GNV Grandi Navi Veloci signed a three-month charter contract with the Turkish company Defartes Global Services for the use of the ferry GNV AZZURRA.
She will be used as a floating hotel for the personnel of companies engaged in the work that Turkish Petroleum is carrying out in that stretch of sea.
Cruise ship GEMINI, also used as a floating hotel, is moored next to GNV AZZURRA.
1981-built GNV AZZURRA is the former GOTLAND, WASA STAR, PETER WESSEL, SNAV TOSCANA.
Grandi Navi Veloci has officially announced the purchase of the ropax ship CAP FINISTÈRE from Brittany Ferries which is currently en route to the port of Naples where will be renamed GNV SPIRIT.
The Nuova Meccanica Navale shipyard will take care of it with some refitting works and repainting the vessel with the company’s distinctive livery.
Once she enters service before next summer season, GNV SPIRIT will take GNV’s fleet to 25 ferries.
Grandi Navi Veloci has extended for 12 months the charter of two roro vessels already operated and deployed on the Genoa – Palermo – Malta route.
The units in question are the sister ships ELISABETH RUSS and CAROLINE RUSS, both controlled by the German company Ernst Russ AG and with a lane metre capacity of roughly 1,600 each.
Now it is official: GNV joins the competition on the routes to the Balearic Islands.
Start: beginning of July
Routes:
Ships:
On April 15, Grimaldi announced the entrance of the same market through acquisition and cooperation with Armas Trasmediterranea.
Three of the main players active on the local ferry market will cooperate to provide regular maritime links between Sardinia (Olbia) and mainland Italy (Civitavecchia) under the next maritime continuity scheme.
Following a dedicated tender launched earlier this year, the transport ministry accepted the proposal received by Tirrenia Cin, Grimaldi Group and Grandi Navi Veloci which decided to share the losses expected for the winter period (from October to May) but in change they will be the only three operators authorized to serve the same link during the summer season.
More specifically Compagnia Italiana di Navigazione (Moby group) will be the company which operates the route from October to May.
Grandi Navi Veloci emerged as the winner of the public tender launched by the Italian transport ministry for providing five “quarantine” ships.
They will be deployed as accommodation vessel for migrants arriving in Italy from North Africa.
Grandi Navi Veloci charters roro FRIJSENBORG from compatriot Visemar Levante for six months.
The ship has recently been used by several shipping companies under the name of SPIRIT OF MONTOIR. It’s still unknown at the moment on which route GNV will deploy the vessel.
GNV has suspended the ropax link between the ports of Civitavecchia and the Sicily island (i.e. ports of Palermo and Termini Imerese) after the ‘port of Rome’ increased port dues applied to roro and passenger traffics, embarked and disembarked.
The decision (which seems to be still reviewable) was taken by the port authority of Civitavecchia in order to balance the financial losses coming after the Covid emergency which cancelled all the cruise season and most of the ferry traffic this year.
The dockworkers company protested against the new increased port dues warning that several shipowners (Grandi Navi Veloci and Grimaldi for the news cars handling) are already thinking to move their ships to other ports in Italy.
The MSC-controlled ferry company will go on serving the line between Sicily and Central-Southern Italy through the port of Naples.
Grandi Navi Veloci obtained the RINA “biosafe ship” notation for two vessels of its fleet: RHAPSODY and GNV ALLEGRA.
Biosafe Ship is a new goal-based notation, based on many different systems, components and operative procedures to control and prevent possible onboard infection outbreak. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, RINA has further strengthened its commitment towards a biosafe shipping by developing dedicated services for the infection prevention and control that is the first additional class notation devoted to this particular matter.
Gianluigi Aponte’s Italian holding Marinvest revealed in its last yearly financial report that both Grandi Navi Veloci and SNAV are back in profit, after some years in red.
In 2019, the Genoa-based ferry company GNV closed with a net profit of almost EUR 1 million, while the previous year the loss amounted to EUR 13.4 million.
Following the outbreak of Covid-19, the results were heavily impacted in the first half of this year and GNV asked for a new EUR 25 million bank loan in line with the “Decreto Liquidità” law approved by the Italian Government (in order to make it possible for the companies to overcome those challenging months).
The Aponte family also injected EUR 17 million in the company, as a potential capital increase for the future if needed.
Also, the Marinvest-controlled ferry company SNAV, today mainly focused on the lines in the Gulf of Naples, between Naples and the Aeolian islands and between Ancona and the Croatian port of Split, last year closed with a profit of almost EUR 1.5 million, coming from a red of almost EUR 550k in 2018.
