What time does the last ferry leave from Calais?

Q If England win their Rugby World Cup quarter-final this weekend, I am contemplating going to Paris and back in a day for the semi-final match on Saturday 21 October. We would drive there via a Dover-Calais ferry. The match starts at 8pm, so I would not be leaving the ground until after 10pm. What time is the last ferry back – and would we make it in time?

Mark M

A You will not be the only people with the same thought if England win against Fiji in Marseille on Sunday and qualify for the semi-final against either France or South Africa in Paris the following Saturday 21 October. If you take the bookies’ view that England are odds on (1-3) to beat the South Pacific side, you could pretty confidently book a return ferry crossing for under £140 (covering a car with five people in it).

There is no actual “last ferry” because the competing shipping lines operate around the clock. But DFDS Ferries and P&O Ferries both have a long gap in their schedules on a Saturday night, roughly between midnight and 6am. So the company I recommend for this expedition is Irish Ferries.

Sail out any time you like on Saturday morning; there are sailings roughly every 1h45m. Reckon on a three-hour drive to the outskirts of Paris. I recommend you park in a suburb called Aulnay-sous-Bois, just off the motorway. From here you can travel to Stade de France on the RER suburban railway, just five stops and about 15 minutes away. Crucially, there should be plenty of trains going north from the stadium after the match, and they should be relatively empty: most fans will be heading into central Paris.

With a smooth and swift getaway, you might expect to be back at the car by around 10.30pm – making it just feasible that you could get on the 1.35am sailing from Calais. Much more likely, though, you will be in good time for the 4.50am departure. So I suggest you book this one. If you happen to arrive implausibly early, it is well worth asking if you can travel on the earlier sailing. In the past I have been able to do this without fuss or fee.

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Q On the Luton airport closure and consequent cancellations: it’s not the airlines’ fault, obviously. But the passenger still suffers. Our railways pay out compensation both for train operator faults (eg train breakdown), Network Rail (eg signal fault) or act of God (eg flood). Isn’t it time airlines treat their passengers the same?

Phil Richards

A Allow me to start on the railway situation. The “no-fault” policy, as operated by most train operators regardless of the cause of the disruption, is certainly passenger-friendly. I know that if my train is late by, in some cases, just 15 minutes, I will get a proportion of my fare back. It’s not a perfect system: on an Edinburgh-London journey, for example, that is half an hour late arriving at King’s Cross, passengers who have travelled the whole way and paid £100 will get £50 back, while those who paid £20 and joined at Peterborough – but were equally late – are refunded only £10.

Let’s switch to European air passengers’ rights rules, which by any measure are barmy. The compensation is unrelated to the price paid: I have “earned” £220 from Ryanair for a £15 flight from Hamburg to Stansted that was four hours late, and the same amount for a £150 Heathrow-to-Prague British Airways flight that was cancelled. Cash payments are also absurdly binary. If your European flight arrives 2 hours 59 minutes behind schedule, you get nothing; 60 seconds later, it’s the full £220 (or £350 for longer flights).

Post-Brexit the government has had the opportunity to rationalise the rules but has chosen not to do so. It seems to me unfair that disrupted passengers get nothing when they experience severe delays and might even end up sleeping on the airport floor. Yet is also ridiculous, in my view, that airlines face unlimited liability for passenger care during incidents – such as the Luton airport car park fire – where they clearly are not responsible. In contrast, the worst-case delay repayment for the train firms is handing back the original fare.

So yes, some cash back to the passenger for the inconvenience regardless of cause would be good. But at the same time, perhaps travel insurance should shoulder the burden during widespread disruption.

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Q Another question on the Luton airport car-park blaze, if I may. You talked about passengers who were on planes and all ready to fly on Tuesday evening when the fire broke out. Why weren’t those planes simply allowed to fly away? It would have eased the burden of the displaced passengers on the airport staff and police.

Ken W

A I agree that it seems intuitive to reduce the number of people (and aircraft) at the scene of an emergency, as long as they would not impede the firefighting effort. But there are plenty of reasons why pilots were not given clearance to take off and instead were told (eventually) to tell all their passengers to leave the planes. The fire began with a diesel-engined vehicle on the third floor of a short-term car park in the centre of Luton airport. It spread with terrifying speed and ferocity – reaching such high temperatures that part of the structure collapsed.

The location was very close to parts of the airfield where aircraft were parked. The planes with passengers waiting to depart were some distance from the site of the fire. But with an emergency in progress, and with no certainty about whether people might be at risk inside the car park, I am not surprised all operations were halted. There may have been concerns about smoke reaching the runway, affecting visibility. More likely, though: the focus of the airport teams was on tackling the blaze, and dispatching aircraft was not a priority.

Luton airport told me: “Flights were suspended on safety grounds as the teams were dealing with a major incident.” Talking to the emergency services the morning after the blaze, it is clear that the airport firefighters were actively involved in tackling it. After all, they have plenty of expertise in handling fires when fuel is involved. Every airport must have a certain level of fire cover before planes may take off or land. It may well be that the available cover was below the legal minimum. None of which, though, is of any comfort to the hundreds of people who spent the night trying to sleep on the airport floor – and much of the following day trying to rearrange flights.

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Q I believe my car is stuck in the short-term car park at Luton airport where the fire took place. What do I do when I arrive back at the airport?

Clare

A Anyone who parked their vehicle at Luton airport’s central area before Tuesday night’s fire must be enduring a very worrying time. The blaze that began with a single car in flames spread quickly and caused extensive damage to other vehicles and the structure of Car Park 2. This is on the edge of the airfield, very close to where planes are parked, and opposite the shiny new Dart transport shuttle terminal.

Right next to it is Car Park 1, which I hope is actually where your car is located – given the proximity confusion is understandable. Car Park 1 is the one adjacent to the main access road and directly opposite easyJet’s HQ. Its entrance/exit was initially blocked by the damage and recovery work. But a temporary ramp was quickly built and you should be able to extract your car without a problem.

Unfortunately, though, you may be among the 1,000-plus travellers whose vehicles are trapped inside Car Park 2. Apcoa, which runs it, says: “Car Park 2 site is still closed and we don’t yet know when it will be deemed safe to enter. We cannot confirm the condition of any particular vehicle at this time, but we recommend that you alert your insurance company immediately.”

The insurance industry recognises the scale of the problem and is trying to get ahead in order to process claims swiftly. The Motor Insurers’ Bureau has details of vehicles in the car park and is passing these to the relevant insurance companies. I am sorry to say there is a significant chance that your vehicle may have been severely damaged during the blaze, either directly from the fire or the subsequent collapse of part of the structure. With the structure currently hazardous, I have heard three possible options for what happens next: cars potentially extracted by crane during the demolition process; the whole car park knocked down, with vehicles still inside it; or robots sent in to retrieve individual cars. The last of these sounds rather far-fetched to me.

If it is any small consolation, you should get an automatic full refund of the amount paid for parking. Travel costs home from the airport, Apcoa says, “should be notified to your insurer as part of your claim”.

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