User Rating: / 1
PoorBest 

A perfect match: understandably that is the spin DFDS and AP Moller/ Maersk’s respective boards are placing on the integration of Norfolk Line into a new giant DFDS, the former’s 18 ships making a total fleet of 75 vessels, just over half of them owned and the rest chartered.

Maersk will receive 170mn Euros in cash and will retain an approximate 31% share of DFDS who will for the first time be operating out of Dover and on the Irish Sea. As they say: their operations will now span the whole of Northern Europe – from Russia to Ireland!

It is certainly a major change in the Ferry structure of Northern and Western Europe and most significantly affects the UK, especially in the form of the three big modern ships on the Dover-Dunkerque route. They also inherit the new Zeebrugge-Rosyth link.

I hope this gives DFDS the scale and resources to be innovative and to look for new and revitalised routes. Maybe even restore a passengerfreight link to Norway. It remains to be seen what the changes will mean in practice to ship allocation, livery, and how DFDS’s Tor Line ‘brand’ will be involved.

At the final hour, just when they were about to go to court to possibly suspend the company, the French Trade Unions by the narrowest of margins voted to accept a new structure which will see nearly 500 seafarers taking severance terms. So it looks like they will be a Dover player for some years yet, though I always had my doubts the French government would pull the plug on the big loss-maker.

More on this and other news in Sea Breezes Magazine - February 2010 Issue
Click on the links below to subscribe