Strong Political Support For Wasalines
The City of Vasaa is prepared to help financing the building of a new ferry for Wasaline, says Ålands Sjöfart.
The city council of Vasa will be supporting and legally guaranteeing a loan taken by the ferry line on EUR 35 million and give a direct loan of EUR 25 million.
The European Investment Bank is ready to lend EUR 70 million.
Earlier this year several yards have been contacted to get a view on the possibilities.
Wasaline Had Its Best Q1 Since Its Start in 2013
One-ship operator Wasaline continues to grow with new record volumes for Q1.
For the fifth year in a row, the one-ship company Wasaline increased the traffic volume and improved the consolidated result with 106%.
Photo: Wasaline
In Q3, Wasaline saw an increase on all segments.
Wasaline operates WASA EXPRESS between Vaasa and Umeå.
Wasaline is the first shipping company in the Baltic Sea to provide its passengers with fast and reliable Internet access from Vaasa to Umeå, via advanced microwave technology from AecorLink. For the first time, passengers can now surf the web, use social media and streaming services the same way they do at home.
All conference guests will have free Wi-Fi during the entire journey; all other passengers will have free Wi-Fi for 30 minutes, to try out the service.
After 30 minutes a popup window tells the user to pay an amount of €3 per device for the rest of the 4,5-hour journey.
Instead of 4G, the technology is based on a microwave connection from shore to ship. It makes it possible to deliver very high data capacity, meeting the guest’s needs for streaming services, like Skype, YouTube, Netflix etc.
For Wasaline this is a game changer since the satellite connection only provided 0,5 mbps to the entire ship, now they have access to from 150 – 200 mbps during the entire crossing.
Photo © Incat / Virtu Ferries