Ferry freight rates to increase
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• Ferry operators' freight rates go up by £1 a metre from January and hauliers say they will find it difficult to pass the increase on to their customers.
Sealink, P&O and Sally Line have again all set the same increase. Last year this prompted the Road Haulage Asgociation to ask the Office of Fair Trading to investigate. The OFT concluded that the similar increases indicated an "awareness of the competitors' prices" and could not be classed as unfair trading.
This time the RHA is urging hauliers to "negotiate vigorously" to secure discounts from the new rates. "The increases will bite at the bottom end of the market, but the big boys don't seem to mind," says an RHA spokesman.
The RHA will decide whether to protest over the new rates at a meeting of its international committee on 15 January.
The £1 a metre increase will add £16.50 to the cost of shipping a 16.5m, 38-tonne truck.
Dover-based grain exporter Mike Beer Transport says the new rates will make life difficult. "It is the time of year when a lot of manufacturers change hauhers to get a better rate, so some hauliers will have to swallow this increase to keep their customers," says Paul Woodward, continental controller. He will be pushing to get customers to pay where he can.
Livestock haulier MFP International of Swindon believes it will be very difficult to pass on such an increase to customers during a recession. "The ferry companies cannot lose," says partner Jeremy Francis, "but everyone else has had to tighten their belts."
Sealink says the industry should be aware of the financial problems which has led to one quarter of its workforce — 1,600 people — being made redundant on 1 January. "The increase is in line with inflation," says a spokesman.