Irish Ferries france 19

Up to March, there are maintenance schedules that are affecting all routes, they're between a rock and a hard place at the moment, in that the new ship is a very unknown quantity, they don't know yet if there will be any issues with it during the initial months in service, it's way late and a new design from a yard that's not built one like it before.

Given the massive delivery delays, I am going to suggest that their confidence levels right now are at rock bottom.

Another factor is that the Epsilon was supposed to be being returned from lease, so is not part of the schedules at the moment, which leaves them with a hole that hasn't been properly filled yet.

There is no doubt that these delays will have hurt Irish Ferries, I think they had no choice other than to put the France Schedule up, it was only a few weeks ago that the UK routes from Jan 6th went live, which is a clear indication that they really don't know how the New Year is going to work out.

I wonder if they are also concerned that there may be "issues" with Ulysses during dry dock, they had a major prop malfunction last summer, which suggests that they will be wanting to look very closely at the props this winter to try and avoid a repeat of the disruption that happened earlier in the year, which could have a significant knock on effect to the rest of the dry dock plans.

All in all, not an easy time for the decision makers, and unlike other services, it's hard to find a "spare" ferry at short notice, they don't exist in the same way as for things like aircraft, so if something breaks, there's a hole in the schedules until it can be fixed, and for some parts, that can take significant time.

I suspect that Irish Ferries don't know for sure what they are going to be doing beyond March, in that there was and now is even more a massive level of uncertainty over the routes that will be needed post Brexit. If, and it seems possible, the Brexit scenario goes bad, there is the very real possibility that a lot more capacity will be needed between Ireland and France in order to avoid the massive delays that will occur when trying to get through the UK, even more so if 2 crossings (Ireland-UK, UK-France) are involved. I will go as far as to speculate that we might see WB Yeats AND Ulysses operating from Dublin to France, with Oscar Wilde and Epsilon possibly covering the UK to Holyhead, or we might see Isle of Inishmore moved to Holyhead and one of the smaller ships on Pembroke, it really is that uncertain right now.

I can't even begin to predict what might be in the mix at the moment, what is clear is that the first 3 months of the year will be very varied, with a lot of movements to different routes in order to cover maintenance and dry docking, but the uncertainty over the Brexit scenario, and the concerns over the introduction of WB Yeats make me think that it is indeed possible that we may not see a clear summer schedule until March.

The Dublin Swift is having work done, both maintenance and upgrades, so I will be surprised to see it back before March, and that's also a recognition of the problems of operating fast craft during the winter months. Although nothing was admitted to in the open, it was clear that there were significant engine issues at the end of last summer, which are being addressed over the winter period. I find myself wondering if the Swift will be in service much longer on the Holyhead route once there are 2 large craft on the service, but the uncertainties of Brexit mean that almost anything could change over the next while, it really is that uncertain right now.

Although nothing has been said openly, I would not be surprised to see an over run on the Ulysses maintenance window, after the severe problems that were experienced last summer, I suspect that some in depth investigation of the props will be part of this winter's dry dock plan, and if they find wear or other issues, I would expect them to deal with the issues at that time, rather than risk a repeat of the service disruptions from last summer.

WB Yeats is a completely unknown entity, there is no way to predict how the entry into service will go, they have to be hoping that after all the delays in completion, there will not be any major service issues, but there is literally no way to predict what will happen over the next 3 months

Epsilon was supposed to be being returned off lease, but there has been no update on the plan for that ship, and it may well be the case that Irish Ferries are yet again between a rock and a hard place, one of the issues being that suitable vessels for RoRo work on the Irish Ferries routes are very scarce.

What is very clear is that the next 3 months will be an interesting time.