Condor Ferries reduces services to France

Condor Ferries has reduced its services to France for the upcoming season.

"Day trips have not been prioritised" at the first stage of restarting of passenger services, a Condor Ferries spokesperson said.

The "pragmatic" decision has been made in reflection of the coronavirus pandemic, the lack of forward bookings and the continuing travel restrictions.

Specifically, Condor will not be offering day trips between St Malo and Jersey.

Condor said: "As the borders remain closed travel to France looks very, very uncertain this summer."

Condor said it understood the "frustration" but is committed to "providing connectivity and supporting tourism" and its new timetable offers an increase in overall capacity.

It said advice from Jersey's government was that day trips were "strongly discouraged".

Following the coronavirus pandemic, the company said it was "down 96% on revenues and two fifths of the workforce were made redundant in 2020".

Thus, the ferry company said it was "not able to sustain the frequency and levels of services that were possible in 2019 until the impacts of Covid restrictions allow a return to normality".

"Condor will continue to monitor forward booking trends and jurisdictional restrictions as we look to return to full passenger travel through a phased and sustainable approach" it added.

Follow BBC Jersey on Twitter and Facebook. Send any story ideas to [email protected].