Eurostar ‘chaos’ reported at St Pancras as check-in hit by queues due to

Angry Eurostar passengers have taken to social media since this morning after encountering queues for check-in that stretched outside London’s St Pancras station.

One Twitter user called it an “absolute shambles” and “shocking mismanagement”, while another estimated that there was “more than 500m of queue.”

Ian Freeman posted a picture of heavy queues, saying: “Total shambles at #stpancras #eurostar @EurostarUK.

“Thousands of people, queues snaking around the station, out into the street and back in again. Shocking mismanagement.”

Shortly after 10.20am, Edwin Smith tweeted: “We’re queuing out of @StPancrasInt on the street for @Eurostar @EurostarUK. Chaos. No explanation offered…”

A Eurostar spokesperson said it was due to a “technical issue” which had delayed one service earlier this morning.

The spokesperson said: “There was a technical fault with one of our sets earlier, which put it out of service. As such, unfortunately, that particular service left London over an hour late.

“There has since been a small backlog of trains since then delayed by around 30 minutes but otherwise we would expect this to clear shortly.”

Customers reported that queues continued, with Dr Diane Nutt tweeting: “At St Pancras waiting to join an enormous #Eurostar queue. I find this part of travelling enormously stressful.

“It really does feel like there should be a better way, but I know it is probably even worse at #airports this week. #letthetraintakethestrain?!?”

Twitter user Prateek added: “What’s with the ridiculously long queue of Eurostar passengers all the way out to the exterior of Barrel Vault? That’s more than 500m of a queue.”

The UK’s airports have suffered long queues and many airlines have been making daily cancellations, as the travel industry creaks under the strain of a surge in demand for holidays.

As the queues continued into this afternoon, a Eurostar spokesperson told The Independent: “Unfortunately delays of 30-60 minutes on departure from St. Pancras are continuing – following on from the technical issue this morning.

“Our staff are working hard to get passengers checked in and on to their trains.”

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