Yeah and now the lower paid replacements are getting stiffed
Went with DFDS last year for this very reason. Sadly I'm not in charge of purchasing any ferry tickets this year.
Can't be doing with ferries given the Eurotunnel exists.
Too many delays due to rough weather (previously travelling to the UK in the winter months) and inflexible when it comes to getting on an earlier or later ferry.
Much easier driving off the train before the engine has cooled, straight onto the motorway, as opposed to a old start, queuing to get off the ferry and navigating through the port.
Eurotunnel can be had for 90€ if booked early enough compared to 40€ for a night ferry. I'm not made of money and I'm not I'm generally not in a rush, but given all the negatives of a sea crossing I'll take the train each time.
Absolutely avoided them since their complete shithousery behaviour to staff.
Typically though, guess what this Gov has done about it since to prevent it happening elsewhere... Absolutely and utterly **** all. Because fundamentally they are happy to let the poor people be poorer.
My mate was one of the P&O sackings after 18 years with the company, he worked for them on the Cairnryan to Larne route as chief navigational officer but was waiting to be promoted to captain as he completed the exams a few years previously.
He joined Maersk from school in 1989 and worked deep sea /gas ships/containers for 14 years before joining P&O due to new baby and how 4 months at sea at a time didn’t work for a relationship
All the P&O workers were removed with the aid of security goons who followed them to their cabins to make sure they didn’t try and protest/lock themselves in and the foreign workers were waiting in buses on the dockside to replace them all, the only UK based worker now on the ferry is the captain, the captain was told that if he protested or spoke to the waiting reporters then he would be sacked on the spot and his severance/redundancy/pension rights would be affected.
Total scum of a company and the UK government allowed itself to be shafted right up the arse regarding the workers rights and did absolutely nothing about it.
As a weird upside financially (at least, not morally) to his sacking he is now captain of a rather large border force patrol boat with better working conditions and side benefits.
I'll pick DFS every time...exception being Rotterdam hull with no alternative.
It's a shame as the crew on this p&o ferry are so friendly and helpful but being completely pulled over the table.
Also note that Irish Ferries did a similar thing circa 2005
Ferries booked for this Summer. Brittany ferries Caen - Portsmouth and Stena Harwich - Hook of Holland.
The tunnel would be many more hours of driving and sitting on the giant parking lot that is the M25.
If only people had the same level of thought and conscience before buying an ICE vehicle or EV made in China.
A timely reminder that the CEO earns about 250x some employees.
Probably just like any other CEO who ever lived. I was surprised to hear he only earns £500k which is considerably less than a lot of CEOs. So as his industry is global his salary and employees is probably lower than you would expect in the uk.
@edukator If only people had the same level of thought and conscience before buying an ICE vehicle or EV made in China.
Whats wrong with Chinese EVs?
Whats wrong with Chinese EVs?
Volvo, Polestar & MG parent Co (Geely) are alleged in the use of slave labour.
The same as with anything made in China, Funkydunk:
Social and economic dumping.
Selling at a loss to eliminate competition - see solar panel pricing and now EVs.
High pollution and low environmental standards that affect the whole planet.
High coal use.
Human rights abuses.
Russia would have ground to a halt in Ukraine by now without Chinese supplies.
We are selling our souls and the family china to China and every Chinese purchase is another nail in our own coffin.
I’ll pick DFS every time…
Yep - always a sale on - and four years interest free credit! 🙂
Yep – always a sale on – and four years interest free credit! 🙂
If you read the reviews on Tripadvisor for DFDS, there is a 1/5 review stating ‘delivered the wrong sofa, will never use again, etc etc’ 😆
I still use the P&O Hull-Rotterdam crossing a few times a year (real shame they stopped the Zebrugge one as i preferred that boat and the beach at zebrugge is awesome!), did the same thing happen to the crews on that boat?
There are a number of familiar faces, both Greek and Malaysian/indonesian, working on the boat in the bits that i see (bars etc) and the dutch captains are the same i think before and after the dramatic restructure.
We're going Hull Rotterdam later this year. If you're up north it's the easiest way to get to Europe. Hull is 75 miles from here. Dover/Tunnel is 280 miles, Harwich is 240
🤦♂️
To offset my guilty feeling I'll be tipping the bar staff in cash.
We’re going Hull Rotterdam later this year. If you’re up north it’s the easiest way to get to Europe. Hull is 75 miles from here. Dover/Tunnel is 280 miles, Harwich is 240
Hull-Rotterdam for us too - but I did think twice before booking due to P&O's previous shitty behaviour. No real alternative that works for us until some sort of Rosyth to mainland Europe crossing becomes a thing. Rosyth would be 17miles/24mins for us. Hull is 280miles/5hrs. Dover/Tunnel is 505miles/9+hrs and I can't be doing with that again.
real shame they stopped the Zebrugge one as i preferred that boat and the beach at zebrugge is awesome
Yeah! Was always good to hang out on the beach at Blankenberge if early for the ferry. Preferred the Zeebrugge route/ship too.
No other realsitic option than Hull-Rotterdam for us too. I can get the evening ferry after doing a full day at work, and be back at my desk by 9am usually on the mornng the ferry returns.
Yeah the CEO earning 250x the employees is not out of the ordinary. “My” CEO earns 280x my salary, and there’s people in my organisation earning half my wage
The other stuff sounds pretty nasty though, had no idea. I’m on DFDS later this year anyway but will remember for future bookings
I’ll pick DFS every time…
Yep – always a sale on – and four years interest free credit!
Sofa, so good....
Probably just like any other CEO who ever lived.
Nope, it's a (relatively) modern thing.
A timely reminder that the CEO earns about 250x some employees. There are plenty of other operators so remember that when choosing who to sail with!
You'll be boycotting Sainsbury's, Tesco's, Asda etc etc - where do you shop?
it's not the 250 multiplier that I find offensive, it's the realistic and pro-rated £5/hr the staff get paid (not the advertised rate)
For those saying no alternative to Hull Rotterdam, there is the DFDS Amsterdam Newcastle ferry. I've used that before, yeah the drive back to Leeds is a bit furher than Hull, but waaaay better that the drive back from Dover/Folkstone.
Tunnel is way more expsensive than the ferry so we've been getting ferries recently. We've used, Irish and DFDS and would rather not use P&O but the pet lounge is amazing, if others start doing that we would definitely stop using P&O. Also the new P&O ferries are electric/diesel hybrid so better for the environmet....
I honestly would rather not use P&O but when we're looking at all the alternatives, and we do check everything out, they just come out better. I know environmentally eurotunnel will be the best, but it's sooo much more expensive.
Flame me if you like, I already hate myself for using P&O sometimes, but everything is a balancing act...
he is now captain of a rather large border force patrol boat with better working conditions and side benefits.
Good for him.
Does he get to keep any gear that they catch smugglers with then?
it’s not the 250 multiplier that I find offensive, it’s the realistic and pro-rated £5/hr the staff get paid (not the advertised rate)
but apparently that’s inline with international industry pay rates. Global markets and all that
Ships on the Newcastle-Ijmuiden crossing are really old and worn. Unloading efficiency is poor as well - the car deck is dependant on the freight decks being emptied first of both drive off and unaccompanied trailers, so an 09:30 arrival actually translates into a 10:30 disembarkation - later still if you're on a motorbike which they hide away above the main car deck. Pretty much like P&O the entire crew apart from the officers are less than minimum wage Philipinos. New (methanol-fuelled, faster) ships are in the pipeline but not for at least 5 years.
I dont remeber offloading being that bad when I've done the Amsterdam - Newcastle ferry. Outside party deck in the summer was cool!!
@a11y – can you go Newcastle to Amsterdam on DFDS?
Done it before. Worse logistics, particularly the onward travel aspect of Amsterdam vs Rotterdam. Plus the boat was full of total drunken zoomers on their mini-cruise to Amsterdam for the day, so not as pleasant an exerience for mini-a11ys.
Typically though, guess what this Gov has done about it since to prevent it happening elsewhere…
In no way would I ever stand up for this government, but perhaps for balance:
France signed a decree that would force cross-Channel operators to pay their workers the French minimum wage of at least €11.65 (£9.95) an hour. A similar UK law is expected to come into force this summer and P&O told MPs it would abide by both sets of legislation.
Expected to come in - would you hold breath? And no doubt there'll be loopholes.
While I am fully aware that P&O are a horrible company, and I do feel really sorry for anybody who works there or has worked there in the past.
If you are looking for a ferry and the P&O option is the cheapest by a decent magin, would people really pay more just because of what they have done internally?
Not remotely forgiving things, but with times as hard as they are now surely a majority of people would choose the cheaper price over dealing with a company who who treat the staff correctly?
Feel like I am going to get some hate for this..
I didn't notice much price difference between P&O, Irish and DFDS when booking last year.
Some people do avoid companies on principle. I won't travel with Ryanair, so if only they serve a certain route then that's just not an option for me.
Just done a price check on the DFDS Newcastle - Hamsterjam and its spendy... 1 person. motorbike return with an inside cabin is...
GBP850.
Booking direct with DFDS not the comparison Direct Ferries site.
DFDS from Newcastle are vastly more expensive this year than the Hull crossing, mainly because the most basic cabin is around £250 each way. I'd rather sit in a police cell for a day then drive round London to Dover.
The devil's advocate view would go...
"Tell me how the hourly rate is calculated, bearing in mind that the crew live on board the ship and probably do 16 hour shifts (there's nowhere to go in any free time anyway) it probably represents a really good wage for people coming from the Philippines, do it for a couple of years and you're set up for life."
Which is precisely why large companies get away with the inexorable slide back to Victorian employment practices.
Not remotely forgiving things, but with times as hard as they are now surely a majority of people would choose the cheaper price over dealing with a company who who treat the staff correctly?
Feel like I am going to get some hate for this..
We all have a different moral compass and different things flip our switch. I will not eat meat because of the ethics, especially in some sectors. Others are perfectly aware of how we treat chickens in factory farms and don't like it but still buy and eat it because its cheap/tasty/what they've always done.
And yeah, written down like you have, it doesn't sound great on you, no. But anyone that shops at Amazon (me) or drinks at Starbucks (not me) or any other company with dodgy ethics is going to struggle to condemn you without being a bit of a hypocrite. I suppose the only comment I'll make is that you had a 3rd choice - the expensive ferry, the cheap ferry with dodgy ethics or no ferry at all and cancel the trip. Did you consider the 3rd option when you realised the 1st option was more than you could afford? Or could you have actually afforded the expensive ferry, but just didn't want to if there was an option not to and still go? If the option disappeared (legislation made their practice illegal and their prices went up or they went out of business) would you have gone for option 1 or 3?
I've read around some of the comments made by the company in the last few days and they don't make a lot of sense. One said that no employee makes less than $2400pm and on less than £5.20. That £5.20 has now been confirmed to be wrong but even before it was, how many hours a week do you have to be working to earn $2400pm at those pay rates!!!! 12hr shifts 7 days a week still doesn't get you to that figure. If they live aboard I wonder if they pay for food and accommodation?
Yeah I've noticed the cost has gone up a lot recently. I wanted to take the alfa to Zandfort for the weekend, to the massive Italian car meet. 2-day return, me, car, inside cabin, no food:
Thanks but no thanks. Was similar from Hull.
Logistics wise the departure from North Shields is also really irksome - 17:00 Means you have to check in around 15:00. Whereas with the 20:00 sailing from Hull we normally can pick the kids up from school on last day and be on the ferry by 18:30, fed and have them in bed before it sets sail. Coming home from our ski holidays my Sister & her family have been sat in the queue for border farce at shields while we're already at home, van unpacked with the kettle on. We're 16 miles from the DFDS terminal at Shields!
I strongly suspect that all the operators (possibly not Brittanny Ferries) treat the staff the same way. P&O just got caught.
GBP850.
Are you sure?
I have used the ferry a number of times and it's been nowhere near that?
P&O just got caught
I think it was more the manner in which they dismissed the previous employed crew that marked them out & the subsequent poor wages, than poor wages alone.
Well, as long as you’re happy to directly support modern slavery, keep sailing with P&O…
If the modern slavery bit is regarding Filipino crew wages then you need to get some perspective. Yes, they are on crap wages by our standards but most of them are sending that money home and living the high life when they're back. These things are all relative.
Don't take that as endorsement of P&Os behaviour towards their staff, that is absolutely wrong, I'm just adding some context.
Piss easy boycotting P&O as I’ve never been on a ferry. I shall continue as is 👍
Is this not the same as any large company or just an easy target for the OP? I assume that they will encourage the boycott of any company that pays its CEO more than the bog cleaner. What the CEO earns and their policies are different things. Don't use one to grind the other axe. Same as slagging off cyclists who jump red lights (t***s) to divert attention from illegal parking.
Or is it just another bit of STW hypocrisy? Along with you look after the planet while I buy a new bike and drive to ride it.
The OP was stating a timely reminder that whilst the government allows the erosion of workers rights - you the consumer can have a say and vote with your wallet whatever the need for a ferry.
mattsccm as I said in an earlier post, there is always an element of hypocrisy as there are loads of companies that are wronguns that many of us still use.
But....did you follow the story a year or two back where this stems from and how they treated their UK workers that got them to where they are today?
Or is it just another bit of STW hypocrisy? Along with you look after the planet while I buy a new bike and drive to ride it.
So anyone who does anything positive on any front is a hypocrit now.
You can both park legally and not jump red lights on a bike, though ignoring the pedestrian ones when there are no cars no doubts marks me as a hypocrit in your eyes.
If you're gonna take a ferry choose companies that have fairer contracts.
Buy fewer clothes and ones made locally or second hand when possible. Same for bikes.
I'd rather be a minor hypocrit, drive an EV and buy something made in korea now and then than a cynical nihilist.
I loved Cynical Nihilist's first album at uni in the 90s. Seminal work for that genre.
Last time I went to book Amsterdam-Newcastle, it was more like 1200. That's for 1 passenger, 1 car, 1 inside bunk, no food. The price each way just for the bunk was more than a Lufthansa return flight (Frankfurt-Glasgow). I flew.
It's true that P+O just got caught. They were not the first ferry company to do that. It just blew up in the media.
If P+O is half the price of Eurotunnel, then I'll pick P+O. And I've very rarely had heavy seas cross channel like some people claim is like all winter. Last time I did Eurotunnel it was 3.5 hours from check-in to driving off. The ferry would have been faster.
We were looking at a weekend away from the North East to Amsterdam. Cheapest option would have been P and O Hull-Rotterdam and the train to Amsterdam.
DFDS was eye-wateringly expensive, Harwich-Hook of Holland too impractical. Trains, expensive with the additional journey to London.
Ended up flying from Durham Tees Valley as it's 30mins from home.
PnO's treatment of their crew is sickening, both those who were sacked and those now working on their ships for less than minimum wage.
As a working seafarer, can I please ask you all to forget that they are even an option.
In terms of channel crossings (where you have many choices) then I'll happily not use P&O.
But living in the north of England we very rarely cross via the channel (once in the last 25 years and it was bad for us and a nightmare for anyone scheduled to cross a few hours later). Unfortunately if everyone boycotts the Hull-Rotterdam crossing then it will go the same way as the Zeebrugge ferry. And the Norway ferry. And the Sweden ferry. And the Denmark ferry. The Newcastle DFDS crossing is already less convenient and a ridiculous price, which is just going to get worse as we then have zero options and are stuck on this island with totally southern-centric transport routes.
P&O are arses but they have us over a barrel.
