Charente Maritime Schedules 2026

Two price lists exist on the crossing to Île d'Aix, and the gap between them says most of what you need to know. A visitor in July pays up to €25 return. An islander with a nominative card pays €0.60 a journey — or €100 for a year of unlimited travel. Around two hundred people live on Aix permanently, there are no cars, and the boat is their road.

An authority, not a shipping line

The name on this page is a département, not a company. The Charente-Maritime authority owns the route and sets the fares; the sailings are operated under contract by Keolis Maritime Fouras Aix from the gare maritime on Boulevard de la Fumée. The ship is the Pierre Loti, working the line all year.

Three seasons, three colours

Fares move with both season and expected demand, and each departure carries a colour: green for light, orange for medium, red for heavy. Prices are dynamic and shown live at booking, so the same sailing costs different amounts depending on when you buy.

Low season (1 Jan–31 Mar, 28 Sep–31 Dec) is a flat €11.00 for everyone, €5.50 on the solidarity fare, €8.00 for a bicycle. Mid-season (1 Apr–30 Jun, 1–27 Sep): adult €18.00 green / €20.00 orange, single €10.80 / €12.00, 18–25s €16/€18, children 4–17 €13/€15, solidarity €9/€10, bicycle €10.00. High season (1 Jul–31 Aug): adult €22.00 orange / €25.00 red, single €13.20/€15.00, children €16/€18, bicycle €12.00. Under-4s travel free year-round.

Cards worth doing the arithmetic on

An anonymous ten-journey book is €174.00 — but the Aix'clusive card brings ten journeys down to €79.20 and twenty to €148.50, less than half price, with a separate ten-crossing freight book at €80.00. Both need a form and proof. Vehicles, where permitted, are €45.00 under 3.5 t and €100.00 above; parcels run €7.50, €15.00 or €40.00 by volume; a dog not carried in a bag or cage is €5.00 — free for islanders.

Booking is compulsory

Reservation is required in both directions, online, at the Pointe de la Fumée ticket office or by phone on 05 46 84 60 50. Online payment is by card only; at the desk you can also use cash, cheque or paper ANCV holiday vouchers. The e-ticket goes straight to the boat — no separate validation. Boarding opens 15 minutes before departure.

Where to leave the car

The crossing starts from the Pointe de la Fumée, the spit at the end of the Fouras-les-Bains peninsula — not from Fouras town — 30 minutes by road from La Rochelle and 15 from Rochefort. Four car parks serve it, and the price tracks the walk: P1 beside the jetty at €1.60/hour or €12 a day; P2 twenty minutes' walk at €1.20/hour, €10 a day; P3 thirty minutes on foot or ten by bike — there are shared bicycles nearby, first half hour free — at €0.80/hour, €6 a day or €36 a week; and P0, short-stay only, 200 m away at a flat €2/hour. The first 30 minutes are free in P1, P2 and P3. Rochefort's bus line E runs to Fouras.

The tide matters

The published crossing time is 25 minutes, but it excludes boarding, disembarking and any delay the weather or tide adds — which is why the company prints tide tables alongside the timetable in the same brochure.

The contract has an end date

The département put the crossing out to tender and awarded it to Keolis for eight years, running to 31 December 2032. The service carries its own name — La Maritime d'Aix — but the operator behind it is a concession holder, and the concession expires. That is the practical difference between an authority-run link and a shipping line: the boat keeps sailing, but the company on the ticket can change when the contract does.

You can change a booking up to 45 minutes before

Reservation is compulsory in both directions, and tickets stay modifiable until 45 minutes before departure — online, on 05 46 84 60 50, or at the Fouras maritime station. On a crossing where the weather cancels sailings often enough to warrant its own page, that window is worth knowing about before you commit to a return time.

What is on the island

Aix is barely more than 2 km² and holds forests, three forts, beaches and a small village laid out to a military plan. From the water you look straight across at Fort Boyard. There are no cars: everything is done on foot or by bicycle, which is why the parking arrangement on the mainland side matters as much as the timetable.

The timetable is printed day by day, and no two days match

This is the detail the operator's own brochure makes unmissable: sailings are listed for every individual date of the year, and the times move constantly. Take the first week of August 2026 from Fouras — Saturday the 1st sails at 08.15, 09.45, 11.00, 15.45, 17.00, 18.15, 19.30 and 20.30; Sunday the 2nd at 08.15, 09.15, 10.30, 11.45, 16.00, 17.15, 18.30, 19.30 and 20.30; Monday the 3rd drops to seven departures ending at 19.30; Tuesday the 4th adds a 13.15 that exists on no other day that week. Returning from the island the pattern shifts again, typically running 45 minutes to an hour ahead of the outbound times.

Why it moves: the tide

The brochure prints tide tables on the facing page to the sailing times, month by month, because the two are inseparable here. The Pointe de la Fumée sits on a shallow, drying foreshore, and the crossing window follows the water rather than the clock. It is why some days begin at 07.15 and others not until 09.30, and why the last boat can be 18.45 on one date and 20.30 on another.

Two brochures, two horizons

The company publishes a full-year timetable (Janvier–Décembre 2026) alongside a separate seasonal one covering 1 April to 30 September, both as downloadable PDFs of roughly 7 MB. The booking site itself will not show you a timetable without a date: you pick the day first, and the sailings for that day appear — with three colour codes marking expected demand, which is also what sets the fare band.

Three colours, and one season that has none

Fares run on a dynamic three-band system — tarif vert for low demand, orange for medium, rouge for high — and the price attached to each sailing is shown in real time on the booking channels. Book early and you get the cheaper band; leave it late on a busy date and you pay red. But low season has no colours at all: from 1 January to 31 March and again from 28 September to 31 December there is a single flat fare of €11.00 for everyone. Dynamic pricing only exists when there is demand to ration.

The full grid

Mid season (1 April–30 June, 1–27 September): adult €18.00 green or €20.00 orange; 18–25s €16.00/€18.00; children 4–17 €13.00/€15.00; single journey €10.80/€12.00. High season (1 July–31 August): adult €22.00 orange or €25.00 red; 18–25s €20.00/€23.00; children €16.00/€18.00; single €13.20/€15.00.

Categories most operators do not have

A solidarity fare runs through every season — €5.50 in low season, €9.00–€10.00 mid, €11.00–€12.50 high — roughly half the standard adult price. There is a separate 18–25 band, a family rate charged per person, and group rates for parties over ten (adults €15.30–€21.20; children a flat €11.00 mid season, €15.00 high).

One price for anything with wheels

Bicycles, bike trailers, electric scooters, garden trolleys, hand carts and sack trucks all travel at the same single rate: €8.00 in low season, €10.00 mid, €12.00 high. On a car-free island where everything arriving has to be pushed or pedalled from the quay, that flat treatment of wheeled goods is the practical fare, and it does not vary by colour band.