Cork to Swansea winter sailings cut

THE Cork-Swansea ferry is to reduce its number of winter sailings this year and concentrate more on “chasing the money” by ensuring its service fits in with major rugby fixtures.

Padraig O’Kane, the Fastnet Line’s chief executive, yesterday announced that having studied results from last winter, the company had decided to axe some early-week sailings because they were carrying too few passengers to make it economically viable.

He said the company had carried out research among passengers who had previously taken early-week winter sailings and discovered they were flexible enough to alter them in the future.

However, he said the company “appreciated and acknowledged that the new schedule will cause some difficulty for some of its freight customers”.

“To this end, the company’s board has formed a sub-committee which is currently meeting transport carriers to see how best we can accommodate their travel and transport needs within the new schedule,” Mr O’Kane said.

From week commencing September 20, the service will be reduced to four sailing per week.

The MV Julia will sail out of Cork on Thursdays and Saturdays and depart Swansea on Fridays and Sundays.

The busy Christmas schedule has also been announced which includes additional sailings to Ireland on December 21 and 23.

Mr O’Kane said there are also a number of scheduled changes to accommodate the Heineken Cup Rugby for Munster’s matches with the Llanelli Scarlets and Northampton along with the Six Nations clash next February 5 between Ireland and Wales at the Aviva Stadium.

The schedule has been reversed to take account of it being a Sunday match.

The company is offering two nights accommodation on board the Julia, bus transfer to and from the stadium, at match tickets for fans in Wales at £250 per person.

“One of the key growth areas that we have identified is the retired flexible UK market for short breaks in Ireland.

“We are currently in discussions with our partner hotel and accommodation providers from the West Cork Tourism Co-Operative in relation to creating many value packages for the UK market which has a population of over 60 million people,” Mr O’Kane said.

Meanwhile, Britain’s largest ferry operator, P&O Ferries has announced the introduction of additional sailings on its Dublin-Liverpool route, bringing its total number of daily departures to three in each direction.

As part of the move the company has upgraded its European Endeavour vessel, originally introduced to the route in February for freight traffic, to accommodate up to 300 passengers.