A spokesman for Channel Tunnel owner Getlink said: “Getlink welcomes any initiative to increase high speed passenger traffic through the Tunnel – from the current operator or potential new entrants.”
A potential challenge to Eurostar comes as it struggles to recover from the impact of the pandemic.
The service narrowly avoided collapse in early 2021 and accounts for 2022, the most recent year available, show it racked up pre-tax losses of £305m. The company insists performance has improved since then.
Last month, Eurostar stopped running services between London and Disneyland Paris, blaming post-pandemic recovery and additional Brexit checks being brought in.
Eurostar has set a goal of doubling passenger numbers to 30 million by 2030 but border checks have slowed down expansion.
The future of its ski train to the Alps is under review amid concerns over lengthy Brexit border checks.
The popular high-speed service, which takes skiers from London St Pancras directly to the Alps, has been mired in doubt over recent weeks with passengers still unable to buy tickets for the upcoming ski season.
Earlier this month, The Telegraph saw correspondence to customers from Eurostar in which it said it had taken the “difficult decision to discontinue the direct ski train”.
Efforts to launch a rival service to Eurostar, which started service in 1994, have struggled in the past.
Germany’s Deutsche Bahn planned to run services to Frankfurt and Amsterdam from 2013. DB trains have been certified to travel through the Channel Tunnel, but as yet no service has been launched.
Getlink reportedly considered launching its own low-cost rival in 2018.
Britain sold its stake in Eurostar in 2015 for £750m under David Cameron. It is majority-owned by French state operator SNCF, pension funds including Canada’s Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Hermes Infrastructure, which is a major investor on behalf of UK local authority pension schemes.
When it was first proposed, Eurostar itself was meant to be a much more wide-ranging service, with services starting in Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh planned. Trains were even built for the services, which instead found their way to France.
