P&O Ferries: Where does this chaos leave Irish Sea travellers?

P&O Ferries was still insisting that sailings will be suspended only for “a few days” – despite the government saying that the firm has confirmed “they will be suspending services for approximately a week to 10 days”.

A notice on P&O’s Twitter feed on Friday said: “Where possible we are organising travel via an alternative operator. Space is very limited so we would suggest if your journey is not essential, please do not travel today.”

Meanwhile Stenaline – the other major NI operator – has told the News Letter that P&O tickets are not valid on their vessels, and that P&O passengers and drivers will have to book afresh if they want to travel with them.

The firm is looking at putting extra sailings on its Belfast route.

It also said that replacing the P&O ships in Larne with Stena ones is not as simple as it may sound.

For one, the P&O vessels are tied up at their moorings, leaving little room to dock.

And for another, getting a vessel ready and crewed-up for a new route can be a time consuming process.

Stena said it runs seven ships out of Belfast.

Two vessels carry freight to and from Heysham, and another runs freight between Belfast and Birkenhead (which is basically part of Liverpool).

Meanwhile, two vessels carry both passengers and freight (known as RoPax) to and from Cairnryan, and another two RoPax ships run between Belfast and Birkenhead.

On Friday afternoon, there were both foot passenger (£31) and car passenger tickets (£119-plus) left for Belfast to Cairnryan sailings for several days ahead.

The same applied to foot (£31-plus) and car passengers (£132-plus) going from Belfast to Liverpool.

The Association of British Travel Agents says customers with cancelled sailings are entitled – at the very least – to free food, and possibly up to three nights’ accommodation.