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Fourth New Brittany Ferries Cruise Ferry, Post-Brexit

26th March 2019

#ferries - In an announcement today Brittany Ferries has said it is to charter a third brand new cruise-ferry to serve its long-haul routes. 

The newbuild to be powered by LNG (liquefied natural gas), will be built at the AVIC Weihai Shipyard in China and is due to join Brittany Ferries’ network in 2023.​ 

The news follows trading results for 2018 which includes Cork-Roscoff which saw an increase in both passengers and freight compared to last year.

As yet the unnamed ship will be chartered from Stena RoRo and will be built to the Swedish shipowner’s E-Flexer design. Its arrival will bring to three the number of E-Flexer class ships in Brittany Ferries’ fleet following the arrival of Galicia in 2021 and Salamanca in 2022.

The operator is also constructing another new ship, Honfleur, at the FSG shipyard in Flensburg Germany, for delivery expected in late 2019 (see related story on delay)

The charter agreement, which includes an option to purchase, represents the next step in a fleet renewal and investment programme worth around €550m. It will offer increased capacity and comfort for customers as well as employment of French seafarers.

Brittany Ferries is proud to be the largest employer of French seafarers and is committed to fleet renewal and a more sustainable future.

Like Salamanca and Honfleur, the new ship will be powered by Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). It’s a fuel which presents major environmental advantages over conventional maritime fuels, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by around 20% and cutting sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulate emissions to almost zero.

Brittany Ferries’ CEO Christophe Mathieu comments: “We’re delighted to be adding another E-Flexer class cruise-ferry to our fleet. These are environmentally-friendly, capacious and comfortable ships which perfectly suit to our long-haul services.

“The charter will continue our fleet renewal plans, marking the fourth brand new ship in five years. It signals our confidence in the demand for ferry travel post-Brexit and will help us meet the needs of our passenger and freight customers in the decades to come. It also clearly demonstrates our commitment to LNG as a fuel and, our ambition to operate one of the most modern, green and comfortable ferry fleets in the world.”

The three 42,200 tonne E-Flexer class ships will be amongst the biggest in Brittany Ferries’ fleet. Each will be 215 metres long with 3,000 garage lanemetres for freight vehicles, and capacity for around 1,000 passengers in 340 en-suite cabins.

Three passenger decks will contain a range of boutiques, restaurants, bars and cafes all decorated to offer a rich and inspiring Spanish style giving customers a colourful foretaste of Iberian landscapes, towns and culture as they sail.

Published in Brittany Ferries
Jehan Ashmore

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Jehan Ashmore

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Jehan Ashmore is a marine correspondent, researcher and photographer, specialising in Irish ports, shipping and the ferry sector serving the UK and directly to mainland Europe. Jehan also occasionally writes a column, 'Maritime' Dalkey for the (Dalkey Community Council Newsletter) in addition to contributing to UK marine periodicals. 

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About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).