It is being reported that all P&O Ferries sailing staff have been made redundant after the company suspended operations this morning.
ITV News has reported that all sailing staff have been made redundant with immediate effect. The company will use an agency to keep their ferries running and current staff will be able to apply to the agency for work, reports suggest.
The Times is also reporting that the firm is making all staff redundant and will hire agency workers to operate its ships.
The worrying news comes after the major ferries firm suddenly suspended all its sailings this morning, ahead of what it said would be a 'major company announcement.' The company released a statement that says it will be making a 'major announcement' today that will 'secure the long-term viability' of the firm. It has asked all its vessels to discharge passengers and cargo.
READ MORE: P&O Ferries suddenly suspends all sailings ahead of 'major announcement' with Liverpool affected
Ferries from Liverpool, Hull, Cairnryan in Scotland and Dover have been affected by the suspensions. The alert was flagged on INRIX, the traffic and travel monitoring programme. It read: 'Service suspended on P and O Ferries between Dover and Calais, between Cairnryan and Larne, between Hull and Rotterdam and between Liverpool and Dublin due to operational incident."
The company told passengers via its Twitter feed that it is “unable to run for the next few hours”. A company memo from P&O to its staff members, shared on twitter by Hull MP Karl Turner said: "We will be making a major company announcement today, which, with the support of our shareholder DP World, will secure the long-term viability of P&O Ferries.
"To facilitate this announcement all our vessels have been asked to discharge their passengers and cargo and standby for further instructions. This means we're expecting all our ports to experience serious disruption today so please bear with us and we will give further information in an all colleague announcement later today."
The company said passengers should still travel to the port 'as booked', where they will be put on a service that is running 'as quickly as possible'.
Queues are already starting to build on routes to the Port of Dover. There have been reports of 'confusion' at ports in Liverpool, Hull and Teesport.
A spokesperson for P&O Ferries said: “P&O Ferries is not going into liquidation. We have asked all ships to come alongside, in preparation for a company announcement. Until then, services from P&O will not be running and we are advising travellers of alternative arrangements.”
