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As the dust starts to settle on the Channel Islands ferry tender process, Manche Îles has stepped out of the shadows of Brittany Ferries and DFDS to promote its schedules for next year.
Offering passenger services between the Normandy ports Granville, Barneville-Carteret and Diélette and the Channel Islands as well as an inter-island ferry service between Guernsey and Jersey, as well as Jersey and Sark, the company said it is now taking bookings for the 2025 season.
Sailings will resume in the spring with a Carteret to Jersey service on 10 April, with a Diélette to Guernsey sailing on 18 April.
There's a service from Jersey to Guernsey planned for 9 May - the 80th anniversary of our Liberation - with a Jersey-Sark sailing on 10 May, which is Sark's 80th Liberation Day.
Further regular sailings will continue through the spring and summer months, after Guernsey, Sark, and Jersey banded together to contribute £300,000 to Manche Îles' finances as it faced troubled times post-covid and Brexit, and in the face of rising operating costs.
The deal was necessary to secure a timetable similar to 2024's, when more than 400 trips were made between the continent and the islands. Manche Îles has also now said that more than 56,000 passengers were carried during 2024, compared to 53,000 in 2023.
Manche Îles is largely propped up by French local authorities of the Departmental Council of La Manche otherwise, with that body investing an estimated €20m since it launched in 2005.
But, under what was described as a solution for the "short-term", the operator also received €167,000 from the States of Guernsey, €3,000 from Sark's Chief Pleas, and €200,000 from the Government of Jersey,
Manche Îles has also said that the decisions of both Guernsey and Jersey's States to extend the pilot project allowing French nationals to visit the islands using an ID card, until September 2025 will continue to 'stimulate the local economy and ferry operators, as well as to encourage cultural and historical ties with France'.
French nationals (adults and children) must have a valid national identity card that is less than 10 years old to travel.
The automatic five-year extension of old national identity cards is no longer accepted in the Channel Islands. Citizens from other countries, both from the European Union and outside the EU, those making a one-way trip, or those staying several days on the islands must have a valid passport and, for certain nationalities, a visa. For inter-island travel a photographic ID is required.
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