British school groups travelling from Dover to Calais with Irish Ferries can reduce processing time at the French border in Dover Port by submitting passenger information in advance.
HOW TO ARRANGE FASTER BORDER PROCESSING IN 7 STEPS:
1. Collect passenger travel information
2. Add the information in the format required to the spreadsheet provided by Irish Ferries
3. Save the spreadsheet as a CSV file title as the first 7 letters of the school name
4. Provide evidence to Irish Ferries that your group is from a certified school
5. Send the evidence + the completed CSV file to Irish Ferries more than 3 working days before departure.
6. Print and complete the Coach label template
7. Display to the completed Coach label in the windscreen on day of travel for identification for faster processing.
Note: Schools still need to scan passports on the Irish Ferries Coach Scan mobile app in order to also benefit from faster check-in processing - Details HERE.
Full details of each of these steps are as follows:
1. Collect passenger travel information for all individuals, including the driver and other accompanying adults, travelling on the school trip.
Trip organisers should collect the following information for every individual travelling on the school trip:
- last name
- first name
- date of birth (DD/MM/YYYY)
- nationality
- type of document
Children who are visa nationals in the UK can travel visa-free when travelling to France as part of any school trip.
Visa nationals are non-UK nationals living in the UK who would ordinarily need a visa to enter the EU.
2. Add this information to the spreadsheet provided by your Irish Ferries Groups contact (also attached below).
The spreadsheet should be completed for each coach.
It’s important to carefully follow these instructions for completing the spreadsheet. Data cannot be submitted to the French border authorities unless it is in the format requested:
- do not change the format of this file for example do not add additional vertical columns or horizontal rows above the format that already exists
- pay attention to column headings and only fill in what is asked for - for example, if the column asks for surname, only add the surname and not both names
- fill in names in alphabetical order (by surname)
- family name – this means surname
- do not add numbers into text fields
- do not add in any special figures such as brackets
- you do not need to specify who the driver is in brackets on this form
3. Once completed, save the spreadsheet for each coach as a .csv file, titled as the first 7 letters of the school name.
- Save the spreadsheet for each coach as a .csv file and title each file as the first 7 letters of the school name. Schools using more than 1 coach for the trip should complete a separate spreadsheet for each coach. The title of each spreadsheet should be the first 7 letters of the schools followed by the number of the coach the spreadsheet refers to. For example, if there are 2 coaches, titles of the spreadsheets should be ACADEMY1 and ACADEMY2.
- On date of travel, individuals should be allocated to the coach in correspondence with how they were submitted on the spreadsheet(s).
- The French border authorities will not accept the spreadsheet if it is not titled appropriately.
4. Provide evidence that your group is from a certified school in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland to Irish Ferries
Trip organisers should provide evidence that the school group travelling is from a certified school in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. This can be in the form of a screenshot of evidence of verification. All eligible schools can be found on relevant national databases.
In England, evidence can be found on:
In Wales, evidence can be found on:
- Find a school list
- List of apprenticeship training providers
- List of further education institutions and contact details.
In Scotland, evidence can be found on:
In Northern Ireland, evidence can be found on:
- Schools directory
- List of FE colleges
- Skills for life and work training providers
- Search for apprenticeship
5. Send Passenger information and evidence of eligibility to Irish Ferries at least 3 workings days before the travel date.
Trip organisers should send the spreadsheet(s) and the evidence of school eligibility Irish Ferries at least 3 working days in advance of the date of travel, or the school group will not be able to use the faster border process.
Irish Ferries will then securely submit this information to the French border authorities via MOANA.
If there are any last-minute removals from the originally submitted spreadsheet(s), the school will still be able to use the faster process. Any new passengers added after the time deadline will not be able to benefit from the faster process and will go through standard border processing.
6. Ahead of travel, pint a label for each coach windscreen to facilitate identification for faster processing on arrival at Dover.
Further details on this, and the template for the label can be found here.
7. On the date of travel, schools should display a label in each coach windscreen which clearly shows the first 7 letters of the school name and the number of passengers per coach.
Note: Schools still need to scan passports on the Irish Ferries Coach Scan mobile app in order to also benefit from faster check-in processing.