 Ferry operators have been forced to halve their services |
A ferry firm has cancelled day trips until Monday because of ongoing problems with berths at Calais. A berth broke last week when a support cable snapped and two more have been put out of action for safety work.
P&O Ferries said problems were causing delays of five hours on sailings from Dover to Calais on Wednesday and it has decided to scrap day trip traffic.
Operation Stack, when lorries park on the M20 because of a backlog, was reactivated on Thursday afternoon.
Slow turnaround
Sailings have been halved because of the berthing problems with 15 crossings a day instead of 30.
The Port of Calais said it was experiencing slow turnarounds because only one freight vehicle could go onto the berths at a time.
Steps were being taken by the French authorities to improve the situation, P&O said, but disruption was expected to continue throughout the weekend.
"As a result P&O Ferries is unable to accommodate day-trip traffic until Monday 21 February.
'Considerable delays'
"Customers already holding day trip tickets for travel up until Monday are advised to arrange another date of travel by calling P&O Ferries," the ferry firm said.
The disruption was costing the transport industry at least �4m a week, the Freight Transport Association has said.
"For eight days now sailings from Dover to Calais have been severely disrupted and lorry operators are experiencing considerable delays," said Geoff Dossetter from the association.
Operation Stack was first put in place on Wednesday at 0800 GMT and saw lorries bound for France parked on the inside lane of the coast bound carriageway of the M20 between Maidstone and Hythe.
Kent Police said just after midday it had been lifted but by 1600 GMT it had been implemented again.
Vehicles were finally allowed to start moving again at 0330 GMT on Thursday.
The restriction was reactivated on Thursday afternoon.
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