P&O announced last week that they were closing Hull-Zeebrugge, and selling the Pride of York and Bruges, as well as the Pride of Burgandy and European Seaway from Dover.
https://ferryshippingnews.com/po-ferries-says-goodbye-to-a-route-and-four-ships/
In the context of Covid, this is hardly surprising news, but it does seem that over the years P&O's default answer to anything has been to close routes and shrink their operation. Obviously the market for ferry travel has changed a lot over the years, with the explosion of low-cost airlines in particular, but it is notable that other operators have been much more positive in their responses, and seem to be doing much better. It feels to me that the last big positive action that P&O took was the introduction of the superfreighters to Zeebrugge, the introduction of the 5-ship chunnel beating Dover-Calais service, and the introduction of the Pride of Bilbao back in 1992/3. Since then, all of their decisions have been either negative, neutral, or just a bit better than like-for-like.
https://ferryshippingnews.com/po-ferries-says-goodbye-to-a-route-and-four-ships/
P&O Ferries informed its staff that the Hull – Zeebrugge route is to close permanently. PRIDE OF BRUGES and PRIDE OF YORK are to be disposed of.
The same announcement said that PRIDE OF BURGUNDY and EUROPEAN SEAWAY will not be returning to service.
The four ships have been put on the market.
In the context of Covid, this is hardly surprising news, but it does seem that over the years P&O's default answer to anything has been to close routes and shrink their operation. Obviously the market for ferry travel has changed a lot over the years, with the explosion of low-cost airlines in particular, but it is notable that other operators have been much more positive in their responses, and seem to be doing much better. It feels to me that the last big positive action that P&O took was the introduction of the superfreighters to Zeebrugge, the introduction of the 5-ship chunnel beating Dover-Calais service, and the introduction of the Pride of Bilbao back in 1992/3. Since then, all of their decisions have been either negative, neutral, or just a bit better than like-for-like.
- Introduction of the expensive and unsuitable Olau twins to Le Havre when Brittany Ferries were investing in purpose-built tonnage
- Replacement of multi-purpose ships with chartered fast ferries at Portsmouth & Larne
- Closure of Portsmouth, which Brittany Ferries have continued to expand - Spain in particular seems to have exploded over recent years
- Closure of the P&O Ferrymasters route to Gothenburg, which seems to be ever-expanding with DFDS
- Sale of much of the ex Pandoro operation to Stena, since when they have consolidated it into the rapidly expanding Birkenhead-Belfast route
- Replacing 4 ships on Hull-Rotterdam with Pride of Hull & Rotterdam. Whilst this was probably neutral, it was notable that other operators were expanding capacity out of the humber at the time, and they hugely reduced their damgerous cargo capacity
- Sale of the Felixstowe routes to Stena - freight traffic on this route seems to be constantly increasing
- Liverpool-Dublin becoming a passenger route, but using ro-ro ferries with minimal conversion work
- Introduction of the Causeway class ropaxes at Larne was certainly a positive compared to the previous vessels, but their low passenger capacity is notable
- P&O Stena merger was probably essential, but effectively all of the additional Stena capacity was sold off, allowing other operators to increase their market share
- Closure of the Zeebrugge route and Darwin conversion was probably a sensible move, but again was an overall reduction in capacity at a time when DFDS were introducing large new ships to Dunkirk
- Introduction of the Spirits was certainly positive, but was just a like-for-like replacement of the Dover and Calais with a bit of a capacity increase
- Earlier this year, there were certainly issues over unpaid bills on the Liverpool-Dublin route
- I'm not surprised that the Hull-Zeebrugge route has closed, and even without COVID it was probably at risk, but the York and Bruges should have years left in them, and I would have thought that a ropax replacement wouldn't have been unreasonable
- Reducing to 4 ships at Dover is interesting at a time when DFDS are increasing capacity
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