P&O Fleet Movements

[PaddyL]

"P&O Ferries is a people based services company and we understand the importance of training, motivating and empowering staff members and retaining the best talent.   

"We are committed to providing our customers with the highest standards of service and that means we need skilled, confident and knowledgeable staff, and we believe in providing them with the best opportunities to enhance and grow their skills."

Neal Mernock, Sector Director Irish Sea, P&O Ferries

Most of these courses are a lot of claptrap - company culture is much more important and P&O's sucks.  Look at their social media pages to see how they ignore customer comments and feedback.  My experience is that their customer service onboard is far below Stena and very far below Irish Ferries.

[TC]

Your welcome to your opinion Paddy. I personally have a more favourable view of P&O.

Considering many employees of P&O read the forum they are likely insulted by a blasé statement like 'P&O sucks'.

Generally I don't think we should be using the P&O thread for negative publicity. Its unfair in my opinion. I could rant on about the very below standard experiences I have had with both Irish Ferries and Stena Line. I don't though as I personally like to focus on the more positive aspects of a company, rather than slagging them off at every opportunity, or just focusing on the negative aspects.

Don't get me wrong I am not trying to say P&O are perfect. But a lot of people who work for Stena previously worked for P&O, and a lot of people who work for P&O, previously worked for Stena! People are human, just because some have an 'S' on their lapel rather than a house flag, doesn't mean they are sub-par individuals.

[PaddyL]

Your welcome to your opinion Paddy. I personally have a more favourable view of P&O.

Considering many employees of P&O read the forum they are likely insulted by a blasé statement like 'P&O sucks'.

Generally I don't think we should be using the P&O thread for negative publicity. Its unfair in my opinion. I could rant on about the very below standard experiences I have had with both Irish Ferries and Stena Line. I don't though as I personally like to focus on the more positive aspects of a company, rather than slagging them off at every opportunity, or just focusing on the negative aspects.

Don't get me wrong I am not trying to say P&O are perfect. But a lot of people who work for Stena previously worked for P&O, and a lot of people who work for P&O, previously worked for Stena! People are human, just because some have an 'S' on their lapel rather than a house flag, doesn't mean they are sub-par individuals.

You have returned to your usual habit of misquoting.

I said that P&O's company culture sucks not their staff - most of their staff that I know have told me that this is their view.  Nonsense courses, top heavy management, a blame culture, slow decision-making etc.

[marthyrarth]

I agree - we are not criticising individuals here, and if we think a company is good or bad we should be able to discuss that freely.

Personally, I have been quite impressed by my experience of Stena crews on the iRISH Sea recently, but obviously crews are more stressed on busy sailings and after a long season.

My P and O experience has been Dover-Calais most recently, and I did get the impression that p and o are not the best employer.  High end shore staff are I believe rather out of touch with the hard working ships crew.  Would be good for them to work a week a year on one of their ferries to understand how hard it is and appreciate the crew more.

[TC]

As a company I view P&O, Stena and Irish Ferries, in a similar light. To be honest its like comparing Texaco, Shell and Esso. They all vary, but at the end of the day the products are incredibly similar.

If you have a pessimistic or a positive view of the company that is ok. But just focusing on the negatives is not the way the fleet movements should go. All that happens is it will become a repository for bad press, which Irish Ferries and Stena have had their fair share of, just like P&O.

Helen Deeble P&O's CEO previously worked for Stena Line, so once again we have crossover, this time at a senior level. P&O have taken good and bad decisions, but overall I have a favourable view of the company. I believe they do work hard to develop a sustainable operating model. We have to recognise though P&O post 2004 is a much smaller company with far less resources, hence they don't have the luxury of propping up the ferries division with oodles of cash from elsewhere.

If Stena had to rely on the ferries alone, we would likely see several more routes closed (ie Fishguard) simply because it would not be viable to replace the vessel.

I don't intend to get into an online argument, but I'll just mention it again, I don't think it is right to focus purely on the negative aspects of the company. All it appears to be is negatives.... after negatives.

[PaddyL]

I don't intend to get into an online argument, but I'll just mention it again, I don't think it is right to focus purely on the negative aspects of the company. All it appears to be is negatives.... after negatives.

I'm sorry if I appear negative but I remember the glory days of P&O at Larne with 9 or 10 vessels and routes to Cairnryan, Fleetwood, Liverpool and Ardrossan.

They promised improvements to the Causeway and Highlander which haven't happened, the port is very quiet compared to what it used to be.

I just wish I could find reasons to be positive.

[TC]

Well Paddy I have some interesting news.

Profits are up significantly at P&O for 2015, and according to Helen Deeble things are looking up. £32 million net with a turnover of £960 million. Not too shabby, its up on 2014, £13 million.

She indicates P&O are planning to have new vessels ordered this year, hopefully coming on stream for 2020 / 2021, but they may bring this forward.

"The journey we've been on, as with many shipping companies, is through a very severe recession," says Deeble. "I would describe '15 and '16 together as our years of recovery.

"Last year was 'year one' and we saw a big step up in profitability and that's important directionally but it's not yet at the level we need to be at to invest. 2016 is about getting to that level and 2017 and beyond will be what I call the investment and growth phase."

"We were previously thinking about new-build orders coming on stream in 2020-21," she says. "Now what we're going to do is see if we can bring them forward by a year or two, which means we have got to start really at the end of this year with a new build project."

"People see us as a tourism brand really, but 60pc of our business is freight," Deeble notes. "We had a lot of revenue at lower margin in the second half of last year, and what we're looking to grow is better yielding revenue."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/29/po-boss-gets-ferry-business-ship-shape-for-growth/

[RorieLen]

I hope you don't mind me asking this, TC, but do you work for P&O? The reason I ask is that you are like the forum version of their PR department?

[PaddyL]

Well Paddy I have some interesting news.

Profits are up significantly at P&O for 2015, and according to Helen Deeble things are looking up. £32 million net with a turnover of £960 million. Not too shabby, its up on 2014, £13 million.

She indicates P&O are planning to have new vessels ordered this year, hopefully coming on stream for 2020 / 2021, but they may bring this forward.

"The journey we've been on, as with many shipping companies, is through a very severe recession," says Deeble. "I would describe '15 and '16 together as our years of recovery.

"Last year was 'year one' and we saw a big step up in profitability and that's important directionally but it's not yet at the level we need to be at to invest. 2016 is about getting to that level and 2017 and beyond will be what I call the investment and growth phase."

"We were previously thinking about new-build orders coming on stream in 2020-21," she says. "Now what we're going to do is see if we can bring them forward by a year or two, which means we have got to start really at the end of this year with a new build project."

"People see us as a tourism brand really, but 60pc of our business is freight," Deeble notes. "We had a lot of revenue at lower margin in the second half of last year, and what we're looking to grow is better yielding revenue."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/29/po-boss-gets-ferry-business-ship-shape-for-growth/

Any news on how they are going to grow and develop their Irish Sea business?

[TC]

I think consolidating, and focusing on the growth routes is the best way forward.

Unfortunately Stena has the Northern Ireland market pretty much stitched up. Heysham - Belfast, and Birkenhead - Belfast, all provide adequate capacity. If P&O were to introduce a Liverpool to Larne service, with Norbank & Norbay taking up the service, with larger new vessels replacing the latter at Dublin, Stena could counter it by dumping their prices, ultimately leading to the service not carrying sufficient loads, leading to its closure.

The Larne to Cairnryan run as it currently stands will just stumble along, making losses, until the time comes to replace the European Highlander and European Causeway. Channel House will just do what they did on Portsmouth to Bilbao - close the route citing losses and falling passenger numbers which prevents them from ordering new vessels.

If P&O are able to make a Liverpool to Larne operation work, which I am sceptical about, then they might be able to generate more interest in Larne.

If they moved to Belfast, they would likely preform better as they have lower running costs than Stena, thus bringing lower prices to customers. This likely would lead to them to winning back customers that defected to Stena's Belfast to Cairnryan service.

The above plan does require investment, and naturally a facility would need to be developed. The IOMSPC facilities in Belfast wouldn't be a bad starting point, but berthing would be problematic.

Liverpool to Dublin looks much more promising. The demand for larger vessels is there, so the investment would be justified, unlike at Larne. The current service does very well, totally contrasting the Larne operations.

I couldn't see Irish Ferries taking on Larne to Cairnryan, simply because they will face all the problems P&O have post 2011. Belfast would be a better option, and P&O have invested in the new link-span at Cairnryan which can accommodate larger more modern ships. But why would P&O not just start there own Belfast to Cairnryan run, rather than leaving an excellent facility at Cairnryan to another operator - appears foolish. P&O own the Port of Cairnryan, so they would get berthing fees ect from this hypothetical operator, but that is again not the same as running a successful operation of there own out of the facility.

Overall we wont see new P&O ships on the Irish Sea for quite a while as the current fleet is not that old. I am told Norbank & Norbay are mechanically A1, despite being 22, while European Endeavour, European Causeway, and European Highlander were only built in the 2000s, so not exactly ancient.

Stena Europe is 36 years old, so P&O should get a good few more years out of their ships. Keeping the profits growing is P&O's biggest challenge.

The news of new vessels for Dover is a good sign. Once Dover is sorted, and four or five years of steady profits, we will likely see a string of new ships ordered for Zeebrugge and Dublin.

[Steven]

I hope you don't mind me asking this, TC, but do you work for P&O? The reason I ask is that you are like the forum version of their PR department?

I'd say he's too good at promoting them to work for P&O PR  ::).  Speaking of which, I asked a question on the official P&O Facebook page on Thursday asking when the previously announced work to Causeway and Highlander would start and where the planned additional seats would be fitted.  I have yet to get any reply from them, however several other questions posted since have been answered on the same day.  Dodging the question?  After all, these improvements have now been announced twice and we were originally told would be completed in time for Easter!

My favourite feature of the P&O website, the big bold lettering "Route now closed", is still in situ as well over Larne - Troon.  If we consider that the website should be laid out in a left to right layout in order of importance (as thats the way we read in the west), it seems promoting Larne to Troon is closed is more important to P&O than promoting the Liverpool to Dublin route!

Regarding P&O's profits, having read P&O's annual reports over the years I always take the officially announced numbers with a large pinch of salt (well, a handful if I'm honest).They aren't exactly unknown for a spot of creative accounting - ask HMRC  ;).  Mind you, others aren't much better!

[TC]

I agree Steven. P&O didn't do a good job closing Troon - In fact even I found it poorly thought through. They would have been better sticking with the 'not viable' and 'lack of suitable' replacement tonnage lines, rather than insisting they were not closing the route.

The refit is another issue. Releasing press statements stating the vessels are getting improvements, and not following through is a problem.

Liverpool needs to be beefed up. They need larger vessels - I know this wont happen for a good few years, but regardless if Norbank and Norbay are mechanically A1, they need to be moved on. They are simply too small to cope with the traffic demands.

It will be very interesting to see where P&O build there next generation of vessels for Dover. I have a sneaking suspicion an Asian yard might get the contract.

[Steven]

P&O boss gets ferry business ship-shape for growth

P&O Ferries is led by veteran chief executive Helen Deeble

Ben Martin
29 MAY 2016 • 4:30PM
The boss of P&O Ferries almost winces as she recalls the chaos that descended on Calais last summer when strikes and the migrant crisis brought the town to a standstill.

For three days the port of Calais was closed, wreaking havoc on cross-channel trade. Calais, according to some observers, resembled a warzone, with black smoke filling the air as striking ferry-workers protesting against job cuts burned tyres and blockaded the port.

The situation was exacerbated by the thousands of migrants camped in Calais attempting to board queuing lorries bound for the UK.

Travellers blast Eurostar after migrants force trains to turn backPlay! 02:52
"To allow such a major part of the transport infrastructure to just stop was almost criminal, really," says Helen Deeble, the 54-year old chief executive of P&O Ferries. "Nobody working here can ever remember that length of disruption."

The port eventually reopened and sailings to Calais resumed. Furthermore, somewhat counter-intuitively P&O Ferries ultimately became  a beneficiary of the summer of travel chaos that mainly hit its rival Eurotunnel, which continued to suffer disruption from migrants. Holiday-makers and lorry drivers seeking to avoid the troubled Eurotunnel turned to ferries to cross the Channel instead.

It was a boon for P&O Ferries, which traces its origins back to the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company, the ports, shipping and logistics business founded in 1837. FTSE 100 company P&O was bought by Dubai Ports World for £3.9bn a decade ago and Deeble has been in charge of the ferries business ever since.

Traffic figures show that despite Calais's brief closure, P&O Ferries enjoyed a strong 2015, carrying a record 1.34m freight units across the Channel, a 22pc jump on 2014.

It was helped by British competition authorities, which forced Eurotunnel to offload its Myferrylink ships, which competed with P&O, to Danish operator DFDS. Worries that this would result in job losses at Myferrylink caused the Calais strikes. It also meant the Myferrylink vessels were taken out service to be overhauled, a fillip for P&O during the second half of 2015.

With Eurotunnel hit by disruption and no Myferrylink competition, P&O brought a freight-only vessel back into service in July, adding a sixth ship to its Dover-Calais route, to cope with demand. It helped P&O absorb the thousands of lorries queuing on the M20 waiting to cross the Channel when the Government implemented Operation Stack to deal with the impact of Eurotunnel delays caused by the migrant crisis.


Deeble hopes the ferry business, which was hit by the economic downturn following 2008, is now well-placed for further growth. In 2014, revenues slipped 2.5pc to £942.5m, but the company swung to a £13m pre-tax profit from a £10.2m loss a year earlier. As well as Calais-Dover, it operates between Hull and Rotterdam and Zeebrugge and routes across the Irish Sea. It also runs transport and logistics business Ferrymasters.

"The journey we've been on, as with many shipping companies, is through a very severe recession," says Deeble. "I would describe '15 and '16 together as our years of recovery.

"Last year was 'year one' and we saw a big step up in profitability and that's important directionally but it's not yet at the level we need to be at to invest. 2016 is about getting to that level and 2017 and beyond will be what I call the investment and growth phase."

P&O is yet to file 2015 results, but Deeble says it generated £960m in turnover and net profits of £32m. She believes it will be on a sound enough footing to start the process of ordering two new vessels later this year.

"We were previously thinking about new-build orders coming on stream in 2020-21," she says. "Now what we're going to do is see if we can bring them forward by a year or two, which means we have got to start really at the end of this year with a new build project."

The last time P&O bought two new two ferries – its enormous Spirit-class vessels used in the Channel – they cost €150m each and were ordered in 2008, just before the financial crash. P&O's freight business will be key to getting its finances ship-shape for further fleet investment.

"People see us as a tourism brand really, but 60pc of our business is freight," Deeble notes. "We had a lot of revenue at lower margin in the second half of last year, and what we're looking to grow is better yielding revenue."

Improving yield means focusing on freight that can be loaded most efficiently. Deeble also hopes to make progress on the tourism side of the business too.

"What we're doing in the tourist market isn't a volume play its more about what other revenue streams can we develop," she says. These include increasing the range of themed evenings – from Abba revival nights to darts – offered on overnight routes such as Hull to Rotterdam. It also means taking further steps to revamp food on ships to reflect the high street trend towards casual dining, and installing better gaming and gambling facilities.

"We've got a big refresh programme being designed and we're going to look at how we roll that out properly in 2017," the P&O boss says.

Born in Solihull and raised in Leamington Spa, Deeble trained as an accountant after A-Levels.

"Then as soon as I could I went into industry," she says. That meant joining retail giant Sears, first in its menswear division and then childrenswear. In 1993 Deeble was approached by Swedish business Stena Line, which was looking for a financial controller without a shipping background who could bring a fresh perspective. For Deeble, moving her family to Kent to work at Stena was a big risk.

"My eldest son was five so he'd done one year at school, my youngest one was 10 months old," she recalls. "You sit back now and go: 'I must have been absolutely barking mad', but I met some really inspiring people at Stena Line."

She became finance director in 1996, and took the same role at P&O Stena Line after the merger of the companies two years later. When P&O cut 1,200 jobs and slashed routes in 2004 after it was hit by competition from Eurotunnel, low-cost airlines and declining freight rates, Deeble was chief operating officer of the ferries division, at the heart of the painful restructuring.

She was promoted to chief executive of the ferry operations after Dubai bought P&O in 2006. Ever since, there has been speculation Dubai, which wanted P&O for its ports, would sell the ferries, but it never happened. Ten years later, is Dubai now eyeing a disposal?

"That's the question that staff ask almost every year, although they've gone quiet in the last couple of years," Deeble admits. Dubai "are very happy with our results, they're happy with our recovery story," although she adds pragmatically: "Any owner will sell at the right price at the right time if there's suitable offer."

Is she concerned Britain will leave the EU?

"I think as long as the underlying movement of goods and people doesn't change then we will be fine," she says. There is speculation Brexit could result in a return of duty free shopping, which was abolished in 1999, dealing a blow to the ferry industry.

"We've heard that rumour, I don't think that's a serious proposal, but who knows," Deeble says.

We meet before the strikes at French oil refineries that sparked fuel shortages across the country last week. A P&O spokesman said the company was busy over the Bank Holiday and continued to operate a full schedule of Channel sailings, allowing drivers to bring extra fuel on crossings.

There are worries about a fresh build-up of migrants in Calais this summer, but Deeble is hopeful the port and cross-Channel trade will not face a repeat of last year's crisis because of measures taken by British and French authorities.

"Touch wood, of course," she says. "I don't expect to see five days of freight parked on the roads, closures for days and days on end, and running battles with tyres burning on streets."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/29/po-boss-gets-ferry-business-ship-shape-for-growth/

[RorieLen]

For some reason it seems P&O aren't doing any day trips on their Larne to Cairnryan route this summer. There are none on their website. This is a real pity - I recall bus loads of day trippers every day during the summer in years gone by.

[PaddyL]

For some reason it seems P&O aren't doing any day trips on their Larne to Cairnryan route this summer. There are none on their website. This is a real pity - I recall bus loads of day trippers every day during the summer in years gone by.

This is very disappointing and seems a lost opportunity,