In August, P&O Ferries saw the highest number of tourists in 14 years, on Larne-Cairnryan. The passenger volumes for the month were up 7%.
Trasmediterranea ro-pax ferry ALMARIYA was hit by an engine room fire on September 8, when sailing from Nador, Morocco, to Almeria, Spain. No one was injured and the fire was extinguished quickly by the crew. She had to be towed to Nador. The ferry is back in service.
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Trasmediterranea received the renewal of its license to operate the public service from Malaga and Almeria to the Spanish enclave of Melilla. The fact that the company did not ask for subsidies at all, is the reason why it was successful with its bid. Baleària submitted an offer of about €14 million, close to the official budget.
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Belfast Harbour has appointed Joe O’Neill as CEO, replacing Roy Adair who is retiring in spring 2018.
Joe joined the organisation in 1997, holding a number of roles within Belfast Harbour, including Commercial Manager and Port Manager before being appointed Commercial Director in 2005.
The Management Board of Croatian ferry company Jadrolinija has selected David Sopta as new CEO, after a three and a half months tender, to which twenty candidates reacted. David Sopta will replace Alan Klanac.
CELINE, CLdN’s first 8,000 lane metre ro-ro has left the Hyundai MiPo shipyard in Ulsan, South-Korea on September 8.
Her first stop will be in Singapore. Once in Europe she will serve either the UK-Zeebrugge or UK-Rotterdam route.
CLdN have six ro-ro’s on order, with three more MiPo sister vessels, and two other ships under construction in Croatia at the Uljanik shipyard. Options for respectively two and four more are still waiting to be declared.
Some 20% of DFDS’ revenue comes from passengers, and 80% book their ferry crossings online. To make it easier for the customer, a new global organisation for passenger marketing and sales has been announced.
The new organisation, starting in October 2017, will replace the current country-based model. As a next big step 17 current passenger websites will be unified at dfds.com at the beginning of 2018.
Copenhagen Malmö Ports’ (CMP) board of directors has decided to appoint Barbara Scheel Agersnap as new CEO. Barbara has been deputy CEO of CMP since June 2015.
The company’s CFO, Jonas Arkestad, will take over the role of deputy CEO and retain his post as CFO.
Tallink had a good month in August. Compared to last year, passengers and freight went up. The Group transported 980,234 passengers (+1.9%), 30,659 cargo units (+14.5%).
The number of passenger cars went down 7.8%, on the routes Finland-Estonia, and Finland-Sweden. On Helsinki-Tallinn Tallink introduced the ro-pax newbuilding MEGASTAR end of January, whilst competitor Viking Line chartered the high-speed catamaran VIKING XPRS for the same route.
The route Latvia-Sweden saw an impressive growth (pax +76.4%, cars +27.9%, freight +141.9%), totally due to the introduction of a second ferry, ROMANTIKA.
Almost one week after the grounding near Ios, ro-pax ferry BLUE STAR PATMOS was refloated. After discharging the cars and trucks in Ios, she will sail to the Piraeus area, for repairs.
In the press and social media Blue Star Ferries has been praised for the professional way of handling the incident.