Eurostar ticket sales are up 11.5%

Eurostar says quarter on quarter results are up 18% - a significant turnaround for the company which had been suffering from falling passenger numbers for several months.

Ticket sales are up 11.5% on the same period last year following the opening of the first section of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link between Folkestone and Fawkham Junction in Kent.

Trains can run at 186mph on the 46-mile section of track, cutting journey times between London and the continent by 20 minutes.

Work on the second section into St Pancras station, in London, will finish in 2007 shaving a further 15 minutes off journeys to Paris, Brussels and Lille.

We're not in profit yet, but we are committed to get back into profit round about 2006 Paul Charles, Eurostar

Current timekeeping has improved and 1,000 trains have now run at over 90% punctuality.

The company's market share also increased to 49% on the London to Brussels route.

A new daily non-stop Brussels service will be introduced in January and Eurostar says it will launch a major push for more business travellers to coincide with this.

The firm admits it still faces a challenge to deliver long term performance improvements for passengers and shareholders.

Eurostar spokesman Paul Charles, said: "We're not in profit yet, but we are committed to get back into profit round about 2006.

"By the end of 2004 we'd be very disappointed if we hadn't attracted an extra half a million passengers.

"We'd like to show we can go on growing this business. We'd like to carry eight million passengers by the end of 2004."