Eurotunnel Ekes Out Profit for 2009 Despite Disasters
09.03.2010 (15:56)
Eurotunnel Group said Tuesday that it managed to make a profit in 2009, despite lingering repercussions from a 2008 fire and the disastrous breakdown of Eurostar trains at the height of the year-end travel season.Net profit fell 96 percent from a year earlier to €1.4 million, or $1.9 million, the company said. Revenue fell 14 percent to €571 million.
Eurotunnel, based in Paris, operates the 31-mile, or 50-kilometer, Channel Tunnel, which allows partner rail services to move people, freight and vehicles between Britain and the Continent.
A fire in the tunnel in September 2008 caused massive disruptions to traffic that lasted until Feb. 9. The company also said its results would have been better if a lawsuit initiated by the railways against its insurers had not frozen insurance payments it is owed.
The weak economy also weighed on results, as demand for transporting trucks through the tunnel shrunk by about 20 percent.
Shares of Eurotunnel fell 5.3 percent in Paris morning trading.
“Even if Eurostar faced a serious crisis in December 2009, they have beaten their historical record with 9.2 million passengers,” a 1.2 percent gain from 2008.
Jacques Gounon, chief executive said in a video interview posted on the company’s Web site, that Eurotunnel’s resilience in 2009 shows it “is in good shape to benefit from the economic recovery, as soon as it begins.”
He also noted that Eurostar, which operates passenger trains between London and Paris and London and Brussels, managed to beat its record with 9.2 million passengers last year, a 1.2 percent gain from 2008.
Considering the “serious crisis” last December, he said, that was “absolutely incredible.”
On Dec. 18, amid heavy snow, a number of trains stalled in the Eurotunnel, disrupting service until around Christmas. The company said fine snow had drifted into sensitive electrical equipment outside, then melted inside the tunnel, shorting the trains’ power systems.
www.nytimes.com
Print version
