LNER Sees Strong Demand For Services Over Summer

London North Eastern Railway (LNER) continues to see strong demand for its services as customers return to rail, with bumper bank holiday bookings and 200,000 bargain tickets selling in a special summer Seat Sale.

Latest figures show the number of customers travelling for leisure with LNER is now exceeding levels seen before Covid. Business travel is continuing to grow, nearing 50 per cent of pre-pandemic levels and still rising, with LNER investing and innovating to encourage even more passengers back to rail.

Bank holiday bookings with LNER saw 370,000 reservations made over the August bank holiday, from Thursday 26 August to Monday 30 August 2021 inclusive. Services between England and Scotland proved most popular, with trains to and from London King’s Cross and Yorkshire also seeing high levels of demand.

The Seat Sale in August saw 200,000 bargain tickets snapped up by customers looking for great value fares across the East Coast route. The sale offered journeys from as little as £5 for travel between 6 September and 15 October 2021.

David Horne, Managing Director at LNER said: “There has been a great deal of pent up demand as people want to make trips to see friends, or loved ones or to enjoy a break or day trip. Since April this year, more than five million journeys have been enjoyed with LNER and we are delighted to be welcoming more and more customers back.

“Our Seat Sale proved extremely successful and is just one of the ways we’ve responded to demand. We’ve made tickets available as far ahead as Christmas and the New Year travel period so customers can make plans. We have extended the routes offered on our great value and increasingly popular Family tickets. In addition, we’re continually investing so we can offer our customers the best possible experience.”

LNER is working to transform rail travel, from its award-winning app and digital innovation making journeys simpler and smarter, to investing in improvements and upgrades to stations and services. LNER was the first in the industry to offer a digital ‘At Seat’ food and drinks service in Standard. Customers can order a selection of hot and cold refreshments from their smartphone and have items delivered directly to their seat.

To enable passengers to book in confidence knowing they’ll have the comfort of a seat for the duration of their journey, LNER introduced Seat Sure. Customers are recommended to reserve their seats, which can be done up to five minutes before travel either online or at a travel centre.

Customers can be reassured that record levels of enhanced cleaning continues to be carried out around the clock both onboard LNER trains and managed stations as part of LNER’s ‘Covid Aware’ pledge.