P&O Ferries ferries

P&O Ferries

P&O is one of the oldest names in British shipping. The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company was founded in 1837, and the ferry brand P&O Ferries, as we know it today, was created in 2002 by merging its Dover, Portsmouth and North Sea operations. It has been owned by DP World since 2019, which bought it back from Dubai World after first acquiring the P&O group in 2006.

Its flagship route is Dover–Calais, where the Spirit of Britain, which entered service in 2011, and the Spirit of France, which followed in 2012, are the largest ferries ever to have operated in the English Channel: each is about 210 metres long and around 49,000 gross tonnes. They carry cars, coaches and freight on one of the busiest short sea routes in the world.

P&O Ferries also operates overnight services across the North Sea, from Hull to Rotterdam and Zeebrugge, and across the Irish Sea between Liverpool and Dublin, so the same company covers three very different seas.