How does the Channel tunnel make money?

Getlink, previously Groupe Eurotunnel (until 2017), is a public company that manages and operates the Channel Tunnel, including the Eurotunnel Shuttlevehicle services, and earns revenue on other trains through the tunnel (DB Schenker freight and Eurostar passenger trains).



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While the aviation industry remains in chaos with airports and airlines racking up billions of pounds of losses, the Channel Tunnel has returned to profit. Eurotunnel operates the sub-sea link between England and France, running Le Shuttle trains for cars and lorries.

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For a few worrying months, with lockdowns in places and travel quarantines required for most, the high-speed train service was operating a single service a day to Paris and Brussels from London, provided mainly for key workers. In 2019, the last “normal” year of travel, Eurostar recorded a healthy £62.4m profit.

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Financing Eurotunnel. Eurotunnel is the largest privately- financed infrastructure in history by a long way. In what it has achieved it has been a stunning success—in its current financial situation it is obviously also a failure at this stage if measured by return on investment.

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The Eurostar monopoly for the potentially lucrative London and Paris trade faces a challenge from a name that will be familiar to British readers: National Express. To all the prosaic names associated with the Channel Tunnel, there is one more waiting in the wings.

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The project was financed entirely by private sector capital, including five banks who were part of the TransManche Link consortium. Financing originated partly from investment by shareholders and partly from GBP8 billion of debt (about USD12. 2 billion, 1994 prices).

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Who can travel through the Channel Tunnel? Foot passengers can travel with Eurostar, between our UK stations London St Pancras International and our stations on the continent . People who want to travel with their own vehicle or on a coach can use the Eurotunnel Le Shuttle between Folkestone and Calais.

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The eventual successful project, organised by Eurotunnel, began construction in 1988 and opened in 1994. Estimated to cost £5.5 billion in 1985, it was at the time the most expensive construction project ever proposed. The cost finally amounted to £9 billion (equivalent to £21.8 billion in 2021), well over budget.

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The group has debts of more than £6 billion and media reports suggest directors are keen on offering a debt-for-equity swap for as much as £2bn of the debt, UK national newspapers reported this week.

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Eurotunnel is now highly profitable, after a difficult start when it was held down by massive debts from the tunnel construction. Debt restructuring in 2007 reversed the company's fortunes — at the expense of thousands of small shareholders who saw their holdings slashed in value.

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The speed limit for trains through the tunnel is 160 kilometres per hour (99 mph). The tunnel is owned and operated by the company Getlink, formerly Groupe Eurotunnel. The tunnel carries high-speed Eurostar passenger trains, LeShuttle services for road vehicles and freight trains.

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A rail tunnel was chosen over proposals for a very long suspension bridge, a bridge-and-tunnel link, and a combined rail-and-road link, and the project was privately financed by a consortium of British and French corporations and banks; the Anglo-French company operating the tunnel is called Eurotunnel.

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Despite being majority-owned by the French state railway, SNCF, Eurostar was thought to have already exhausted options for governmental assistance from Paris, but both the French transport minister and the UK Department for Transport confirmed they were working on further plans to maintain the service.

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