Eurostar has celebrated its busiest year since the Channel tunnel opened a decade ago, carrying 7.27m passengers in 2004, including literary fans lured to Paris by Dan Brown's best selling religious thriller the Da Vinci Code.
The international rail operator yesterday announced that its passenger numbers had surged by 15% and its revenue had risen from £376m to £433m, sparking renewed optimism of progress towards long-awaited profitability.
Eurostar's resurgent performance, which reversed several years of decline, followed the opening of the first section of Britain's high-speed Channel tunnel rail link through Kent, which knocked 20 minutes off journey times between London and the European mainland.
Paul Charles, the company's director of communications, said there was also evidence that the Da Vinci Code had generated bookings. The novel, which has been a bestseller, includes key scenes set at the Louvre and the Eglise Saint-Sulpice, prompting enthusiasts to flock to Paris for a closer look.
"We call it the Da Vinci effect," said Mr Charles. "There's a lot of evidence from tour operators and travel agents that people have been buying tickets to see the tourist attractions in the book."
The Da Vinci Code centres on a theory that London or Paris could be the hiding place of a secret stash of religious artifacts.
Eurostar said Christmas and the new year were particularly busy. It laid on 17 extra trains and carried 250,000 passengers over the holiday season.
The company said it had lured passengers away from airlines by increasing its punctuality rate by 11 percentage points to 89%.
However its finances remain in the red, and the company does not expect to taste profitability until 2007 at the earliest, when its French division could break even.
Its separately incorporated British business will take longer to make a profit because of higher track access fees on this side of the channel.
This year will mark the completion of a £25m refurbishment of its rolling stock by designer Philippe Starck. Eurostar also intends to introduce wireless internet access for business passengers.
