2023-10-01 01:17:49
The Thalys brand and website are experiencing their final hours. From this Sunday, October 1, to buy a high-speed train (TGV) ticket between Brussels and Paris, you will have to surf the Eurostar website, an entity which has brought together the two railway companies since their merger in May 2022. “ We need a unique, strong brand for our customers, which is the symbol of the European network that we want to set up,” explained Gwendoline Cazenave, the CEO of the new group, last January. The name Eurostar was chosen because of “its strong reputation among consumers”, to the detriment of the Thalys brand, which is less known outside European borders.
The Eurostar network ©IPM Graphics
Eurostar, which has 25 train sets, has been running TGV trains between London and the European continent since 1994, passing through the Channel Tunnel, which connects the United Kingdom to France. The Thalys, 26 train sets, has provided the connection between Paris, the Benelux and the north-west of Germany since 1995.
Double the number of passengers by 2030
If the Thalys brand disappears in favor of Eurostar, a new logo has been created for this merger. It is a six-pointed star in an open circle, which forms an “e”. Note also that the old Thalys trains which will continue to run will remain red. The service offered on board and the passenger classes will be unified by 2024. The objective is to reach 30 million passengers for the two companies by 2030.
But, in the immediate future, it is first a question of regaining the 19 million passengers of 2019, the level of attendance before Brexit and the health crisis. A figure from which the trains of the new group were still far away in 2022, with 14.8 million people transported (8.3 million by Eurostar and 6.5 million by Thalys).
Unsurprisingly, Brussels was chosen as the head office of this new Eurostar entity. The group is 55.75% owned by SNCF Voyageurs, 19.31% by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, 18.5% by SNCB (Belgian) and 6.44% by funds managed by Federated Hermes Infrastructure .
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