Could Calais see a return to gridlock?

This past summer saw more than its share of troubles at the French port of Calais, with organized gangs of migrants causing enormous truck and rail delays – as well as a surge in air charter traffic – on both sides of the English Channel. After relative calm in August and September, the U.K.’s Freight Transport Association (FTA) said the situation is deteriorating as peak season draws closer.

Delays on either side if the Eurotunnel are again pushing trucks toward the Calais ferry port, where migrants have set up a large camp that now consists of approximately 6,000 people.

During the summer crisis, U.K.-based logistics firm Priority Freight received a 300 percent increase in airfreight bookings due to the situation. In July alone, the air charter business in Britain saw a 600 percent spike because of the crisis. This latest activity could see a repeat of increased movement of cargo by air.

Truck driver Euan Fleming, who said he has used the Dover-Calais route for 10 years, was quoted by FTA as saying police and security guards were nowhere to be seen this month. Fleming said migrants have been surrounding trucks and dropping from bridges on to the roofs of curtain-sided trucks. He said the migrants have “mobilized themselves – it is shockingly bad right now.”

FTA’s international affairs manager, Donald Armour, said last week that “FTA is dismayed to learn that, for the fourth night in a row, migrants have successfully managed to break through the security fencing at the Eurotunnel compound and past the other measures put in place since the summer.”

The FTA said 500 additional French police were going to be deployed to defend the tunnel, but that the extra show of force still wasn’t sufficient to cope with “relentless nightly attacks.” Armour said the FTA was very concerned that its drivers are being put at risk.