New bosses shake up Eurotunnel

EUROTUNNEL is to slash costs in its Anglo-French workforce and shake up its incoherent pricing policy, its new management pledged today.

However, in a strategy document entitled Eurotunnel's Recovery Becomes Possible, it admitted it has yet to find a solution to the Channel Tunnel operator's falling revenues and rising debt commitments and is still four months away from producing a rescue plan.

In a letter to investors, chairman Jacques Maillot and chief executive Jean-Louis Raymond, propelled into their jobs after a shareholder revolt in April, launched a withering attack on Eurotunnel's previous management.

The car shuttle trains operated by Eurotunnel have not been properly promoted, aped rivals' pricing plans and have a 'very negative' pricing image leading to emptier trains, they said. Freight shuttle prices are 'incoherent and unstable' leading to a failure to build up a loyal customer base.

Detailing plans to cut costs by £40m a year, the executives blamed the split between two sites, two states, two languages and two cultures for many problems.