Eurostar plans direct trains from London to Frankfurt and Geneva within five years

To get ahead of its future competitors, Eurostar is promising "direct trains between the UK and Germany or Switzerland" by the start of the next decade, "despite the failure of previous attempts" to connect Frankfurt and London, reports The Guardian .

The director of the cross-Channel rail operator, Gwendoline Cazenave, who made this announcement on Tuesday, June 10, "has no doubt" that this extension will take place "in the early 2030s," the British daily continues. The conditions are "finally in place" for Eurostar to prepare for "a new golden age of sustainable international transport," she explained on Tuesday, June 10.

With passenger traffic up 5% last year, Eurostar is preparing for a potential offensive against new operators who "have announced their intention to break its monopoly on trains between Great Britain and France."

For the past 31 years, Eurostar, majority-owned by SNCF, has been the only operator in the cross-Channel international rail sector. Last year, 280,000 passengers traveled on the London-Paris route. “Richard Branson's Virgin Group and the FS Italiane Group are among the companies seeking to compete with Eurostar on its flagship route,” Bloomberg points out .

Direct services between the British capital and "two of Europe's leading financial centers" would each take "around five hours," the American business media outlet explains. The SNCF subsidiary plans to invest "some €2.3 billion to expand its fleet by around 30%."