February 15, 2018

The UK Ferry Market Report, in cooperation with PSA

Produced in cooperation with Passenger Shipping Association (PSA), the UK Ferry Market Report could be an interesting reference tool for anyone involved in the ferry and travel industries.
The Report provides a statistical overview of the UK Passenger Ferry Market based on returns from almost all UK passenger ferry operators.
While the market is made up of three market sectors – UK Continent, UK Ireland and Domestic routes some comparisons are made with Eurotunnel and Eurostar.
In addition, some information is detailed at a subsector level where UK – Continent routes are divided into North Sea, Short Sea and Western Channel Sectors – UK Ireland routes are divided into Northern Ireland, Central Corridor and Southern Corridor, and domestic routes are divided into Channel Islands, Isle of Wight, Isle of Man and Scotland.

Some key figures:

  • Britain’s UK ferry operators carried 8.61 million cars in 2015, up 1.3%
  • Overall passenger figures on 75 ferry routes held up at 38.90 million, -0.6%
  • Domestic ferry routes saw the biggest growth.
  • Total passengers carried by P&O Ferries and DFDS Seaways from/to Calais and Dunkirk were over 13m in 2015, a slight drop.
  • Good growth of 3.4% (2.94m passengers) on the Western channel routes to France principally served by Brittany Ferries, with cars carried up by 5.8% to 990,000 in 2015.
  • North Sea ferry routes run by Stena, DFDS and P&O Ferries increased by 3.9% the number of cars carried to 445,000 in 2015, carrying the same number of passengers in 2015.
  • Passengers on the three Irish operators of Irish Ferries, Stena Irish Sea and P&O Ferries were marginally down by 1.9% (4.78m).