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November 2023
This is Brittany Ferries hardly in the spirit of things on net zero. I thought that the tone of their announcement in a recent newsletter was more peeved than enthusiastic:
So I went ahead and read it. I have been quite a fan of Brittanny Ferries from decades of traveling to France. So I returned to them enthusiastically post-Covid in ’22 and ’23 – even thought their post-Covid prices made me wince. (They have also slowed their ships down as an environmental measure. All their Portsmouth to Spain sailings for instance now take 2 days when they used to take 1 - yes really).
After a somewhat token paying of lip-service to our collective requirements under the net zero dogma, the CEO statement seems to amount to a weary, subdued frustration that their legitimate business of ferrying people across the channel is being royally done over by the globalist forces who are imposing disruption and unnecessary costs on everyone. He really doesn’t sound like he wants to get with the programme: “It [net zero] is a significant new cost burden for our company and comes at a particularly challenging time. Brittany Ferries was saved from closure following the ravages of Covid, only thanks to bank loans totalling more than 117 million Euros. These are loans we are now obliged to repay.”. i.e. “First you almost put us out of business with your absurd lockdowns which we had to borrow massively to survive, then you impose ludicrous levies based on the scam of net zero.”
“Within that context, I hope you will understand our challenge. On the one hand, we want to invest in class-leading new ships and technologies. And on the other, we have financial obligations to repay loans and pay an ETS charge.”
“We hope therefore you will understand why we aim to recover costs for the new ETS scheme from customers via a small surcharge on each ticket. This will be based on the number of passengers, length of crossing and type of vehicle.”
“From 1st November 2023, Brittany Ferries will therefore apply an ETS surcharge to all new bookings where travel is due to take place from 1st January 2024.”
This is the perfect case study for what our globalist overlords are doing to us to make life difficult and expensive while they fly about in their private jets. Covid and Net Zero alone must be causing 80% of the inflation we are experiencing. Here you see the direct effect of massive post-Covid private and public debt, along with new (‘environmental’ charges) costs that get passed straight onto passengers. (To come of course – your near obligatory EV won’t be accepted on ferries due to the unacceptable level of fire risk it offers.)
I live near Farnborough airport, and it was busy throughout the lockdowns despite hosting no scheduled flights, while Heathrow and Gatwick were basically shuttered. All scheduled airline flights were of course cancelled, but of course the private jet traffic went on unabated. I haven’t been able to verify it, but I have heard that Farnborough airport was Britain’s busiest passenger airport in 2020 and 2021. (The average passenger count per plane was 2.5, and 40% of the plane movements were empty flights.) A taste of things to come I think.
