The recent air travel chaos caused by the volcanic ash cloud, plus the recent French air traffic control strike and a further threat by Spanish air traffic controllers appears to be making more fly to let customers turn to rail travel.

To meet the increase in demand for its services over the summer, Eurostar has announced that during August it will put on 20 extra trains - four each weekend - to and from Paris with every seat available at a special price of £69 return.

Nicolas Petrovic, chief executive of Eurostar, said: “Over the last six months, we have delivered strong growth in both business and leisure bookings. As the economic environment has strengthened we have seen an uplift in the business market and an overall increase in the number of passengers travelling.

“Whilst our core routes continue to be busy more and more people are opting to travel further afield and explore new destinations by train. Forward bookings are looking strong and with the increasing appetite for high speed rail travel in Europe, the trend looks set to continue.”

Eurostar, which claims to offer shorter journey times to the South of France, Germany and the Netherlands, has seen passenger numbers rise by 6 percent to 4.6 million and revenues increase by 18 percent to £404 million during the first half of 2010.

This growth is due in part to the impact of the ash cloud disruption but also reflects a strengthening of the business market and an underlying increase in both business and leisure travellers during the period.

• People staying in holiday homes in the Athens area were forced to evacuate their properties as a precaution when three major forest fires started recently.

Greece often suffers from forest fires during the dry summer months, but this was the first time Greek firefighters have been called out to tackle this type of emergency this year.

The blazes broke out close to the town of Lavrio, which can be found 30 kilometers southeast of Athens, on the island of Evia and in the northern suburb of Varnava.

© Fly2Let.net Ltd 2010 l Terms of use l Contact l Free Subscription l Webmaster
Brazil l Bulgaria l Canada l Cape Verde l Croatia l Cyprus l Dubai l Egypt l France l Germany l Hungary l India l Italy l Morocco l Portugal l Romania l Slovakia
South Africa l Spain l Thailand l Turkey l UK l USA l Other Countries
Investment Property l Off Plan Developments l Ski Property l City Apartments l Golf Property l Beach Front Property l Land Investment
Cheap Flights l Car Hire l Property Finance l Property Insurance l Travel Insurance l Property Maintenance l Overseas Removals l Currency Exchange l Exhibitions & Seminars