El.venizelos

The 'El Venizelos' is expected to permanently join the Algérie Ferries fleet under a lease-purchase agreement. A lease agreement with a purchase option has been signed between the two parties, providing for a transfer of ownership after a five-year period. The 'El Venizelos' is one of the oldest vessels in the fleet of the Greek maritime group Attica. Since June 2025, the ferry has been operating between Algeria, France, and Spain under the Algérie Ferries banner. Its acquisition would bring the Algerian company's fleet to five, which currently includes the 'Badji Mokhtar III', the 'Tassili II', the 'Djazaïr II' and the 'Tariq Ibn Ziad'. The latter, which has been under repair for two years, is expected to return to service in Aug 2025.

The Entreprise nationale de transport maritime de voyageurs (ENTMV)on July 9 announced the resumption of service for the chartered ferry "El Venizelos," which has been stuck in the port of Alicante since July 4 and esumed its crossings starting on July 10 at 8 p.m.,, after completing all stages of the technical inspection scheduled for the port of Alicante. The company assured that "all conditions have been met to offer a journey under the best possible conditions, in terms of safety, comfort, and quality of service. The ship arrived in Algiers on July 11.

The 'El Venizelos' was detained in the port of Alicante on July 4 by the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Port State Control (PSC). This latest detention came after a six-day detention at the port of Marseille from June 23 to 2 by the French Maritime Security Center (Dirm Med), due to the discovery of potential technical irregularities, The ship sailed on July 1 and arrived in Alicante on July 2. In anticipation of the summer season, the Algerian shipping company had planned a schedule with 320 crossings. To carry out this schedule, it chartered the 'El Venizelos' from a Greek company. But the ship appears to be experiencing difficulties in European ports. According to the French specialist website Le Marin, citing the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) Thétis base, the El Venizelos has been detained in a Spanish port since July 4

After several days of detention in Marseille, the 'El Venizelos', chartered by Algérie Ferries, was due to return to the port of Algiers on June 30. The French shipping company Corsica Linea was offering its customers on the Marseille-Algiers crossing, which was canceled due to its ship being held up in Algiers for an inspection, automatic reassignment to the 'El Venizelos', which will return to Algiers at 4 p.m. In the meantime, passengers hope to be compensated for some or to be transferred to other crossings, given that their initial journey was impacted by the prolonged docking of the 'El Venizelos'.

The 'El Venizelos' has been detained in the port of Marseille for three days after being subjected to an inspection by the Port Autonome de Marseille following the arrival on June 23, 2025. The inspection recommended the upgrade of certain onboard technical equipment to improve its readiness and performance, Algérie Ferries stated, without providing further details. With the 'El Venizelos' blocked in the port of Marseille, Algérie Ferries has lost a quarter of its fleet, consisting of four ships, but assured its customers that this inspection would not affect the scheduled voyages for the 2025 summer season, nor the readiness of the fleet. The 'El Venizelos' had arrived at the port of Algiers on June 19. On June 22 it set sail to Marseille, where it arrived on June 23, and was detained by the Ship Safety Center of the Interregional Maritime Directorate (Dirm Med) for eficiencies not made public within the framework of Port State Control (Paris Memorandum).

On the afternoon of Dec 21, 2024, the Port Authority of Chania was informed by the Captain of the 'El Venizelos', that during the voyage from the port of Piraeus a window on deck 9 of the ship was broken. A temporary repair of the window was carried outby the crew, and the ship sailed safely to the port of Chania, where it disembarked the 279 passengers, 46 trucks, 45 cars and four motorcycles. The Central Port Authority of Chania initially banned the ship from sailing, while after presentation of a relevant certificate of class maintenance from the classification society that monitors it, the ship was allowed to continue its route.