Eurostar, the high-speed passenger train service that links the UK and mainland Europe, has announced its annual figures for the year ended 31 December 2009.

Ticket sales for 2009 totalled a record £675.5 million, an increase of 1.7% on 2008, as Eurostar welcomed 9.2 million travellers throughout the year. The volume of travellers year-on-year increased by 1.2%.

Eurostar’s Brussels trains route saw the highest growth in 2009. The number of passengers travelling from London to Brussels increased by 6% in 2009, in comparison with 2008, Eurostar’s Paris train route experienced a 1% increase in the number of travellers.

An upturn in overall sales for 2009 meant that revenue increased by 1.7%, this was boosted by a strong leisure sales performance with sales of these tickets up by 15.6% year-on-year. Whilst the economic environment remained challenging throughout the year, the second half of 2009 saw a ‘bottoming-out’ in the business market.

These figures include the period of disruption in Eurostar services over the weekend of 18-20th December 2009. In a letter of 17th January, Eurostar apologised unreservedly for the problems that occurred and explained that it has put in place a number of operational and communication improvements to ensure that its trains have greater resilience to extreme winter weather and it is now much better placed to look after its customers when disruptions do occur.