Throughout its history, P&O Ferries has operated in five main areas, centred around Dover, Portsmouth, Southampton, the Irish Sea and the North Sea.
Dover
P&O began ferry operations in Dover in 1976 with a route to Boulogne in France under the Normandy Ferries brand using the ferry MV Lion which had previously served on the former Burns & Laird Line route between Ardrossan and Belfast. Burns & Laird Line was part of the P&O Group at the time. P&O Normandy Ferries eventually supplemented the Dover-Boulogne route with the twin sisters MV Panther and MV Tiger, both former Danish ferries. The Dover-Boulogne route was sold to European Ferries on 4 January 1985[30] which rebranded them, along with its Southampton–Le Havre route, as Normandy Ferries Ltd. Following the purchase of European Ferries, P&O operated routes from Dover to Calais in France and Zeebrugge in Belgium, initially trading under the Townsend Thoresen brand; however, due to the bad publicity that the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster brought to that brand in March 1987, the services were subsequently rebranded to P&O European Ferries, with most vessels named with the prefix Pride of.
Prior to the acquisition, European Ferries had ordered two purpose-built vessels for the Dover–Calais route. These were delivered in June and December 1987 as MS Pride of Dover and MS Pride of Calais, taking on the role of flagships for P&O European Ferries. P&O's Dover operations remained largely unchanged until 1998 when they were merged with Stena Lines Dover and Newhaven operations to form P&O Stena Line (P&OSL) in response to the increased competition from the Channel Tunnel which opened in 1994 and the coming end to duty-free shopping within the EU in July 1999. As a result, vessels were renamed from the recognisable Pride of prefix to instead be prefixed with P&OSL in 1999. P&OSL operated eleven vessels, eight of which provided a freight and passenger service on the Dover–Calais route and the remaining three a freight service on the Dover–Zeebrugge route.
In August 2002, P&O acquired Stena Line's 40% share of P&OSL, which were re-merged with the Portsmouth and North Sea operations under the P&O Ferries brand. In December 2002, the Dover–Zeebrugge route closed, leaving only the Dover–Calais route remaining. Vessel prefixes were again changed to PO before they were repainted into a new livery and then resuming the use of the Pride of prefix in 2003.
On 8 August 2008, P&O Ferries announced it had placed a €360 million order with STX Europe for two new ships to replace the ageing Pride of Dover and Pride of Calais. The two new vessels, MS Spirit of Britain and MS Spirit of France, are 49,000 gross tons and 210 metres long, making them the largest ferries to operate in the English Channel. They were the first passenger ferries in the world to comply with the new SOLAS "Safe Return to Port" requirements.[31]
Spirit of Britain entered service on 21 January 2011 replacing Pride of Dover, which remained in layup in Tilbury before being sold and scrapped in late 2012. Spirit of France entered service on 9 February 2012. Pride of Calais remained in service primarily as a freight ferry to cope with demand following the collapse of SeaFrance, before being withdrawn on 20 October 2012 and subsequently chartered to TransEuropa Ferries although this charter was somewhat short lived and Pride of Calais subsequently followed her sister, Pride of Dover, to the scrapyard and she was beached in Turkey in late 2013[32]
New hybrid ships with 8.8 MWh battery and 4 7.5 MW motors are planned to enter service (<abbr title="Entry Into Service">EIS ) on the Dover-Calais route by 2023. These ships will be the first double-ended ferries to operate the Dover-Calais service. They will be the world's largest double-ended ferries, with a length of 230 metres, even larger than the Spirit-class ships.[33][34][35] On 21 December 2020, it was announced that the keels for the first three ships in the new class were laid, with the following delivery dates scheduled for the first two: 23 September 2022 and 23 March 2023.[36] On 2 January 2022, the first ship of the class was launched and a few days later, the names of the two new ships were announced as P&O Pioneer and P&O Liberté.[37]
Portsmouth
In summer 2004 P&O Ferries operated a Portsmouth–Caen route using the Incat 91 model catamaran Max Mols from Mols-Linien, trading under the name Caen Express. However, this was short lived, with P&O Ferries announcing on 28 September 2004 its planned closure of the Portsmouth–Cherbourg and Caen routes and the transfer of the Portsmouth–Le Havre route to Brittany Ferries due to falling passenger numbers and rising costs. Caen Express was returned to Mols-Linien in October 2004, and the Portsmouth–Cherbourg route closed on 14 January 2005. Following the intervention of the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission, Brittany Ferries backed out of the deal to take over the Le Havre route, so Portsmouth–Le Havre remained under P&O Ferries until its closure on 30 September 2005.[38]
The Bilbao route remained as the only Portsmouth operation, until on 15 January 2010, P&O Ferries announced they would withdraw the service at the end of Pride of Bilbao's charter. The vessel completed her final voyage on 28 September 2010 and was returned to Irish Continental Group, from whom she had been chartered since the route's inception.[8]
North Sea
P&O's involvement in the North Sea ferry routes began with a 35% stake in North Sea Ferries owned by its subsidiary General Steam Navigation Company.[39] North Sea Ferries had begun operations on 17 December 1965 sailing on the Hull–Rotterdam route, a route which critics predicted would not survive. The numbers proved them wrong, however, and in the first year, 54,000 passengers were carried.[39] By 1974, demand for capacity was greater than could be supplied, and two vastly bigger vessels, MS Norland and MV Norstar, which were at that time the largest ferries in the world,[39] were introduced to the route.
The two vessels MS Norwind and Norwave were transferred to a new route, Hull–Zeebrugge, operating a nightly service departing 30 minutes after the Rotterdam service sailed. The two routes remained unchanged, with the exception of the Ministry of Defence chartering Norland for service with the British Task Force to the Falkland Islands in 1982. The two routes were becoming increasingly popular, and in 1987 the larger
Irish Sea
In 1971 P&O purchased the remains of Coast Lines which had been operating in the Irish Sea since 1913. In December 1974, P&O founded Pandoro Ltd to provide transport operations to Ireland.[40] A number of different routes were started and ceased operating as the 'Troubles' affected the car/passenger market to Northern Ireland.
In 1993 Pandoro added a service operating between Rosslare, Ireland, and Cherbourg, France, to its Ardrossan–Larne, Liverpool–Dublin and Fleetwood–Dublin routes.
P&O Irish Sea was formed in 1998, following the merger of the Cairnryan-based service of P&O European Ferries (Felixstowe) Ltd and Pandoro Ltd (who operated routes between England, Scotland and France to Ireland).[41] The following year (1999), the new P&O Irish Sea announced its intentions to purchase a purpose-built Ro-Pax (roll-on, roll-off, vehicle/passenger) vessel from Mitsubishi of Japan for the Liverpool to Dublin route. This would see the transfer of European Leader (ex Buffalo) back to the Fleetwood route.
In January 2016, it was announced that the seasonal
