DFDS has been caught out selling tickets to and from Guernsey without a licence to operate here.
The ferry firm recently announced it was ‘axing’ inter island sailings from Jersey to Guernsey and refunding passengers who had already booked. However, DFDS did not have a licence to operate in or out of Guernsey sailings, so the tickets were being sold for a service that did not exist.
“The Committee recently discovered that DFDS has been selling inter-island sailings on a high-speed Ro-Ro vessel on Mondays without a licence – a clear requirement of Guernsey’s legislation,” explained Economic Development President, Deputy Sasha Kazantseva-Miller.
“To be unambiguous: the sailings DFDS claims are being ‘cancelled’ were never authorised by Guernsey in the first place.”
Deputy Kazantseva-Miller said under the current arrangements, with what DFDS had previously proposed doing, the sailings wouldn’t exist either.
“The Committee has been in discussions with DFDS and the Government of Jersey over a proposal to use their freight vessel Stena Vinga, calling into Guernsey on Friday legs from Jersey to the UK and returning on Mondays. The Committee rejected this proposal for several reasons,” she said.
Those reasons included DFDS wanting to use St Peter Port Harbour outside of its scheduled opening hours which would have added costs on for Guernsey, and impacted other harbour users including Brittany Ferries’ dedicated Guernsey freight and passenger services.
Guernsey Ports were also unsure whether DFDS could deliver on its proposed schedule, with the boat it intended to use, the Stena Vinga, due to have maintenance work carried out during several of the suggested sailings.
Additionally, the proposal would have mainly served Jersey passengers with limited value to Guernsey travellers, said Deputy Kazantseva-Miller.
That “went against the clear political commitment given by the Government of Jersey in 2025 to introduce a reciprocal rotation,” she said.
ED said it had told DFDS that its proposed service had been rejected at the end of March – with the ferry firm only ‘cancelling’ sailings and refunding passengers this month.
Progress on talks around inter-island services have since stalled because of Jersey’s upcoming election. But ED “remains open to discussions with both DFDS and a future Jersey government in the coming months,” said the committee President.
Regular commercial inter island travel is currently solely carried out by Guernsey based businesses, with Aurigny the only airline granted a licence to fly between Guernsey and Jersey.
Brittany Ferries runs Guernsey’s freight and passenger ferry services between the island and the UK and France, it also offers sailings to and from Jersey each Wednesday.
Islands Unlimited, owned by Guernsey’s former Harbour Master Captain Chad Murray, sails almost daily to and from Jersey.
