"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
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"tim....." wrote in message
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"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
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"tim....." wrote in message
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The Chunnel surely has surpassed all expectations, hasn't it?

In losing money, yes


As it happens current traffic levels are pretty much in line with
the estimates, the problem is that it ramped up much more
slowly than predicted and building and financing costs were
much higher.

The problem is that those traffic levels were predicted at fares expected
to be 4 times those being charged.


Thats part of the story, the predicted revenues were based on the fares
currently being charged by the ferries. As a result of the competiton
Eurotunnel introduced the ferry companies had to radically reduce
their own fares to survive. This resulted in a price war which hurt
both ferry operators and Eurotunnel

P&O lost 23% of its business in the first year that Eurotunnel
operated and had to merge with arival company. Other operators
such as Sally Lines and Oostende Lines went bust. Entire routes
such as those from Folkestone and Ramsgate as well as the
hovercraft routes were abandoned completely



The Eurotunnel business plan envisaged this (route consolidation) happening
anyway, but still expected to charge 300 pounds per car for a round trip.

tim