Withdrawal of Portsmouth to Bilbao ferry service

megilleland

From BBC news site:

Portsmouth to lose Pride of Bilbao ferry service

A P&O ferry service to Spain operating from Portsmouth is to be withdrawn due to "unsustainable" losses, putting 252 jobs at risk.
The Pride of Bilbao's final crossing to Bilbao - which P&O Ferries has operated for 15 years - will take place on 27 September, the firm said.
The 252 employees, including 130 agency workers, all work on the vessel. Twelve others work on shore in Bilbao. P&O said it was talking to unions. The RMT said the route "remains viable". Contacting passengers Steve Todd, the RMT's national maritime secretary, said: "We believe the Portsmouth-Bilbao route remains viable and that there is no case for axing the service. "We will be working with the company to look at options to keep the route sailing.
"In the meantime, we have cast-iron assurances that there will be no compulsory redundancies and we are in negotiations with P&O to ensure that the interests of staff are fully protected."
Crossings are expected to operate as normal up to and including the 27 September.
It is understood the company is contacting passengers with bookings beyond that date in order to make alternative arrangements or offer refunds.
The news comes after Brittany Ferries announced just before Christmas that it was withdrawing the Barfleur ferry between Poole and Cherbourg because it had been losing money since 2003.

andymiller

Bad news, but am I right in thinking there will still be services from Portsmouth and Plymouth to Santander?

EDIT: just realised that it's Brittany ferries who sail to Santander (Duh!)

El Gordo

Shame. It means I won't be able to repeat the 36 hours of hell that was the last time I took that ferry in 2005. Throwing up within a few hours of leaving knowing I was trapped for a day and a half was not a good feeling.

If the Santander ferry is still running though it's not so bad.

pneumatic

Same thing happened here with the Rosyth to Zeebrugge. In the end it took a lot of politics (and probably some cash) from the Scottish Government to reinstate the service (but it is a pale shadow of its former self).

Also, ferries between the East Coast and Scandanavia have been quietly disappearing. They blame the low cost air carriers.

It is a bummer really, as taking your bike on the boat is so much a better way to start a continental tour than the hostile and humiliating process of trying to get through airports with any of your personal effects, let alone a bike.

Heckler1974

The Portsmouth Billbaio mini cruise, ahhhh happy memories, the puddles of vomit, frequent drunken violence, terrible food, what a great loss to the UK.

unCivilServant

Back in 2000 I was contemplating a bike tour in the north of Spain.

Remembering my ferry trips in '94 and '95 (Newcastle-Norway--yes, another that's now gone by the board--and Plymouth-Roscoff respectively), I tried to get a P&O brochure.

"No, we don't do brochures any more" said the operator. "We just do it over the 'phone now--ring this number for times and prices." Yeah, right. Booking anything like that is a process of weighing up dates, prices, supplements etc. For those of us who like to have the info in writing in front of us, not something that can be done with an impatient salesperson gabbling at us.

I went with GO instead. Nothing difficult about taking it thru the airports whatsoever: all the airline wanted was the handlebars turned (admittedly from what I've heard it it may not be so easy now). Got shouted at for accidentally taking it on the Stansted Express; but then I also had hassles on the connecting train journey for both the ferry trips I took.

And the door-to-door cost was <£150rtn. Even in those days (I believe) the like cost would've been about 50% higher by boat (not helped by P&O's making paying for a bed compulsory--and IIRC requiring you to book a whole cabin even for 1 person). Having just checked P&O's site, even booking at over 5 months' notice would now cost £350 for that summer bike trip for the ferry element alone! Sorry, but if getting to my holiday destination is going to eat into my annual leave (was on long student vacation for my '90s trips), paying massively for it as well aint all that appealing. And no, we're not going to think differently just by it being glamorously repackaged as a 'cruise'--many of us don't want to pay extra for comforts--and by some of the descriptions on this thread it's far from that anyway.

Having said that, for anyone who likes going on ferries, CalMac round west Scotland is the way to go. I did several crossings with them last August on a bike tour, and definitely got more of a sense of it being a working operation rather than just a tourist thing. The fares are dead reasonable (probably because the taxpayer is subbing them, admittedly), and structured to be a lot more favourable to cyclists/foot passengers than those in cars.

dilemna

Speedferries disappeared about 3 years ago as well, sunk, never to re-surface. I lost £48. Their service from Dover to Boulogne was excellent.

I've seen that LD do a similar cheap ferry crossings of the Channel but not as quickly as SF did.

Alex_Gill

there are brittany ferries routes running between santander and both Plymouth and Portsmouth according to their website. Me and 2 mates are going touring down the west coast of france into spain and santander. wouldn't like to turn up at the docks to see them dismantling the ferry terminal

dave1962

I expect Brittany Ferries introducing a Portsmouth-Santander route had some influence on P&O's decision. We (as in me and the mrs)were planing on getting the ferry to Bilbao and riding back to St.Malo this summer but may opt for the Santander route as we prefer Brittany ferries to P&O, even though it adds about 75 fairly tough miles to the planned two week ride.