Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: Record Freight Traffic

Ferry services running out of Rosslare Europort has reported a 45% jump in freight traffic during January compared to the same period last year.

UK traffic is down 49% for the month, but European freight is up by 446% year-on-year, with "unprecedented demand" for the new direct services which opened up since 1 January between Rosslare and the mainland continent.

Hauliers have been using the services between Rosslare and Dunkirk and Cherbourg in France to avoid the UK landbridge, now that the post-Brexit fallout means extra customs and other checks for traffic entering and exiting the EU.

Meanwhile, the new regime requiring hauliers leaving Ireland for France to produce evidence of a negative Covid-19 test result is reported to be going relatively smoothly.

The first pop-up test centres for commercial drivers only opened in Gorey and Dublin on Thursday, with further "drive-through" centres since opened in Cork and Shannon, and another for truckers due to open at Holmestown outside Wexford town in the coming days.

More here reports RTE News on this record traffic development at Ireland's closest port to mainland Europe. 

Published in Rosslare Europort

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).