Seafrance gets a bigger ship
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• Seafrance is to introduce a new ship to its fleet, which will significantly raise its capacity on the Dover-Calais Channel crossing.
Freight director Bernard Pages says the ship will be operating by the end of next year or early in 2002, and will carry up to 130 HGVs. It will replace one of the two much smaller vessels that can carry just 50 HGVs. The new ferry will allow Seafrance to raise capacity without increasing the 40 departures a day between the two ports.
Pages admits that the company's overall market share fell from 25% to 20% last year as a result of its failure to accommodate increased demand.
P During 1999 Seafrance carried 482,000 freight
loads, compared with 502.000 in 1998. But price increases announced at the start of the year to cushion the blow of the end of dutyfree sales helped raise turnover by 5.4%, to FFr1,324m(£139m).
Nevertheless, Pages says a further rate increase win be necessary at the end of this year, although how much remains unclear.