New ferry firm publishes first parts of timetable

Jersey's new ferry company has published the first parts of its timetable.

DFDS, which will take over Jersey's ferry services from Condor in March, has published details of its main route between the island and the UK.

It is yet to publish details of other routes and the Chamber of Commerce has criticised the time it was taking and the affect of this on the tourism economy.

Chris Parker, DFDS' route director for Jersey, said the company was "conscious islanders [were] waiting for more information" so it wanted to be "transparent about the timetables to enable travellers to start to plan their travel".

Passengers will be able to book from 31 January and more details on services to Jersey and St Malo in France are expected next week, the company said.

Mr Parker said the new schedule would allow the company to offer "reliable and frequent services" and would give it flexibility to add extra sailings "in response to feedback" from passengers.

DFDS said it will run its first ferries to the UK on 3 March but fast ferries will not start operating until 16 April, just before Easter.

Jersey Chamber of Commerce said it was "pleased to have clarity" on the first schedules, but the time it was taking to allow bookings was "frustrating".

Tim Crowley, chair of the chamber's Visitor Economy Committee, said: "It would be fair to say that waiting until 31 January is not an ideal situation for customers and, crucially, for the visitor economy."

He said the delay was "frustrating and costly to the industry" but the chamber believed DFDS was working hard to "deliver a robust booking platform" at short notice.

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