Eurostar Blames Coronavirus For Limiting Onboard Wi-Fi

Eurostar has surprised passengers with its decision to remove free Wi-Fi from standard class carriages, which it blamed on the Coronavirus pandemic.

The cross-channel passenger train operator however opted to keep the free Wi-Fi service for customers in its Standard Premier (SP) and Business Premier (BP) carriages.

Passengers on the Eurostar can normally access the EurostarTrainsWiFi service, which supplies connectivity to passing trains via a track-side network of 3G and 4G cell stations.

Coronavirus blamed

Eurostar explained its decision not to provide Wi-Fi to those standard-class passengers when a customer queried its policy.

“Could you please ask the person who made this decision how Covid affects WiFi signals in economy cabins – and not – Business class cabins?,” tweeted Toby.

“Hi Toby, as a result of coronavirus we have had to review and amend some of the services we offer and at the present time we are only able to offer WiFi in our SP and BP carriages,” replied Eurostar. “Our apologies for the inconvenience caused.”

As could be expected, this prompted a flurry of responses on Twitter.

“@Eurostar please tell us more about this connection between wifi and Covid-19, and how it only affects standard class passengers, while premier class passengers are apparently immune,” tweeted Antonio.

“Either you are doing something extremely customer-hostile to save money or there’s been a woeful miscommunication somewhere,” tweeted Stefan. “Really need a full release of your reasoning here.”

“Really struggling to see why @EurostarUK have this bizarre policy in place, cannot see how WiFi in any way helps transmit the virus (unless they have knowledge we don’t) or is it just a case of trying to force people to pay more money to upgrade class,” tweeted wheels-in-motion.

Service restored

Thankfully it seems that logic has prevailed at Eurostar, after it subsequently restored free Wi-Fi throughout all its carriages.

“We are pleased to say that WiFi is now available on board and is free throughout all classes of service,” Eurostar tweeted.

The last time the firm was in the headlines was in 2018 when Eurostar reset all customers’ online passwords after detecting an “attempted” hack of its system.

Eurostar told customers at the time that the reset was because of an “automated attempt” to access Eurostar accounts using email addresses and passwords.

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