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Brittany Ferries makes more cuts

[ September 2, 2020   //   ]

Brittany Ferries has made further cutbacks to its services in the face of a slump in passenger business, including the closure of the Cherbourg-Portsmouth and Le Havre-Portsmouth routes. The Connemara, currently serving the two routes, will be taken out of service entirely from 7 September.

It follows previously announced closure of the St-Malo Portsmouth route from 7 September and the continued closure of Cherbourg-Poole for the remainder of the year, having ceased operations at the end of March and not having resumed in June.

The company’s busiest route, Caen-Portsmouth remains unaffected for the next two months. Normandie and Mont St Michel will continue three daily departures as normal, with Armorique covering each ship’s technical stop in November and December respectively, running in freight-only mode.

The Bilbao/Portsmouth and Santander/Portsmouth services continue until a three-month technical lay-over, beginning in December. The Bilbao/Poole freight only service is continuing as normal.

The cuts follows the UK government’s decision to impose quarantine restrictions on arrivals  from Spain, and more recently France, which led to an immediate run of cancelled bookings The company also reports significantly weakened demand for services this autumn.

Director general Christophe Mathieu said: “ Passenger traffic accounts for around 75% of our income, so our bottom line has been hit hard. It’s is why we must continue to take decisive action to reduce our costs to get us through the worst of this unprecedented crisis.”

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