Eurostar is leaving hundreds of seats empty to avoid queues at British passport control

Eurostar is deliberately leaving hundreds of tickets unsold as the operator struggles with the consequences of Brexit.

Since Brexit has been finalized, British citizens must have their documents stamped upon entry into the European Union. And EU citizens must show at passport control that they follow UK migration rules when entering the country.

To address the bottlenecks caused by these changes, Eurostar has asked passengers to arrive at stations 90 minutes before their train departs, a significant increase from the previous 30 minutes.

And it has capped seating at peak times, bringing capacity down 30% from 2019.

As a result, trains from London to Paris or London to Amsterdam run with almost a third of their seats empty.

And some commuters are “frustrated” by the change.

“It’s especially frustrating if you’re someone who wasn’t hoping to leave Europe,” said Jane Hopkinson, a London-to-Paris commuter.

“I think it is very important, especially for my generation, to be able to travel freely. I travel for work today – so it really makes a difference to my ability to do my job in Europe. It’s a real shame.”

Raphael Zurita, a French national who commutes from London to Paris, told Euronews that while he can still pass through checks easily when entering the EU, he has noticed long queues for his British counterparts.

“The queues are much longer at passport controls. There’s actually a lot more segregation of people if you have a UK passport than if you have a European passport. There’s a clear distinction between where you’re going,” he said.

“I have a French passport, so personally I get through it pretty quickly. But I see that British people usually spend a lot of time queuing.”

During peak hours, Eurostar limits its capacity to 700 seats to allow passengers to pass through passport control.

Eurostar trains traveling from Amsterdam to London carry just 250 passengers, with another 175 boarding en route in Rotterdam.

Eurostar says it hopes that both the UK and the EU will deploy more border police and install more electronic gates to reduce check-in time at the station.

In the meantime, commuters will have to think further ahead to secure a seat.