Britons returning from vacation had to wait until six o'clock in the night from Saturday to Sunday at the port of Calais, due to expectations at border controls, according to the maritime carriers who warned their customers of new delays on Sunday.
“
We sincerely apologize for the wait times at the Port of Calais today.
(…) This is due to queues at border controls
, ”tweeted the shipping company P&O ferries, which makes crossings between Calais and Dover, in the night.
She assured that she had organized “
two additional departures
” overnight to transport passengers who had missed their boat.
Sunday morning, the company estimated the waiting time at two hours.
On Saturday evening, she had estimated it at three hours, but several users said on Twitter that they had to wait longer, five hours and more.
Read alsoThe port of Calais “does well” despite Covid and Brexit
The Danish shipping company DFDS reported in a tweet on Saturday evening that “
waiting times of up to 6 hours to carry out all checks
”.
Sunday morning, the DFDS estimated the wait at 45 minutes.
“
We expect the port to be very busy today.
So please allow as much time as possible to pass all the checkpoint queues
,” P&0 warned.
The DFDS recommended planning for this “
busy weekend
” at least “
120 minutes
” for the various checks.
Contacted on Sunday, the management of the port of Calais could not be reached immediately.
In July, monstrous traffic jams at the port of Dover had caused tensions between France and the United Kingdom, the latter accusing the French authorities of “
ruining the holidays
” of many families, for lack of sufficient personnel at checkpoints.
On the French side, the regional prefect Georges-François Leclerc had assured that the increase in weekend traffic “
had obviously been anticipated
”, but questioned an “
unforeseeable technical incident in the Channel Tunnel
”.
This causal link was then contested by Eurotunnel.
Union officials, port officials and French authorities had also highlighted the impact of Brexit.
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