The construction of WB Yeats was to fill the gap where by hauliers had to use the landbridge to go to europe.
The traffic on the cancelled Epsilon sailings would have gone landbridge or possibly the trailers went to Antwerp or Rotterdam on Dephine and Celine. Given the choice the freight comminity will go direct to France if they get the opportunity especially if the freight is destined for France, Switzerland, Spain or Italy. The hauliers in the south east
have been putting pressure on irish ferries for years to keep the service to france open in the winter months and were looking forward to the additional freight capacity Epsilon and WB Yeats provided during the summer months that was not available when Oscar Wilde was traveling full of passengers and cars. Not everything is lost.
When WB Yeats is finally delivered i could see her running weekend visits to France with Epsilon running to Holyhead as and when required.
I’m sure I’ve covered this before, but many hauliers PREFER to use the land bridge rather than direct for the simple reason it means they have the opportunity to pick up and drop off additional goods enroute. Direct isn’t always best. Demand can’t be that high if Irish Ferries are totally pulling their Rosslare to France winter sailings - do remember Brittany Ferries have added more capacity at Cork, something that doesn’t appear to be going particularly well at present given the figures I’ve been hearing! As for drops switching to Belgian routes, if they were going there in the first place in all likeliehood they would have taken that route anyway - why pay someone to drive a trailer from the wrong side of France to Belgium? Accompanied may well do but if it’s accompanied it was probably for a reason, for instance dropping part of the load in the U.K. or France.
Meanwhile Irish Continental Group is worth €160m less than it was last October according to the Irish times.
Things like this aren’t helping the reputation either! From their Facebook page
“So today, ironically while shopping for a family holiday to France I get this rather curt text. I was so sure it was a spam or prank I actually googled the number before ringing it, just in case. I get through (after long hold times and being disconnected) and your “customer care” rep had anything but customer care on her mind. She was borderline rude. No apology for the inconvenience, no even attempt to be sympathetic or halfway pleasant. We have been offered a sailing from rosslare (Not dublin) either the day before or day after. No provision or offer of compensation for either the nonrefundable day’s accommodation we will now miss at our destination, or for the extra day we would have to incur to arrive on our planned day. I was told because it’s a CANCELLATION and not a delay there is no provision of compensation. I am completely incensed by your company’s lack of care. This is the second time our sailing has been disrupted. The main reason we booked with irish ferries was because you had a sailing from Dublin on a nice new ship. That ship wasn’t available so we were moved to a much lesser vessel, but at least also from Dublin and at least on the same day. No compensation was offered there either, apart from a token amount off next years sailings which I assure you we won’t be using after our treatment this year.
NOW we are told that the second ship isn’t available either and neither are sailings on our planned day of departure!
So to sum up. We now have to travel several hours further in the car to rosslare. We will be travelling a full day later and missing therefore a full day of our holiday plus accommodation we have paid for for that day / night. And your customer care team informed me that because it’s not a delay we get offered NOTHING to compensate us for this fairly major inconvenience?! This is extremely poor form Irish Ferries.”
The text message says “Your sailing to France has been cancelled (technical). Call us” (lists phone numbers). Not even a we are sorry or similar!
Irish Ferries Fleet movements