zuludelta

It's like a comment the Donald would make!

Fair play to them. And was there much social distancing (enforced or voluntary) onboard the Seven Sisters?

You've piqued my curiosity there?

At last, BF have seen the light! Cashflow is important. But without customers there is no cashflow. Refunding, however painful it might be owing to current circumstances has to be done.

A nice natural and human explanation of how things are going onboard. "I have to be clear that some ships are not quite as well stocked as we’d like. It’s improving all the time but I know there has been some disappointment expressed on some ships." I like this honesty. Very direct, very French - none of the saccharine comments you would get from an Anglo-Saxon company!

Georgem, I think part of the allure of any form of historical document is seeing it in its original format. Even if its slightly faded, has dog ear or cup marks. It's the authenticity which pulls people in. A digitally enhanced Bayeaux Tapestry printed on a large format printer and stuck on a wall would never be a match for the original. Your idea is helpful and Google Docs can be a great tool for raw information but remember people want to see the old logos and sometimes even the cheesy 1980's advertisng blurbs on these documents. It's more than just the actual arrival and departure times.

I was thinking along similar lines but another possible reason is that by not taking foot passengers BF do not have the operational or cost overhead of organising buses at ports. In the long run, with sustainable travel being on most governments agendas, it might not be possible for operators to totally ban footies.

Yip.In the last 20 years, one of the most astute moves made by BF was to acquire two fast ships (PA and CF) and predominantly operate them from a port which is convenient for their target market. The "24 hours to Spain" USP just clicks with people and is seen as tolerable amount of time on a ferry (for non-enthusiasts). 28 hours sounds much longer.... I do hope the E-Flexer gamble pays off.

😄😄😄

Sometimes in business, competitors can blindside even the most established businesses. While it might appear that BF have UK-Spain tourist traffic all sewn up, I would not take it for granted. Some other competitor could easily pop out of the woodwork. There are many likely candidates. Stena of course come to mind, but it would appear they are more interested in chartering and already seem to have an amicable relationship with BF. (That is not to rule out that Stena could use their successful Harwich-Ijmuiden playbook to launch a UK-Spain service.) Balearia is another possible candidate. But what if a competitor came out of the woodwork that no one ever expected? An operator like Finnlines (part of Grimaldi) could setup a a service from Portsmouth to Bilbao competing directly with BF? Their ships seem to be frequent visitors to Bilbao and they have already experience of operating a long-haul passenger and freight ferry service in the Baltic. Do you think this is likely? Or, could some other surprise competitor pop out of the woodwork stealing market share from BF on their UK-Spain routes?

Glad you brought this up, when other communication channels of BF were non-operational or clogged, it seems that a lot of irate customers moved to Twitter where it was incumbent on Jane to follow up. I do hope her efforts get recognised and rewarded by the company. I'm sure she was liaising with colleagues but even so, that is a lot of cases to juggle for just one employee.

Good luck Colin - don't forget to tell the nurses to play you the Brittany Ferries Wake-Up Music as you come round...

And the restaurant seating area that the CF does have is dissected by two busy walkways!

The guy was a genius. He knew his market inside-out, he had instinctual business nous, something they don't teach in MBA courses. I am surprised his name and legacy is not mentioned more often on this forum. He might have handled this crisis a lot more differently.

A few years ago, when browsing in a second-hand bookstore, I picked up a musty old business strategy textbook. The content was about usual business stuff - new markets, customer acquisition etc. However, flicking through it, something caught my eye. The author included a case study of one company following a strategy of not continually chasing new customers but relying on repeat business instead. The company in the case study was Brittany Ferries. Transpired the author was from University of Plymouth. BF, more than any company I can think of, has been built on repeat custom. It has been the bedrock of it's very existence and growth. How many times, have you seen people write on Trip Advisor comments like "we've been using BF for over 20 years...". It built up huge reserves of goodwill and loyalty. Unfortunately, this capital seems to be getting severely eroded now - which is actually quite sad.