Furious P&O Ferries customers have rounded on the company for leaving them stranded at short notice, causing confusion over refunds, and for its “abysmal” treatment of 800 staff, whose abrupt sacking on Thursday triggered chaos at ports across the country.
P&O initially told passengers that services were unable to run “for the next few hours”, affecting the Dover-Calais crossing and the routes from Hull to Rotterdam, Liverpool to Dublin, and Cairnryan to Larne.
But as furious workers responded to their dismissal by staging sit-ins on board P&O boats, the company announced that many services would not run “for the next few days”, before later indicating it could take up to 10 days for operations to return to normal.
Gabi Breithaupt, 60, from Beverley, near Hull, said her son was supposed to be visiting for the Easter holidays after four years without seeing him.
“We were all so looking forward to his visit and now it is all up in the air,” she said. “Four years is a long time for a mum and it’s the highlight of our year. I hope it still happens.” She added that P&O’s treatment of its staff was “inhumane”.
Peter Theakston, 53, had been visiting his ill mother in Yorkshire and was due to return to The Hague, in the Netherlands, at 8pm on Thursday, on a £200 foot passenger ticket. He said the company had not been in touch to explain what was happening or offer any advice, and was not picking up the phone.
“I’m pissed off,” he told the Guardian on Thursday afternoon. “There’s no news at all about the sailings. They’re updating everything else but not Hull-Rotterdam and they’re still taking bookings even though they say they’re not sailing.”
Theakston, who has been using the Hull-Rotterdam overnight service for 20 years, said he was unable to reach the company for hours. When he did speak to someone, he was told not to expect a refund as the service hadn’t yet been cancelled.
However P&O, which has no competition on the route, said later on Twitter that the service had been cancelled.
Theakston said the company’s decision to sack 800 staff out of the blue, via a video message, was “totally obscene”.
“It makes you ashamed to be British that the government lets the company do this,” he said.
The official P&O Ferries Twitter account told passengers on Thursday that it was trying to arrange alternative passage for them with rival ferry companies, such as DFDS and Stena.
“Where possible we are organising travel via an alternative operator,” it said. “Space is very limited so we would suggest if your journey is not essential, please do not travel today. We apologise for any inconvenience.”
Some passengers, however, reported difficulty in transferring their tickets. One said the company had told her that her booking would be valid on a Stena boat, but Stena had told her to rebook. “What are we supposed to do about the refund?” she asked. P&O said in a Twitter response that she would receive a full refund.
We were sent to Stenaline and told we will be allowed to board with our P&O booking no. Stenaline asking us to make a fresh booking online. What are we suppose to do about the refund?
— Pearlean Chadha (@Pearlean) March 17, 2022
David Reger, 67, was due to be sailing from Hull to Rotterdam at 8.30pm and travelling home to Germany after a few days working in Leeds.
He said: “I’m fed up. We’ve not been told anything but it doesn’t look like it’s going to sail today. I’ve told them they have to book me alternative travel or put me in a reasonable hotel for the duration that they’re stopping me from travelling.
“If they don’t I’ll stand in front of the counter and not let anyone else get to it, and it’ll start getting like it is in Dover.”
