P&O Ferries has suspended services this weekend despite announcing they were set to resume.
The operator's services have been suspended since March when the company axed 800 jobs with sacked crew members being replaced by agency workers. Only yesterday (Thursday) it was announced P&O was ready to start running services this weekend. But today (April 8) the firm announced online that the planned services have been cancelled, with customers advised to book with a different operator.
Posting through the Twitter account P&O Updates, it said: "All P&O Ferries Passenger Services are suspended this weekend. For travel 8/9/10th April please re-book directly with another operator before arriving at the port."
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The announcement will undoubtedly exacerbate the logjam on the M20 in which Operation Brock has been instigated, Kent Live reports. Today, which is the eighth day of travel disruption in Kent, there is a massive queue of traffic waiting to get into the Port of Dover.
Rival operator DFDS has warned of delays of up to two hours on its services from Dover to Calais and that it is not accepting P&O customers. Chris Parker, DFDS director, said it was running ferries as "fast as we can".
The ferry operator has more than 40,000 passengers booked on its services from Dover this weekend, a 50% increase on last weekend. There is an anticipated 30,000,000 expected to hit the roads ahead of the Easter holidays.
Around 13.6million are expected on Good Friday alone.
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