My letter to several MLA's 29/08/2100
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Dear Sir/Madam,
A growing number of people in Northern Ireland and Ireland are
getting extremely frustrated at the Ferry prices from Ireland (North
and South) to GB. It is possible to to go from England to France with
a vehicle for as little as £56 return. Yet from Larne and Belfast to
Scotland is £300 + return with the same amount of people and the same
vehicle.
I asked the question on P&O Ferries facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/poferries
"
As cheap as £56 return from England to France, Larne to Cairnryan £300
return!
Why so expensive?
"
The reply I received was...
"In the past on our continental routes we had Duty Free shops which
made a great deal of profit for our company and as such we could
discount the cost of tickets on these routes. Since EU restrictions
were introduced we no longer have Duty Free shops onboard, however the
customers who use these routes are accustomed to paying very low
amounts for the tickets and will simply use the competition if we no
longer discounted them. On the Irish Sea routes there is much less
competition and our customers are accustomed to paying much higher
prices for tickets. While I can appreciate your comments in regard to
the price difference for similar duration crossing I hope that you can
appreciate that as a business we will apply a price which we feel is
sustainable and profitable for the route. "
As Stena/P&O are one company and they have bought all the routes on the
Irish sea, even going as far as closing Heysham to Belfast to make
further gains on their other crossings, this seems to me that as they
have no competition they can charge what they want. Surely the NITB or
yourselves should be doing something about this as the amount of people
on the mainland that would come here for a holiday but instead go to
France is quite overwhelming! a quick search on camping/caravaning and
Motorhome websites will prove
this.
Some messages from English members wishing to visit..
"Why are ferries to Ireland SO expensive?? £300 return (just tried some
random dates)!! Its like the olden days on the Channel crossings. I'd
love to go to Ireland but I'm not going because it is a rip off.
Crossed Calais to Dover last week (similar distance as SW Scotland to
NI) and went for £32 (admittedly it was on a multi deal of 6 crossings,
but still its in a different league). What the those ferry companies
need is some serious competition, come on Speedferries how about flying
the pirate flag on the Irish sea!
Brian"
"Having just priced some Car Ferry options from the UK to Ireland
return I am puzzled as to why they need to charge such high prices for
a 2/3 hour journey. Example Cairnryan to Larne is about £300 return.
Time of the year.... you might say, but no, I can get to France from
Dover for £83 return. So come on the UK and Irish Tourist Boards and
Ferry Companies, you are not "encouraging motorhomers" to travel either
way and the prices are over the top. So we like many others this year
are off to France instead. !"
This is affecting the amount of money that could be gained from tourism
and of course affecting the people in NI & Ireland that want to holiday in GB.
Do we need another ferry company to come into place? will the tax
loading on flights that our MLA's are trying to get rid of affect the
ferry prices also? or are we doomed to be paying for the "most
expensive bit of water in the world" over and over?
Yours sincerely,
Some replies will be posted soon....
