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Thousands of Brittany Ferries’ passengers face further cancellations
Many thousands of Brittany Ferries’ passengers are suffering further disruption due to a repairs being carried out on its cruise-ferry Pont-Aven.
The operator announced today that Pont-Aven will not be able to resume sailings until June 14, so a number of sailings on the Plymouth/Santander/, Plymouth/Roscoff and Roscoff/Cork routres have been cancelled over the next three weeks, including the rest of half-term.
Pont-Aven was taken out of service late last month following a fire in her engine room, forcing Brittany to cancel sailings, and she only briefly resumed operations in mid-May before being taken out of service again on May 17.
In a statement, Brittany said its technical teams have been working around the clock with the Damen shipyard in Brest to carry out repairs to the ship’s starboard-side steering gear.
Despite these efforts it has now become apparent that this work will take longer than initially planned, whilst replacement parts are delivered and installed, and comprehensive checks are carried out, it said.
"On behalf of everyone at Brittany Ferries I would like to apologise profusely for the further delays to the return of our flagship Pont-Aven, and the disruption that this will cause to travel plans. It’s a frustrating situation, but our priority now is to contact all customers who will be affected by this situation and to make sure that we look after them as best as we can," said CEO Christophe Mathieu.
Additional sailings will be operated on the Plymouth/Roscoff route, and some Cork/Santander rotations will be diverted to Cork/Roscoff.
Over the coming days the company’s customer relations teams will be contacting all customers with bookings aboard Pont-Aven for travel between now and June 14, said Brittany.
"This will involve contacting many thousands of customers, and those who are due to sail soonest will be contacted first." Brittany’s spokesman said.
An alternative sailing will be offered where it is available, but if no suitable alternative is available then a full refund will be offered. "Due to the exceptional number of phone calls involved, affected customers are kindly requested not to call, but to wait to be contacted by Brittany Ferries," he added.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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