers are far stronger than for international rail travellers

No way out: Departure screens at London St Pancras International on the morning of 30 December 2023 (Simon Calder)

Simon Calder, also known as The Man Who Pays His Way, has been writing about travel for The Independent since 1994. In his weekly opinion column, he explores a key travel issue – and what it means for you.

London St Pancras International station is a place of outstanding architectural beauty – and, usually, a hub for the start of great adventures and warm reunions. The tears being shed at the Eurostar terminal on Saturday were of the despairing kind, as more than 30,000 people found they would not be reaching their destinations due to flooding on the High Speed 1 line where it dives beneath the Thames between Essex and Kent.

The Eurostar network from London has shrunk due to the twin hazards of Brexit and Covid, and is now limited to Lille, Paris, Brussels, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Yet on a busy day – as most of them are – more than 30,000 people will pass through the St Pancras terminal. That is about the same as a busy airport such as Luton or Edinburgh. Yet if an airport were closed and all flights cancelled due to some calamity (such as the car park fire at Luton in October), airline passengers have gold-plated rights.

Even if the carrier is not to blame for the cancellation, it has a strict and unlimited obligation to the passenger. An airline that cancels a flight must find another way to get the traveller to their destination as soon as possible. If the only available option involves paying hundreds of pounds to a rival carrier (or a different form of transport, such as Eurostar), so be it.

While the traveller is waiting, all meals must be provided – along with hotel accommodation as necessary, with no cap on the cost of a room. While every passenger wants to reach their destination without any kerfuffle, if your flight goes awry the only cost will be emotional, not financial. Should the airline be at fault, you are also in line for hundreds of pounds in compensation.

Eurostar is a completely different matter. Were you to choose an alternative form of transport rather than waiting for days for a train seat to become available, the cross-Channel rail firm will not pay the difference between the cost of your Eurostar ticket and the replacement flight or ferry. With one-way fares from Paris to London soaring to almost £700 on New Year’s Eve, that represents quite a gap in the unfortunate traveller’s account.

A hotel? That depends if you are deemed to be “stranded”. A UK-originating passenger who is stuck at a continental European station trying to come home fits the bill. But what about some of the cancelled passengers I met at St Pancras – from Kent, Leicestershire and Bristol. Could they claim the cost of a room in London while they wait an indefinitely long time for their onward train to Paris, Brussels or Amsterdam? Eurostar handles claims on a case-by-case basis. But under European air passengers’ rights rules, which the UK copied and pasted after Brexit, anyone who wants an airport hotel after a cancellation is entitled to one.

I am not arguing for the extension of aviation rights to international rail travellers. Indeed, I believe they are far too onerous for airlines, and that feeds through to higher fares. The passenger has no incentive to keep costs down. In contrast, fair play to Eurostar’s meal allowance: £50 for each 24 hours of being stranded.

There is a perfectly good terrestrial alternative to Eurostar: take the overnight ferry from Hook of Holland (accessible from Amsterdam and Rotterdam) to Harwich. The total cost is around £175 – which, all other things being equal, a rational passenger would not accept, because it would leave them out of pocket. Eurostar should be actively encouraging travellers to extract themselves from the almighty muddle by making it financially worthwhile to escape by sea.