Faced with DFDS, which operates ships under the French flag, its competitors P&O Ferries and Irish Ferries announce a major merger on the Strait of Pas-de-Calais.
As the law on social dumping comes into force, the shipping lines P&O Ferries (in the crosshairs of trade union organizations and French and British authorities regarding social conditions on board its ships) and Irish Ferries announce a significant strengthening of their collaboration in Pas-de-Calais.
The two groups announced an agreement to exchange space on their ships between Calais and Dover. Which means that, from this summer, Irish Ferries customers will be able to board P&O vessels and vice versa.
Irish Ferries will also take over the Spirit of Britain from P&O, with a bareboat charter with an obligation to purchase at the end. Built in Rauma (Finland) and commissioned in 2011, this 213 meter long, 47,600 ton vessel can accommodate 2,000 passengers and has 3,746 linear meters of parking, which allows it, for example, to take on board 180 trucks and 195 cars. Its twin, the Spirit of France, entered the fleet in 2012, these two ships being specially designed to be operated on the strait.
The Spirit of Britain will therefore remain on the route it has always taken. Irish Ferries, present on the strait since 2021, should for its part repatriate one of its three ships, the Isle of Inishmore, Isle of Innisfree and Isle of Innisheer – all registered in Cyprus, to the route between Rosslare (Ireland) and Pembroke ( United Kingdom).
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