St Malo overtakes Poole as island’s busiest sea route

Overall there has been a 6% increase in passengers passing through the harbour, compared with the first half of 2024. And that has been driven by French services.

There were 45,000 passengers on the St Malo route, making it Guernsey’s busiest sea route, and making up a third of Guernsey harbour passengers on routes from outside the Bailiwick. This increased from just less than 27,000 at this time last year. While Poole numbers have grown by 3% to 41,000, it has been firmly knocked into second place. There has also been a 37% increase in passengers from Dielette, at 5,700.

The increase comes after French company Brittany Ferries became the majority owner of Condor early this year. The loss of the pan-island ferry service meant travellers can now travel directly to and from France and the ferries were timed to allow for day trips from France.

In terms of private vehicles, numbers were much more stable, with 29,835 using the port – an increase of just 151 vehicles on this time last year. While Poole has seen an 11% increase in cars, the Jersey route has dropped by 59%.

The French St Malo route has also grown by 13%, with 7,565 private vehicles carried so far this year.

Looking at the airport, the post-Covid travel recovery seems to have settled.

There has been sharp increases in traveller numbers following the pandemic, which were carried through to last summer, which saw a 27% rise in airport passengers compared to the first six months of 2023.

But the first six months of this year saw just a 1% rise in airport passengers, with 325,000 travellers. While there was a slight drop in international travel numbers, UK travel has increased.

That rise was down to London City, where numbers rose from 15,000 the first half of last year to 22,000, making its Guernsey’s fifth-busiest route. Southampton’s numbers have risen slightly, while Manchester and Gatwick both dropped.