P&O Ferry Rip Off

Mr_Lahey

Salisbury wrote: »

Excellent logic. When you have no other choice than to travel by ship and the prices are non negotiable, what option would I have?

I trust all the emails of support don't travel very often. With 50,000 extra passengers, do the additional costs really amount to nearly £2,000,000 every couple of days? Buses were only needed in Dover not Calais. You do the math.

They'll be doing the same again this week when the skies close again.

The issue of Eurostar is one of capacity, and they manage the capacity through layered fares. When I arrived at the Ferry port at 16:30 ish on the Sunday I caught a 17:45 ferry. The ferry had loads of capacity - the fares were high purely because there was no other option than swim. They closed all other means of booking a crossing. No extra buses. No extra staff. Although I do accept that there was more capacity in the night - although public transport doesn't work 24/7 so I'm not sure how foot passengers would get to the port at 04:00?

Surprisingly, there are visitors in UK who want to get home to Europe, hence the traffic is actually in two directions. The ferries do not travel empty one way.

If you are happy with this approach, then you are entitled to your opinion, but I fear it is a very sad when companies exploit society like this.

My son asked me today if i could take him on a boat. I booked a one way flight to Dublin next week and then tries to book a return on the ferry hoping to get an overnighter so we could chill out. There is only one ferry that will take foot pax at night.

All business works on supply and demand, its the backbone to the economy.

Get over it, you got home. There are still people stranded.

Greenlight77

Supply and demand is great in a competitive market where people have a choice but for those thousands of people who ended up in Calais after the volcano there was then no viable alternative to get across the channel. We were there on the Wednesday after the eruption when an estimated 10000 used the ferries from Calais that day alone.

The situation was pretty heated in the ticket office when we eventually got inside after a 3-4 hour queue; many people were complaining to the P&O staff about the prices. Foreign office staff were trying to calm things down but were getting flack as well since David Millibrand had been telling everyone stranded in Europe to head for Calais and use the ferries but most people didn't realise how expensive the tickets were until they got there. The FO officials were telling people to keep their receipts and they would exert pressure on P&O to reimburse some of the price but this was probably for the benefit of all the film crews who were there so I doubt anything will happen.

malkie76

Excellent logic. When you have no other choice than to travel by ship and the prices are non negotiable, what option would I have?

so you conceed you weren't ripped off, as you were fully aware of the costs, and received the service you requested.

The other option was to stay put and let your original travel provider organise transport home while covering your costs.

dzug1

spiro wrote: »

Agree, if you check I think they only take foot passengers 8am to 8pm or even less time. The extra cost will have been around having the buses and staff to move the passengers around the docks because I dont believe you just walk across Calais harbour from the entrance to the ferry on foot. Also passport control (french and english) are probably not geared to cover foot passengers during this time so they will have had to lay on extra staff.

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And extra staff on board. Maritime regulations specify a minimum crew/passenger ratio. At night they normally operate with a skeleton crew, so cannot take foot passengers without beefing that up.

I'd be curious to know if they actually put prices up - or just charged the normal walk/drive on rates.

Salisbury

malkie76 wrote: »

so you conceed you weren't ripped off, as you were fully aware of the costs, and received the service you requested.

The other option was to stay put and let your original travel provider organise transport home while covering your costs.

I did have the option to double the length of my holiday, so I suppose I shouldn't be complaining? If everyone sat it out and waited for the airlines to get them home the economy would have another couple of billion to find. All I did was accept my responsibility to my employer and my kids education and tried my best to get home.

I listened to the UK news and followed the Ministers advice to go to the port. I was a little surprised that although P&O had a great opportunity to travel with near full capacity for days and could make a very decent return, they opted to increase the price to the maximum they could charge. By directing people to the port the Government were complicit.

Alas, I got home and got to work, so what should I moan about? Only the fact that if this is how corporate Britain works, then its pretty sad. Hasn't corporate greed created enough problems for society?

malkie76

So you weren't actually ripped off then?

Salisbury

malkie76 wrote: »

So you weren't actually ripped off then?

Please go back to your P&O till. You have people to serve.

malkie76

I'll take that as a concession

moonrakerz

Salisbury wrote: »

They also refused to answer the phone in Germany or England

I just have this vision of ALL the P & O staff in both Germany and England, just sitting there looking at all the phones ringing away and saying -

"I refuse to answer that, it's that bloke Salisbury again !"

ferryenthusiast

As many have already said P&O do drop their service at night:

• The passenger level is restricted by nearly 50% and therefore crew levels likewise drop considerably. They would have had to by law brought in extra staff. One ship stops taking passengers totally and reverts to freight only on very limited crew.
• One out of the two freight ships would normally be laid up, in fact it has just been sent to Tilbury to be laid up totally.
• Dover & Calais closes all foot passenger facilities at night so that would have cost P&O
• All the buses and drivers at both Dover & Calais would have been needed.
• Port charges would have increased, both Dover and Calais would have charged P&O for each foot passenger being loaded and unloaded.

Now having said all that, yes the figure that is being quoted does seem high as a single for four adults Calais to Dover for this coming week in the middle of the day so when they normally take foot passengers is £72.