Brittany Ferries has reported rising levels of passengers but says numbers still lag behind 2019.
The ferry operator, which sails out of Portsmouth, Poole and Plymouth to five destinations in France and two in northern Spain, called the increase in 2023 passenger volumes “encouraging, if not spectacular”.
It said volumes were “significantly up” on last year despite not yet reaching 2019, the last pre-Covid comparison year.
So far this year, the ferry operator has booked 1,504,274 passengers, including those who have already travelled and forward bookings, a 17.6% increase on the same period in 2022.
The volumes are still down by nearly 15% on 2019, a deficit of around 270,000 passengers.
However, for the high season, from April to October, reservations have reached 1,224,120 compared with 1,097,724 for the same period in 2022 – a hike of 126,396 passengers or 12%.
For year-end, the company forecasts total passenger numbers will be 18% up on last year, with the anticipation that 1.95 passengers will have travelled with the ferry operator.
The company called this a “positive result” but stressed it remained 100,000 fewer passengers than expected.
A more indepth review of its sailings show a rebound in bookings for between the UK and France while sales of the company’s ferry routes to Spain are slightly down on 2022.
Routes to France suffered last year due to border restrictions in France, which ran into the busy post-Christmas booking period and hit demand. All UK to France routes are now showing growth for this year.
The company’s most popular route, Portsmouth to Caen, which carries nearly 60% of all its passenger traffic, has enjoyed a 12% rise in forward reservations on 2022 to 389,150. To put this into context, this is around 8% down on 2019.
Summer reservations for this year on the Plymouth to Roscoff route are up 8% to 154,200 and for Portsmouth to St Malo are 6% up to 165,700.
Poole to Cherbourg is the only route showing growth on 2022 and 2019, with growth of 23% in bookings to 104,375 on the same period in 2022 (85,000 passengers), and 14% up on the 91,370 travellers carried in 2019.
Spain, which enjoyed the strongest growth last year, has seen a small decline in passenger numbers for 2023.
In total the company has taken 198,850 forward reservations for its Spanish routes, which operate from Portsmouth to Bilbao and Santander and Plymouth to Santander, for April to October this year – up on 2019 by 14% but down on last year by 7%.
Chief executive Christophe Mathieu said: “Overall we are encouraged by our passenger performance this year, particularly on Channel routes.
“While we are not quite where we want to be on volumes, careful management of our business means we are still in a healthy position.”
He said the company would continue to do “all we can” and work with partners to encourage more bookings for sail-and-stay holidays.
By contrast, the company’s freight volumes have worsened this year, with a continuation of the post-Brexit slump. The drop of around 8% year on year could lead to a 15% worse freight performance by year-end, the company admitted.