P & O

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

On British television this morning they were saying that P & O is making a loss of a million a week and they are closing down their channel crossings to Le Havre, Cherbourg and Calais. But I e.mailed a friend in Le Havre and she believes they are not discontinuing Le Havre. As my son is going to be going to stay with them in Le Havre, we had been looking on this as a convenience. What surprised me though was that they said that a crossing which cost £300 a few years ago, now only costs £96! Perhaps they do they occasional special offer, but surely they are comparing their regular prices to special offers and not realistically. I've not come across such a cheap crossing, and I'd hope that £300 was one of the longer crossings and not Dover to Calais. I do find that the crossings have come down in price and it does vary as to which company is the cheapest, but as I've found P & O to be more expensive on the Calais crossing, it does make you wonder how Hoverspeed and SeaFrance are doing, since those are the ones we have used in the last few years.

[Jill3<P>Jill3<P><P><a target=_blank href="http:www.france-on-line.info" target=_blank>www.france-on-line.info<A><P><P> <P><P> <P>]

This puzzled me also. I have been crossing the western channel for over twenty years and the prices now are huge compared with even 10 years ago. We used to cross in peak season with a car and caravan and sometimes 3 children, overnight with cabins, for under £300 for a 3 week trip.

When, on the spur of the moment, I tried to book a 5 day trip for 2 and a car, in August, P&O wouldn't let me book less than 10 day fare, and they wanted almost £400 for that and £98 for a cabin. Needless to say we didn't go, although, this was the day of travel, it was only 3 hours to the sailing and it was not full they told me, but I could not book for a 5 day trip. He agreed that the ship would sail half empty because of this policy.

I have to say that Brittany ferries were about the same price, as we all know there has been little difference in their pricing for years.

I feel very angry for the staff and their families. P & O and Brittany have gone the wrong way these last few years, trying to make cruise liners out of what is in fact just a means of getting across that bit of water. One of the new ferries last year had white leather settees, looked lovely, but this year they are dirty and torn!

Oh I could go on.......... but I won't

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

Since I made the original posting, my friend in Le Havre sent me this message. This seems different to the information I heard on British television yesterday.

voici un article d'hier sur les liaisons transmanches , ce ne serait plus P0 mais Brittanny FERRIES

Je vous mets le lien GOOGLE actualités le HAVRE vous avez tous les articles concernant la région

Cliquez ici : Recherche Google : le havre

bon mercredi

CHRISTINE

AFP 28 SEPT 2004

La ligne P and O Le Havre-Porstmouth cédée à Brittany Ferries

La ligne P and O Le Havre-Portmouth sera cédée à la compagnie française Brittany Ferries dans le cadre de la restructuration annoncée mardi par le groupe britannique qui prévoit la suppression de 1.200 emplois, a-t-on affirmé de source syndicale au Havre. Cette cession a été annoncée au cours d'une réunion du Comité central d'entreprise (CCE) de P and O France consacrée à cette restructuration qui s'est tenue au Havre. "Le transfert de cette ligne et de ses deux bateaux à Brittany ferries se fera sous réserves de l'accord des autorités administratives compétentes", a précisé Didier Coury, secrétaire CGT du CCE. La compagnie Brittanny Ferries dont le siège est à Roscoff (Finistère) n'est jusqu'alors pas présente en Haute-Normandie. Elle exploite six lignes régulières avec la Grande-Bretagne au départ de la Basse-Normandie et de la Bretagne, en Manche ouest. Au cours de cette réunion, la direction a confirmé la fermeture des lignes au départ de Cherbourg et Caen et le nombre global de 1.200 emplois supprimés sur 5.500 dans la branche transmanche du groupe en Europe . "Pour la France où près de 400 salariés travaillent pour P and O, les informations qui nous ont été données ne nous permettent pas de dire combien d'emplois vont être supprimés", a précisé Didier Coury.