News
Say Hola! to Spanish holidays departing Portsmouth and Plymouth in 2021
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Pont-Aven
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Playa de Concha, San Sebastián
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Picos de Europa, Cantabria
Brittany Ferries has launched its Spanish schedules for 2021. Reservations can now be made for ferries serving Bilbao and Santander up to the end of October next year.
It follows the opening of reservations for cross-Channel routes last week and means holiday makers are now able to book their 2021 summer trip to France or to Spain with Brittany Ferries. Customers are encouraged to book now for the best choice of sailings, lowest fares and to take advantage of flexible ticket options.
Alongside the opening of Spanish routes, comes good news for the ports of Portsmouth and Plymouth. Portsmouth will welcome Brittany Ferries’ new ship Galicia to the fleet, a UK-Spain vessel entirely themed around this beautiful region of north west Spain. More details about the ship will be released in the weeks ahead. But reservations can be booked from today.
Further west, Brittany Ferries’ flagship vessel Pont-Aven will serve two weekly round trips to Santander directly from Plymouth. The company says this will present more opportunity to enjoy a holiday in the beautiful destinations of north west Spain, for those based in the south west of England.
As well as increasing capacity for passenger traffic, this two-route approach means more options and more space for companies transporting goods between the UK and Iberian Peninsula next year.
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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. Around 210,000 freight units are carried each year.
Key figures:
- Turnover: Approximately €444.2m per year
- Multi-million Euro investment in three new ships, including two powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas)
- Employment – Between 2400 and 3100 employees (including 1,700 seafarers), depending on the season. 360 in the UK.
- Passengers: Between 2.5 and 2.7 million each year travelling in approximately 900,000 cars
- Freight: 205,400 units transported annually, and one freight-only route linking Bilbao and Poole
- Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain
- Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
- Tourism in Europe: There were 854,000 unique visitors, staying 9.2 million bed-nights in France.
www.brittanyferriesnewsroom.com.
Contact:
Christopher Jones on 02392 152 291 or 07917 540 878 or [email protected]
Nigel Wonnacott on 02392 152 273 or 07833 446 729 or [email protected]