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Displaying items by tag: BirkenheadDublin

The largest ferry operator on the Irish Sea, Stena Line has said it hopes to launch a route from Birkenhead, on the Wirral peninsula, to Dublin Port following news that a historic Liverpool route is set to be axed.

The announcement follows from rival, P&O Ferries which said it intends to close its (two-ropax operated central Irish Sea) Liverpool-Dublin service at the end of this year, in what was described as a "huge blow" to the two cities.

The Swedish owned Stena Line which already operates out of Merseyside with the Birkenhead-Belfast route, understands that Dublin Port is to initiate a selection process to identify a potential new operator on the Ireland-UK corridor linking the Liffey and Merseyside.

Stena Line which also operates Dublin-Holyhead on the central corridor, said it will participate fully in this process and will be "registering an interest in re-establishing a Dublin–Birkenhead service."

A spokesman for Peel Ports Group, the UK’s second largest port operator, confirmed that the P&O Ferries service would no longer be calling into Liverpool on expiration of their existing contract at the end of 2023. 

The ferry company which operate twin ropax's on the 8-hour route declined to say why the contract had not been renewed.

Liverpool Echo has more on this development. 

Published in Stena Line

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).