Our history 2010-2019

The 2010s were a time of significant change for the company. We had to expand our services and try something new by creating our own sub-brand. The environment became a key focus, and we began investing in updating and future-proofing our ships to be greener and more efficient. And we had to bring the company up to date in a rapidly evolving era of digital technology.

More of Spain

We began the decade by solidifying our position as the ferry company that takes you to Spain when we launched sailings from Portsmouth to Bilbao. With three routes to northern Spain, we proved that ferry travel to Spain from the UK could be a success. To serve the route to Bilbao, we bought a new ship and called her Cap Finistère.

Previously known as Superfast V when she sailed in the seas around Greece, Cap Finistère offered a more intimate and less formal style than our other ships. Entering service after an extensive refit, her boutique hotel ambience made her a quick favourite with passengers. On the top deck, Cap Finistère had a heated swimming pool filled with seawater. With the outdoor café nearby, it was a great place for families to enjoy their sailing when the sun shone.

In the charts in 2011 - Adele’s album 21 became the worldwide best-selling album for both 2011 and 2012 and is the UK’s best-selling album for a solo artist of all time. It featured her megahits, Rolling in the Deep, and Someone Like You, which had a memorable black and white video of the star walking through Paris. As of January 2023, the video had just under 2 billion views on YouTube.

Celebrations

2013 wasn’t just a good year because we were celebrating our 40th birthday; there were lots of other reasons to celebrate too. Not only did we scoop two awards at the British Travel Awards - being named 'Best Small Tour Operator to Western Europe' and 'Best Small Camping and Mobile Tour Operator' but we also won 'Best Ferry Operator' at the prestigious Telegraph Travel Awards.

We also started sailing from Portsmouth to Le Havre this year, initially with our high-speed catamaran, Normandie Express. The route soon built a following among travellers and freight operators alike. It also allowed us to try out a whole new style of service that Brittany Ferries 澳洲幸运10十168体彩开奖网 had never done before.

A no-frills alternative

We pride ourselves on providing a fantastic onboard experience that is so much more than just transport. But we recognised that there was an opening for a different level of service for those looking to travel on our routes but with no frills. So, in 2014, we launched a sub-brand called Brittany Ferries 澳洲幸运10十168体彩开奖网 économie that offered a more basic onboard experience with cheaper tickets.

We chartered Etretat, our first économie ship, in 2014, closely followed by Baie de Seine in 2015. Both ships operated under our économie banner and, whilst less luxurious than our standard ships, they gave a new opportunity for travel to France and Spain for those looking for an even more affordable alternative.

Offering a simpler service with self-service restaurants, smaller boutiques, and more basic cabins, Etretat and Baie de Seine sailed between Portsmouth and Le Havre and on our routes from Portsmouth to Spain.

70 years of remembrance

With WW2 veterans in their late 80s and 90s by the mid-2010s, the 70th anniversary of D-Day on 6 June 2014 had great poignancy. As the last major event where a significant number of veterans could gather, the commemoration of this incredible feat was a momentous occasion to remember what happened with those for whom it was still in living memory. Extensive events were held throughout Normandy as well as ceremonies in Portsmouth. We were proud to take many veterans across the Channel - including one who hit the headlines.

89-year-old Bernard Jordan’s great escape from his care home in Hove, Sussex, to attend the commemorations in Normandy made him one of the most famous faces of the 70th anniversary. As he hadn’t informed the care home of his departure, the police, and the country, were pleased to find him on the sands in Normandy wearing his medals with the other veterans. He came home to a hero’s welcome, and we were happy to have him aboard Normandie for his journey back to England.

Scrubbing up nicely

New legislation to reduce sulphur emissions meant that in 2014, we announced that we would be fitting scrubbers to six of our ships at a cost of £60 million. A scrubber is a large piece of equipment that is fitted to a ship’s exhaust system and works similarly to a catalytic converter on a vehicle exhaust. They clean the exhaust, reducing not only sulphur emissions but also removing 70% of particulate matter, which is also harmful to health. This was a huge investment into our ferries’ future; scrubbers were fitted to Normandie, Cap Finistère and Barfleur in 2015 and Mont St Michel, Pont-Aven and Armorique in 2016.

On 23 June 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union. The decision had a massive knock-on effect on us that meant a huge review of our operating practices and border control procedures, as well as a host of other preparations across the business to comply with upcoming Brexit rules.

We also worked on a project for a new ship called Honfleur that would have been our first to use LNG (liquified natural gas), a greener fuel. Unfortunately, the ship never came to fruition, but we used what we learned about LNG to build our first LNG-powered ship, Salamanca in 2021.

2016 in history - On 4 November 2016 the Paris Agreement came into force. This international treaty on climate change has the goal of substantially reducing global greenhouse emissions to limit the global temperature increase to less than 2 degrees Celsius. The agreement was negotiated by 196 parties at the COP21 in Paris the previous year and has been signed by 194 members of the UNFCCC as of September 2022.

Uniting Ireland and Spain

No direct ferry route had ever existed between Ireland and Spain. This was a clear gap in the market, and in January 2018, we set out to fix that by launching a route from Cork to Santander. Linking even more of our regions together was the perfect way to celebrate 40 years of sailing to Spain and we have operated a route between Ireland and Spain ever since.

With économie sailings a continuing success, it was no surprise when, in 2018, we extended the économie brand to our Irish routes. Connemara was chartered to sail on the brand-new route from Cork to Santander as well as providing extra capacity on our route from Cork to Roscoff. In 2019, we further expanded the économie sub-brand in Ireland with the chartered ship, Kerry, which worked in tandem with Connemara.

Transforming for the future

By the end of the decade, we’d begun a large-scale digital transformation programme to keep the company moving forward and embracing the rapidly evolving digital environment of the modern day. Part of this transformation was also the creation of a new Brittany Ferries 澳洲幸运10十168体彩开奖网 logo to represent the brand we are today.

We applied this future-proofed forward thinking to regenerating our fleet as well, and, in 2018, we announced that we had ordered two new-build ships. Galicia and Salamanca were to be built in China by Stena RoRo and would be sister ships with many similarities. We ordered a third ship in 2019. With these three sister ships, two of which would run on more efficient LNG fuel, we were looking forward to a greener, cleaner future.

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