P&O Ferries is canceling ALL services over the Easter weekend

P&O Ferries has suspended all its sailings over the Easter weekend – affecting thousands of bank holidays for Brits.

British have already faced Queues up to nine hours at Dover according to P&O Ferries has laid off 800 employees on a brief note.

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This has led to Suspension of P&O Ferries Servicesand while they hope to restart this weekend, they have confirmed departures cannot proceed as ships are still being detained for security reasons.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency confirmed they were detaining the ship Pride of Kent after it found “additional deficiencies including safety systems and crew documentation” along with ship The Spirit of Britain.

P&O Ferries tweeted last night: “Dover-Calais: 15 April to 18 April. Our passenger services are suspended this weekend. We sincerely apologize.

“For travel April 15-18, please rebook directly with another operator prior to arrival. DFDS cannot rebook P&O customers onto their ships.”

DFDS has warned passengers not to show up to try to sail on their ships as they have no availability for P&O travelers.

They also wrote on social media: “DFDS is not available for P&O customers between April 15th 00.01 and April 18th 23.59.

“Please do not go to the port without a confirmed reservation, contact P&O Ferries for alternative travel arrangements.”

DFDS Capacity Director Chris Parker previously warned: “We can’t take a full load of our own passengers and then have more passengers from P&O, we just don’t have the capacity.

“We have decided that we better focus on our own passengers and not disappoint P&O passengers arriving at the port.”

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps warned yesterday about even worse travel disruptions over the Easter weekend, particularly at Dover, and expressed “concern” at operators’ staffing shortages.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the Transport Secretary said: “I think this weekend will certainly be very busy on our roads, possibly in our ports – particularly at Dover of course, where P&O is shamefully laying off all its staff and it has then attempted to operate ships that would not have been safe with sub-minimum wage replacement staff, which they quickly sought to hire – and we know that none of their ships are currently operational.

“So I expect there will be disruptions, without credit to P&O.”

Mr Shapps also said: “I’m very concerned that the operators – I’m talking the airlines, the airports, the ports – are making sure they recover quickly.”

Brits are facing a number of holiday woes, including canceled flights, long queues at the airport and late passport renewal.

Families wait longer than the recommended 10 weeks for new passports due to a record number of applications.

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