Travellers face SIX-HOUR waits at Calais while queuing for ferries back to Britain as the port ‘cannot cope with the need for French and UK border control’
- Travellers on Saturday faced wait times of up to six hours at the Port of Calais
- P&O Ferries and DFDS were forced to apologise for the severe delays for families
- P&O Ferries ran extra services for people who missed their sailing due to delays
- A traveller said the port did ‘not seem able to cope’ as he queued for five hours
People travelling to the UK suffered six-hour delays queuing at the Port of Calais on Saturday with DFDS and P&O Ferries forced to apologise for the long wait times.
Many passengers missed their sailing and P&O routed extra ferries for disgruntled travellers after they queued into the evening.
Craig Price, from Essex, told the BBC he spent five hours at Calais Saturday having travelled through Italy and France.
He said: ‘We arrived at 3pm and got through at 8pm… The design of the port does not seem able to cope with the need for French and UK border control,’ he said.
Mr Price added that only two-thirds of UK border control booths were manned.
The BBC said passenger Josh Williams also endured a five-hour wait on Saturday to board a ferry back to the UK and shared a photo of countless cars with families queuing to get back with their children before the new school year next week.
The Port of Calais suffered severe delays are border and check-in control with some families missing their sailing
Families can be seen waiting outside their cars on Saturday as their cars sat in six-hour long queues
Disgruntled passenger John Williams shared a photo of his five-hour wait at Calais on Saturday
At around 6pm on Saturday DFDS warned on social media that there were queues of up to six hours from Calais and early this morning they asked travellers to allow at least two hours to complete border and check-in control.
P&O Ferries said yesterday on social media: ‘We have an additional sailing to this evening to help get everyone across to Dover. Once you are through the queues you will be on the next crossing to Dover.
‘We sincerely apologise for the wait times. These are due to queues at border control.’
One twitter user posted a video and said: ‘Welcome to Calais port and welcome to Brexit.’
Another said: ‘Had that yesterday, French check took 2 minutes because they had loads of lanes open, then we get to the UK part and its this!’
As of 12pm today DFDS have said there are no queues at check-in but queues of up to 45 minutes at border controls, while Dover had free-flowing traffic.
Congestion at Calais was also heavy last week.
One twitter user said: ‘Our kids sat in it for damn near 3 hours last week. No toilet facilities in the queue. Cheers, leavers. Well done.’
Another tweeted: ‘Wednesday 2 hours delay.’
There were similar queuing times in Calais on August 24, due to heavy traffic arriving from the Eurotunnel after passengers has to leave their cars and exit through an emergency service tunnel when the trains alarms were activated.
A spokesman for Le Shuttle said at the time: ‘The Shuttle was brought to a controlled stop and inspected. As a precautionary measure, for their safety and comfort, we transferred the passengers on-board to another shuttle, via the service tunnel [which is there for exactly that purpose].
‘We brought them to the passenger terminal building, where food and drinks were available.’
Twitter users took to the platform to express their frustration with the long wait times at the Port of Calais
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