Condor cancel all 2016 double sailings to try to keep to schedule

Tuesday 16 February 2016

Condor say that the Liberation ferry will be limited to one sailing per day to try to “improve reliability and punctuality”.

They had planned to sail “double rotations” on Saturdays between 28 May and 17 September, but they now say they will reduce that to one trip to keep to schedules.

The company says that the move has been made after consultation with the authorities in Jersey and Guernsey, and after passengers complained that the planned times of the double-sailings were inconvenient.

Condor’s Executive Director – Commercial, Alicia Andrews, said that the changes were being made to make sure that there was some slack in the timetable to prevent delays to customers booked on the later sailings in the day.

She said: “We've listened to our customers' feedback and taken the decision to withdraw all double rotation sailings for the 2016 peak summer season on our fast ferry cross-Channel service.

“This will allow us to schedule more favourable sailing times that are better suited to Islanders and visitors to the Channel Islands, and help us to continue to improve the reliability and punctuality of our sailings.

“With very little slack in the schedule for double rotation sailings, we were very aware that any delays roll on to the next sailing. With the removal of such a tight turnaround, we hope passenger disruption will be reduced.

“Removal of the double rotations will see a slight capacity reduction, with around 10% less car and passenger capacity compared to that provided in 2015, however there will still be capacity for growth in ferry travel compared to passenger numbers in recent years.”