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Manche Iles Express has almost met its goal passenger numbers for 2023 before July has even started – but the ferry company might struggle to recruit because of a change in French law, according to the company's Sales and Marketing Director.
Manche Iles, which provides crossings primarily aimed at French passengers, is anticipating that more American and Canadian tourists will visit France next year for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
Olivier Normand, Manche Iles’ sales and marketing director, said that they had transported 20,000 passengers this year – a 120% increase on last year.
“For the coming summer, we have already reached 85% of our goal for the year,” he said.
“At the end of the year I think we will more than double what we did last year.
“So we're going to have between 70,000 and 80,000 passengers. And last year we did 35,000.”
In 2019, the company’s busiest-ever year, it had 110,000 passengers.
The company is now hoping that Jersey and Guernsey will allow more passengers to enter the islands using only their identity cards.
About half of Manches Iles’ passengers do not hold passports.
Since March this year, passengers have been able to enter Jersey and Guernsey without a passport, using only their ID cards – but this scheme only applies to French citizens coming for one day, and it has yet to be extended into 2024.
Despite the positive passenger picture, Manche Iles is currently concerned about its ability to recruit in future after a law law change affecting how its ships are registered.
To operate in France, ships have to be registered to one of seven registers. Manche Iles’ two boats have so far been registered under the 'Rif', or Registre International Français.
This means their company and its staff is allowed to pay lower tax, which Manche Iles argues made it an attractive company to work for.
A bill was recently passed in France to amend the law to protect Brittany Ferries from "unfair" competition, while fighting against what has been termed “social dumping”, the practice of hiring staff from abroad for worse pay and conditions. French MP Pierre-Henri Dumont said it was a law that "protects the jobs" of sailors, "ensures absolute safety for all passengers" and "gives all seafarers the assurance of a decent salary and deserved rest days."
The decree changing this French law was made on 21 June and as of Saturday (1 July) Manche Iles has had to be registered in the 'premier registre' – the generic register for ships sailing under the French flag – instead.
But Manche Iles say that this law will have a profound impact on their ability to recruit.
Mr Normand said: “The problem is that it's very impactful for our sailors because the Rif allowed our sailors to pay not a lot of taxes.
“Our sailors who did not pay taxes thanks to the Rif will have to pay taxes normally. So compared to other companies, it will be difficult to recruit sailors next year."
The company is now seeking an amendment to the decree – and, Mr Normand added, hoping for good weather this summer.
Like Manche Iles, Condor has also reported a positive trend in passenger numbers.
Condor released its figures for Guernsey this week. The company has said they are seeing increased confidence from passengers and are beating their 2019 passenger numbers.
The ferry firm says its car booking figures are improving all the time, with its latest data showing that "current carryings" and "forward bookings" for car passengers sailing from Poole and Portsmouth to Guernsey are running 7% ahead of 2019 levels.
From France the increase is said to be 18%, equating to 1,300 more than four years ago.
Greg Yeoman, Condor’s Commercial Director, attributed the growth to a recovery in confidence amongst consumers, joint marketing efforts and the increasing popularity of the new holiday company - Condor Breaks – which was launched by the ferry firm in 2021 to offer package deals.
"The forward bookings for this season we reported earlier this year were very encouraging and it is fantastic to see this continued improvement into the summer season. This shows that consumers are looking to travel with their vehicles in greater numbers than in the recent past."
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