20


RO-RO


Perhaps the brightest spot in the ro ro market at the moment is Brittany Ferries, which is celebrating the arrival of the Cap Finistere on its routes to Santander and Cherbourg in late March. The new ship will offer a minimum of around 60 truck spaces and a maximum of around 110 in a market which, to Spain at least, was still growing in 2009, says group freight director, Jon Clarke. Freight on Brittany’s French routes was in fact down 17.4% during Brittany’s 2008/09 financial year, which ended on 30 September, but it still did better than the market average of around -20%, he says. The Spanish service was 16.2% up on the previous year.


The Cap Finistere is operating


two round trips a week from Portsmouth to Santander in northern Spain and three to Cherbourg. Together with a further departure from Portsmouth operated by the Pont-Aven, another from Poole operated by the Cotentin freighter and a departure from Plymouth by the Pont-Aven, there are five services a week on the Spanish route, points out Jon Clarke, including multiple departures in both directions at weekends, when most heavy trucks are banned from French roads. Tighter and better enforced driving rules have also increased the appeal of longer ferry crossings.


“It’s interesting, though, that


we do have a lot of refrigerated trucks on our crossings at weekends, even though perishables are in fact allowed on French roads then,” adds Jon Clarke. While regulations may have provided the initial spur, operators have come to realise the benefits of putting freight onto water, as it can keep moving at times when drivers would otherwise be forced to park up for their statutory eight- hour rest. He is optimistic that freight


will continue to grow on the Spanish routes next year; until the service was expanded, a certain amount of traffic had to be turned away at busy


...but roads are obstacle


South-west haulier Wyvern Cargo is complaining that the port of Poole has been virtually cut off from its hinterland by successive governments’ failure to spend money on the local road system. It says that the “astonishing lack of a viable north-south link between south-east Dorset and the national motorway system is handicapping the local economy.” Wyvern’s chairman John Probert quotes Brittany Ferries’ managing director David Longden who says: “Poole, along with Weymouth, has the most archaic access that I am familiar with in all Europe”


- despite Poole-Cherbourg being the shortest crossing on the western Channel and the superb existing road connection south from Cherbourg. A spokesman for Brittany Ferries added though: “We still operate our freighter, Cotentin, from Poole for which there is healthy demand amongst our freight customers but added: “I’d agree that road access could be much better and has suffered from a lack of investment.” Wyvern points out that Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole are a ‘virtual city’ with a population of 350,000.


times. There could also be some business resulting from the end of withdrawal of the P&O route to Bilbao later this year, though freight traffic on that service is quite small. It’s too early to say yet whether services to either Spain or France will be expanded further. A sixth service to Spain would be possible with the existing fleet, but for the time being Brittany’s freight sales team will concentrate on filling what they have got. While there were definite signs of a revival in Brittany’s freight carryings this year, it will be some time before business even begins to approach its peak, which now seems a very distant memory.


Green light for DFDS takeover


The European Commission has approved DFDS’ acquisition of Norfolkline, subject to a new space charter agreement with Stena Line on the Esbjerg-Immingham/Harwich routes. In a statement, DFDS said that it expected the main part of the integration plan to be completed by the end of 2011, with final completion by the end of 2012. DFDS said the combined company


would comprise a shipping division and a logistics division. The former


will include freight and passenger routes, along with port activities. The Logistics Division will comprise trailer and logistics activities and container and side port activities. Niels Smedegaard, CEO, and Torben Carlsen, CFO will continue as DFDS’s executive board, and the rest of the executive management will be announced later. Meanwhile, it is business as


usual on DFDS’s North Sea routes. The carrier, easily the largest ro ro


operator from the UK to Scandinavia, has a dominant position in the UK to southern Scandinavia market. Capacity on its BritanniaBridge Immingham/Esbjerg route is being increased again - the Suecia and Britannia are being replaced by the new Tor Fionia and Tor Jutlandia, both with around 3,400 lane metres compared with older vessels’ 2,800. The Tor Hafnia has also been introduced between Tilbury and Gothenburg.


ISSUE 2 2010 Finistere brightens shipping forecast...


Good start for LD Lines to Boulogne


LD Lines is shrugging off the overall decline in the shortsea freight market with a range of new and revamped services in 2010. Director general Christophe Santoni says that while the overall ferry market is down by around 20% in 2009, “for us it is very different as our volumes are growing substantially.” A second ship was added to its Dover- Boulogne service in May and daily frequency will be increased from the current eight sailings to up to 14 with the introduction of the newly named 22,152 gross tonnes vessel, Norman Trader, operating in tandem with existing sister ship on the route, Norman Bridge. Both ships have capacity for up to 2,000 lane metres of vehicle space. While not too much should be read


into LD Lines’ figures as it is a start-up operation, it has managed an impressive growth-spurt and hit the 8,000 trucks a month mark in March. “However, I wouldn’t say that we reflect the overall market,” says Santoni. While LD Lines was considering deploying the current Portsmouth-Le Havre vessel, the Cote d’Albatre, as a


second Dover-Boulogne ship when she is replaced at the end of the year, the opportunity came up to obtain the sister to the Norman Bridge, which was too good to miss, says Santoni. The Cote d’Albatre may however yet reinforce the Dover/Boulogne route as a third vessel, depending on the market in late 2010 or early 2011. LD Lines’ fast ferry Norman Arrow meanwhile transfers to the Portsmouth/ Le Havre route for a six month operating season from 26 March. Boulogne has established itself as a


niche market, particularly for truckers coming up from or heading to Spain and western France, says Santoni. “They reach Boulogne on the A16 motorway before they come to Calais. There’s also more space to park and it’s generally more comfortable compared with Calais, where you sometimes have to queue for hours.” Now that a second ship is in operation, frequencies are beginning to be comparable to either P&O or Seafrance individually, though not in terms of the combined frequency to Calais. The ports of Boulogne and Calais


are in fact to come under the same ownership soon when the two chambers of Boulogne and Calais merge. They may well be minded to use the ample spare capacity at the brand new terminal in Boulogne for the time being rather than commit themselves to spending on the somewhat problematical expansion of Calais port, especially with the uncertainty now surrounding Dover’s expansion on the other side of the Channel. LD Lines has also gained an entry to the


north Straits of Dover market through its partnership with Transeuropa Ferries between Ramsgate and Ostend. LD Lines has no financial involvement with Transeuropa, says Santoni, who stresses that it is essentially a vessel-sharing agreement. Transeuropa will market the freight


capacity and LD the passenger business, and the latter will also transfer the Norman Spirit to the route, renaming it Ostend Spirit. This vessel in fact started life as a tailor-made ship for this route as the Belgian state-owned RMT company’s Prince Philip. While not exactly a new ship, the vessel will help rejuvenate the ageing Transeuropa fleet and help give a


more certain future to a route over which there had been some question-marks. On the western Channel, the high


speed Norman Arrow will theoretically be able to carry full-sized trucks between Portsmouth and Le Havre but it’s unlikely that she will carry many in practice. Of more significance for freight on the route is the introduction of the higher capacity Norman Leader, originally scheduled for Spring but now delayed until the end of the year due to lack of capacity at the yard in Singapore. Freight capacity will be 90 trucks, as opposed to 50 on the existing Cote d’Albatre and her introduction means that LD Lines will once again be able to offer an unaccompanied freight service on the route. Newhaven-Dieppe completes the


quartet of LD Lines routes. This is the only route to enjoy a public subsidy, €40 million a year from the Dieppe local authority under the EU rules that allow such aid to peripheral regions. In percentage growth terms, it was the best-performing of LD Lines’ routes in 2009 and freight traffic is now around 35,000 units a year on the two daily


sailings operated by the Seven Sisters – an appropriate name, perhaps, because London is where many of its freight customers are heading to, whereas the Portsmouth route tends to cater more for traffic to and from the Midlands and North. The route is also very popular with


Spanish and Portuguese truckers, partly because of geography, but also because drivers tend to be creatures of habit, says Santoni. “Once they know that they can find space to park and they get good on-board service – why should they change?”


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32