P&O Ferries halts crossings to sack 800 UK sailors

P&O Ferries sacked 800 sailors with immediate effect on Thursday, after earlier taking the extraordinary step of suspending all its services and ordering ships back to port.

The company, which is owned by Dubai-based DP World, said that Britain’s best-known ferry operator was not “a viable business” in its current state and that it had made the “very difficult but necessary decision” to axe the jobs.

“We have made a £100mn loss year on year, which has been covered by our parent DP World,” the company said. “This is not sustainable. Our survival is dependent on making swift and significant changes now. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries.”

The decision to suspend services and recall its ferries plunged passengers into chaos, with some booked on to ships at Dover and Calais on Thursday told to head to rival DFDS to travel.

P&O Ferries operates on the busy passenger and freight Dover to Calais route, as well as services between the British mainland and Ireland, Northern Ireland and Holland.

Downing Street said that transport officials were in urgent discussions with P&O to address the “live situation”. Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, is expected to give a statement later on Thursday.

Nautilus, the seafarers’ trade union, said there had been no consultation or notice given to staff. The RMT union said it had instructed crew to stay on board the ferries and was concerned that British crew could be replaced by “foreign labour”.

P&O said the 800 seafarers would be compensated for the short notice for job losses, without giving further details. Nautilus said P&O’s actions were “nothing short of scandalous” and a “betrayal to British workers”.

DP World, a container and logistics group, bought P&O Ferries for £322mn in 2019. It fired 1,100 workers early in 2020 as the pandemic struck.

Karl Turner, the Labour MP for Hull East, said there were two P&O ships at the terminal in his constituency where “foreign crew” were waiting to board P&O’s Pride of Hull ferry to take over from the sacked British sailors.

The Pride of Rotterdam is already mostly crewed by foreign workers, but the Pride of Hull still had about 80 British staff as of Wednesday — including 57 RMT members.

The UK government said the “Kent Resilience Forum” was holding a meeting on Thursday amid concerns about the knock-on effect on the transport system.

The company faced criticism from unions and politicians in the UK for pushing ahead with a planned $330mn dividend payout as it laid off staff and took government funding to keep freight services running.

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