Serge Jespers

If you are following me on Twitter, you probably read that I was affected by the Eurostar travel nightmare this weekend. I wanted to write this post to document the event for future reference.

First of all, I wasn’t stuck in the tunnel and I am really glad I wasn’t. The stories from the people who were stuck in the tunnel are absolutely horrific. Even more so now that we are hearing that celebs like Claudia Schiffer seem to have gotten special treatment and were rescued hours before everyone else. It is painfully clear that Eurostar was not prepared for emergency situations like this one. Not for emergency situations in the tunnel and not for emergencies at its terminals. While most press only focuses on the thousands of people stuck in the tunnel, they seem to be forgetting the thousands of people stuck in the terminals. Now don’t get me wrong! I certainly don’t want to minimize the ordeal that people stuck in the tunnel had to go through! I’m just saying that there were/are thousands more affected by this event. More than 55000 according to this article.

I was one of the thousands of people stuck in one of the Eurostar terminals with no or conflicting information. I just wanted to get home but Eurostar staff was not helpful at all. Some even walked away when people wanted to ask questions.

I read about the incident in the tunnel online when I got back to my hotel after a dinner party on Friday night. It was already clear to me that this was going to change my plans on getting home on Saturday morning. So the first thing I did when I woke up was check the Eurostar site and call the Eurostar customer service. The Eurostar site said that all trains were canceled until 12pm. My train was at 1pm but just to make sure I called the UK customer service line to confirm. It was 8:30 am… They were not open yet.

#1 Why was the customer service desk in the UK not opened earlier?

I then called the Belgian customer service desk. I asked them if they knew anything about cancelations or delays. They didn’t! They told me to go to the St. Pancras Eurostar terminal and get information there.

#2 Why did they not have the latest information?
#3 Why did they send everyone to the Eurostar terminal?

I arrived at St. Pancras at around 10:30pm. The terminal was in complete chaos and packed with people who wanted to find out more. Just about every Eurostar staffer gave out conflicting information. They clearly had no clue. One guy was answer questions through a megaphone but those answers were not very helpful. We could get refunds or get rebooked on a later train. Eurostar was not going to pay for hotels or flights or anything. He also said that there would be no trains leaving that day. He also said that there would be a limited service on Sunday and that we could use our tickets on Sunday. But it would be on a first come first served basis.

#4 I’ve been stuck in airports before and was always offered accommodation and food/drinks. Why does Eurostar not have a plan like that? Airlines have to offer this because of European regulations. Why is there no such ruling for trains?
#5 Why did they announce that they would have a limited service on Sunday when they really didn’t know?
#6 First come first served? Seriously? Wouldn’t it make more sense to try and get those who got stuck home as soon as possible?

I parked myself in the St. Pancras Starbucks to check if I could find any alternative way home. I first called Brussels Airlines. There were no flights available. I asked about Sunday morning and got told it was very likely that Brussels Airport would be closed on Sunday morning because they expected heavy snow in Belgium. Great… I then checked ferries but also read about problems there. I eventually decided to stay an extra night and to wait for the Eurostar announcement. They were going to announce the limited schedule at 4pm. I called the hotel that Adobe uses regularly to check if they had any rooms available and they did. This hotel is not that far from St. Pancras so I was sure to be early on Sunday morning.

Because I was absolutely freezing (Great design those open doors at St. Pancras!) I immediately went to the hotel to wait for the Eurostar announcement and to warm up.

The 4pm Eurostar announcement confirmed that there would a limited service on Sunday and that they would reimburse reasonable out-of-pocket expenses. The limited schedule was going to be announcement later that day. And so I kept refreshing the Eurostar website every 15 minutes or so until I read the update at 9pm. “No trains on Sunday”. They also changed the statement and it did not mention anything about reimbursing expenses anymore. (Note to self: Next time you’re in this situation, take screenshots of everything). With the extra hotel night and the flight I was about to book, I am now looking at an extra €450.

#7 Why was the statement changed? Did Eurostar realize how much this was going to cost? Surely they have insurance that would cover this, no?

So I decided to book a flight home… I figured the biggest problems would be in the mornings and so I booked a flight that would arrive at 1pm.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, I immediately checked the Heathrow and Brussels Airport websites and read “Due to severe weather conditions across the UK and Europe, delays and cancellations are possible today”. When I arrived in Heathrow, I got a text message from back home saying that Brussels Airport was now closed. The airport staff hadn’t heard anything yet so the flight was still departing on the scheduled time. They even called us to the gate at the scheduled time but then they told us that Brussels Airport was closed. They were going to board us anyway so they could leave immediately if Brussels Airport opened. They told us we could be looking at up to 3 hours on the plane. We had 10 minutes to decide if we would get on the plane or not. If we didn’t we would be rebooked on a later flight. After a few minutes, we were told a different story. We were not going to board as the flight now had a departure time of 12:50. “But please keep an eye on the monitors because we may get an earlier slot”.

#8 Why don’t airports have some sort of intranet where you can see the same information as you get on the monitors?
#9 Why don’t airports have a system that can text/tweet/email you any updates? (Heathrow actually has a system like that but my flight was not on it because the system thought the flight had already left)

At around the 12:30, the monitors said “Delayed to 12:50. Gate opens at 12:45″. It was very obvious that we were not going to leave at 12:50. Even more so because the Brussels Airport site had us arriving at 5pm.

Depending on who you asked, we were now going to leave at either 3pm or 5pm. At 2pm they called us back to the gate for boarding… And this time it was for real. I finally got home at 6pm.

I realize that the “extreme” weather is what both Eurostar and Brussels Airport are using as an excuse but I wonder if it really is that extreme. Eurostar claims they haven’t seen this weather over the last 8 years but Eurostar is already 15 years old!?

#10 How can this only be happening now? Isn’t it time for new machinery?

Brussels Airport only has one snowblower for the entire airport. They are clearly not equipped to handle this type of weather.

The biggest problem I had during this nightmare is the lack of and consistent communication. Surely in this digital day and age they could have done a much better job. When you book a flight or Eurostar train, you have to enter both your email address and cell phone number. Why aren’t they using that to communicate delays and cancelations? And what about Twitter? Or even their own websites?

I really hope Eurostar has learned a lesson… And I really hope Brussels Airport invests in being better prepared for situations like these.

I’m flying to the US next Sunday… I really hope things are back to normal by then but I’m not holding my breath.