ShIPPInG & FREIGhT

Brittany Ferries opens Le Havre route

Brittany Ferries has successfully launched a once weekly Rosslare/Le havre service, sailing from Rosslare on Saturday at 17.45, arriving in Le havre at 14.30 on Sunday. Departure from Le havre for Rosslare is on Friday at 19.00, arriving Rosslare on Saturday at 14.30. Voyage time for the 120-freight unit capacity Cotentin is 20 hours. This vessel also operates a twice weekly Le havre/Portsmouth schedule.

The new route launch brings Brittany Ferries weekly schedules for services out of Rosslare to four, with sailings on Wednesday and Friday, to Bilbao, Monday to Cherbourg and Saturday to Le Havre. The company will also re-open its twice weekly Cruise Ferry schedule linking Cork and Roscoff on 30 March 2022 with sailings each Wednesday and Saturday. The company has reported significant levels of tourist booking on all its Irish routes for the 2022 summer season. Current freight volumes on the Rosslare/Bilbao route are now exceeding one thousand units a month, a 70% increase on the figures for the same time in 2020.

Brittany Ferries plans to introduce a second e-Flexer ferry chartered from Stena Ro-Ro onto its Portsmouth/ Santander service in Spring 2022, releasing the Cap Finistère for service elsewhere in its network. Irish Ferries owner Irish Continental Group has completed the purchase of the former Calais Seaways from DFDS. The vessel became surplus to requirements following the introduction of the e-Flexer Cote D’Opale in July this year.

The thirty-year-old vessel has sailed under the flags of many operators, with most service on the short straits links out of Dover. The vessel will now be re-named Isle of Innisfree and will start service in early December alongside the Isle of Inishmore on the Dover/Calais route. Her trailer capacity is eighty-three, while it can take for six hundred cars and accommodate 1140 passengers. This introduction will mean that Irish Ferries vessels will sail from Dover every two and a half hours. Meanwhile route rivals DFDS and P & O continue to operate a ‘first come first served’ service under which trucks arriving for shipment will sail aboard the next vessel leaving the port irrespective of vessel owner. This arrangement is now reported as being the subject of an investigation by the UK Competition Authority.

The Isle of Innisfree is the third vessel added by Irish Continental Group during 2021, following the charter of the containership Music to add to its Benelux Lo-Lo service fleet and Blue Star 1 replacing the Isle of Inishmore on the Rosslare/Pembroke ferry service.

Dunkerque Port seeks to develop Irish business

In a follow-up to the implementation of the first phase of Brexit Trade restrictions, members of the Port of Dunkerque management team visited Dublin during the first week of november. Meetings took place with a range of Exporters, Importers, Port Operators, hauliers and Freight Forwarders.

Dunkerque is now served from Ireland by a once weekly Containerships Lo-Lo service serving Dublin and Cork Ports, carrying units running in its European door-to-door service along with feeder containers for parent company CMA-CGM’s Deep Sea services calling at the port. DFDS Group operates a five departures weekly ferry service from Rosslare to Dunkerque and has current plans to significantly increase capacity and sailings on what has become a highly successful route. It operates to an area within the Port independent of DFDS service to Dover. It is close to the rail terminal currently under construction which will facilitate the carriage of trailers and containers to several French and European locations.

The port is currently marketing a new turnkey area of 150 hectares, branded as Dunkerque Logistique Inter-national (DLI) as a location for Distribution Centres for firms shipping and marketing products to and from Ireland. Experience already shows that the use of a facility at that location enables Irish exporters distribute product on demand within the ‘Blue Banana,’ an discontinuous corridor of urbanisation in Western and Central Europe with a population of over one hundred million people.

The Port recently welcomed Minister for European Affairs, Thomas Byrne TD to the opening of a passenger service ready DFDS Irish Terminal at the Port.

Text: Howard Knott – howard@fleet.ie

Irish Ferries doubles capacity on Dover/Calais route