The first sailing of the new Brittany Ferries route between the southeast of Ireland and Spain is under way having launched from Rosslare Europort today.
The twice-weekly service goes from Rosslare to Bilbao and replaces the Cork-Santander route which started in 2018 but has been cancelled by Brittany Ferries.
It will be followed next month by a new Rosslare to Roscoff (France) route which will run once weekly, return, until autumn.
The services are being offered on Brittany Ferries' "no-frills" ship, Kerry, and will leave Rosslare for Bilbao every Monday and Friday night, returning from Bilbao on Sundays and Thursdays at 12 noon until late March, when it will change from Fridays and Wednesdays and Sundays and Thursdays.
The Rosslare-Roscoff service will start at the end of March and depart Rosslare on Monday nights, returning on Tuesday evenings.
Up to 70,000 extra people could end up passing through the port this year as a result, according to management.
"It's an absolutely great day here in Rosslare Port," general manager of the Europort, Glenn Carr said.
"It's a new connection, it's a new route for the freight industry and for the passenger industry. It's one of our key objectives here in the port in terms of growing the port and in terms of connectivity."
The new route offers another option for the freight companies into the continent, particularly in light of Brexit, he said, but will also offer another way both into and out of the south-east of the country for tourists.
"We've been talking to a number of shipping lines about the potential for Rosslare, we see Rosslare as a gateway to Europe and to the UK," said Mr Carr.
"Brittany Ferries conducted their own market research and their customers told them that they needed a service like this into Europe. There's definitely a demand for services like this for Rosslare Europort."
There are also negotiations with other ports across Europe with a view to offering new routes to places like Zeebrugge and Le Havre, he said.
Brittany Ferries freight director Simon Wagstaff said Rosslare offers "geographical advantages" for the company.
"It's close to the Dublin principal freight markets and clearly there's some very, very good road connections between Dublin and Rosslare so that gives us a real boost, potentially.
"At the other end, at Bilbao, Bilbao is a freight hub already today and we believe the new route will have a lot of advantages and will help us develop over the year," said Mr Wagstaff.
He said that while the Cork-Santander route, which is closing, "was not unsuccessful, it just didn't get up to the sort of numbers that we'd been hoping for. We hope that by moving here we just get that extra boost that will allow the route to remain viable for the long term".
Mr Wagstaff said the freight industry had been "pressing us" to make the switch, with any of the transport companies having bases in the Wexford area.
"Rosslare is already a hub for services to France and to the UK and so it makes a lot more sense for them to be able to move their trailers backwards and forwards into Rosslare and out of Rosslare and just is a general help in terms of their logistics."
