Professor John Robertson OBA, International Ferry Correspondent

From ITV today:

DFDS has cancelled its sailings between Jersey and St Malo for the first day it serves the island. The Danish firm, taking over from Condor, says the cancellations on Friday 28 March are due to “technical issues” with preparing one of their ferries, the Tarifa Jet, to run to and from Jersey.

https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2025-03-27/dfds-cancels-sailing-between-jersey-and-france-on-opening-day

Surely they checked the boat out a few days beforehand, to enable a professional start to the contract? Kind of makes you think they must be a rubbish company putting profits ahead of passengers?

There were warnings.

Only two weeks earlier from BBC UK:

Ferry travellers will soon be unable to get a ferry from Portsmouth to Jersey on Sundays after Danish operator DFDS took over. Jersey’s government chose DFDS to run the island’s ferries in December, with the first sailing on 28 March.

The firm has contacted people who have bookings to offer alternative sailings and said the changes came after talks with tourism leaders and freight companies. Customers on social media have called it “shockingly bad” and “disappointing”, with DFDS responding that it did not “anticipate making regular amendments to our schedules, but our priority is to implement a service that is both reliable and robust” and “best serves the requirements of the wider community”. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c89yq8wyvxwo

It’s a 9 hour crossing.

The CalMac Oban to Barra (population – 1 170) crossing takes around 5 hours but even in winter, there are two sailings on a Sunday, one in the morning and one in the evening. CalMac, Scottish Government subsidised, sails to 50 destinations daily, some for populations in only three figures. I can see no sign of any island, no matter how small, without a Sunday ferry service.

Kind of makes you think DFDS must be a rubbish company putting profits ahead of passengers?

DFDS? Dreadful ferries, dreadful service?