Fjord Line flagger om til norsk flagg

H

Håkon Lunde

Active Member
Det norske rederi Fjord Line overvejer at udflage et af sine fire dansk-flagede skibe og forlade DIS-registret til fordel for det norske skibsregister. Det drejer sig om skibet MS Oslofjord, der sejler på ruten Sandefjord-Strømstad. Begrundelsen er, at ruten først og fremmest betjener nordmænd.

”Denne ændring som vi overvejer, skyldes at denne linje henvender sig til et passagermix, der består af op til 90% nordmænd”, forklarer Rickard Ternblom, der er CEO i Fjord Line.

Han tilføjer i en pressemeddelelse, at det i de senere år er blevet mere interessant at sejle under norsk flag.

Ruten har siden siden starten i 2014 været en succes for Fjord Line, og den nåede i 2018 et rekordhøjt passagertal på 459.000.

”Vi har kun kunne opnå et sådant resultat ved at have gode og stærke tilbud til vores gæster og ikke mindst ved hjælp af den fantastiske service, som vores personale yder dagligt. Det gør hele forskellen”, siger Rickard Ternblom og tilføjer ”vi tror, at vi kan opnå en endnu stærkere markedsposition i det lokale marked med dette skridt”.

”Yderligere analyser er nu nødvendige for at fastslå, om vores intentioner, som vi ser dem i dag skulle resultere i en endelig beslutning”, siger Rickard Ternblom.
For nuværende omhandler denne beslutning kun MS Oslofjord på ruten Sandefjord-Strømstad og resten af flåden fortsætter under DIS registret.

Fjord Line driver tre ruter fra Danmark, alle fra Hirtshals til henholdsvis Stavanger/Bergern, Langesund og Kristiansand.

Kilde: Fjord Line
 

Fjord Line vil ikke lenger drifte fergeruten mellom Sandefjord og Strömstad | Fjord Line

Fjord Line vil ikke lenger drifte fergeruten mellom Sandefjord i Norge og Strömstad i Sverige, da ruten ikke støtter Fjord Lines visjon og langsiktige strategi.
www.fjordline.com

www.skipsrevyen.no

Legger ned ruten mellom Sandefjord og Strømstad

Fjord Line avvikler ruten mellom Sandefjord og Strømstad. Det skriver Sandefjords Blad onsdag.
www.skipsrevyen.no www.skipsrevyen.no

Ansatte og tidligere ansatte har kommet med disse opplysningene:

  • Fjord Line skal på møtet med de ansatte ha uttalt at de vil avvikle linjen Sandefjord og Strømstad.
  • Ansatte skal ha fått beskjed om at samtlige mister jobben.
  • Det skal ha vært uttalt at dette vil skje i slutten av oktober, om én måned.
  • Dette skal ha vært begrunnet med «strategiske årsaker».
 
If you are a crew-member or other Fjordline-staff and will loose your job soon - please check out my long post here about many hundreds of free jobs in jobbforum - still very actually.

Öhhhhh - very very sad. Was with car the cheapest big (international) ferry-route worldwide, with (free available) customers-card it was for 0,- possible to travel - we have planned this route to take in 2024 or 2025 as big day-excursion - not possible now anymore. Also strange that this happens just now, Stena has much more danish Pax than normal on the Frederikshavn-Göteborg route because shopping and holidays in Sweden is especially now very cheap for danish people because the Swedish Crown SEK is very much down. So normally it must be the same for the Norwegians, just now (and all experts says that the swedish crown stays for longer time down) it is more attractive to shop in Sweden than before.

Maybe they have also a 30-years-lifetime rule for their ferries - and 3 years ago they decided not to invest in another new ferry just for this mainly shopping-route ? Seems also so, that to buy used ferries is generally no option. But this would be needed just for such a smaller side-route, f.ex. one of the Armas-ferries would work very well if they maybe will for sale in the next years.

So we have now 3 important decicisions from Fjordline CEO in the last couple of month which are - in my and a lot of others in ferry-business opinion - really strange, couriously:
- They have closed their main-route to West-Norway completely for a half year for the technical rebuilt of 2 ferries.
Everybody else would have first rebuilt ferry A, than later ferry B - so that always one ferry can offer a basic timetable especially for the freight customers also. Can not remember any similar case which a not necessary closing of ferry-route for ca. a half year.
- They have closed the route to Langesund, left there a modern ferry-terminal empty and a lot of customers to/from the West-Oslofjord and mountain regions. F.ex. also from Hamburg to Trondheim Hirsthals-Langesund was a good option.
- And now they close the Duty Free Shopping route to Sweden. Sure only a side-route, but if it is possible to operate it with a financial "black 0" i would have continued this route - just only for synergy-effects. Sure there would be chances to reduce the operation-costs also, maybe operate little bit slowlier, use (partly) cheaper crew or/and cheap land-based cleaning-team, operate own buses to transport the Shoppingpeople from Oslo-region and Göteborg-region to the ship (as it has Viking Line f.ex.) etc.

In my opinion Fjordline has made in short time 3 wrong decisions, 3 big mistakes !
Behind the curtains a lot of people are speculating that there is a secret agreement between Fjordline and Color Line, Fjordline "takes" the West and Color Line "takes" all around and nearby Oslofjord. Why they are not more competing ?

What instead shall be now the longterm strategy ?
To operate only 1 route with (in summer) 1 Cat and 2 ferries from West-South-Norway to Hirtshals ?
(Bergen-Stavanger-Kristiansand-Hirtshals) And in winter 1 - 2 ships not in use ?
With more touristic products ? So they want be more a tour-operator than a ferry-company ?

Just actually now there are a number of attractive duty free Monopoly ferry-routes free, from Norway to North-West-Germany, from Norway to UK, from Norway to Netherlands or also a combination-route Norway-EastGermany, Sandefjord/Langesund-Strömstad-Rostock would be a very good option, people coming from Rostock overnight and leaving the ferry in Strömstad could be perfect replaced by daytime-duty-free-shoppers on the last part to Sandefjord/Langesund.
But Fjordline prefer it to do nothing expanding anymore and just watching for the next company who will start one of these routes ?
 
ropax said:
So we have now 3 important decicisions from Fjordline CEO in the last couple of month which are - in my and a lot of others in ferry-business opinion - really strange, couriously:
- They have closed their main-route to West-Norway completely for a half year for the technical rebuilt of 2 ferries.
Everybody else would have first rebuilt ferry A, than later ferry B - so that always one ferry can offer a basic timetable especially for the freight customers also. Can not remember any similar case which a not necessary closing of ferry-route for ca. a half year.
- They have closed the route to Langesund, left there a modern ferry-terminal empty and a lot of customers to/from the West-Oslofjord and mountain regions. F.ex. also from Hamburg to Trondheim Hirsthals-Langesund was a good option.
- And now they close the Duty Free Shopping route to Sweden. Sure only a side-route, but if it is possible to operate it with a financial "black 0" i would have continued this route - just only for synergy-effects. Sure there would be chances to reduce the operation-costs also, maybe operate little bit slowlier, use (partly) cheaper crew or/and cheap land-based cleaning-team, operate own buses to transport the Shoppingpeople from Oslo-region and Göteborg-region to the ship (as it has Viking Line f.ex.) etc.
Click to expand...

You do not make money by selling the journeys at NOK 0 to bet on Tax Free sales on board.
This route has been under pressure all along, and has been synonymous with free trips or almost give away prices, for example NOK 49 for car + driver + 4 passengers. This section has been used for border trade between Norway and Sweden. The difference between Norwegian and Swedish krone is no longer present, thus much of the basis for the route disappears.
People also do not travel this way if they are going further south, crossing towards Denmark from Kristiansand.
People choose the Oslofjord tunnel to cross the Oslofjord if they are going to Sweden, when the tolls disappeared from this tunnel. The time it takes to drive here is faster than the boat when you include check-in before departure and check-out. At the same time, you get better on the road to Stockholm, when Strømstad is located roughly in the middle of Lake Väner, so you have to drive all the way north or south in Sweden to get further east.

This sounds very much like Stena Line's venture from Oslo. They also ran almost free tickets to get travelers. This cannot be carried out when there is no income.

At the same time, this closure does not come as a shock. Color Line has already removed one boat. At the same time, Fjord Line utilizes its existing capacity on the ferry between Kristiansand and Hirtshals. Fjord Line already had terminal space in Kristiansand and will coordinate operations here to avoid having to operate a terminal with only one call per day. At the same time, you meet more travelers from Kristiansand than from Langesund.
 
There are rumours that eventually Fjordline could start again with the ferry Oslofjord from Langesund ?

This ship is for sale for 30 Mio. Euro - much much too much expensive for a 31-years old small slowly ferry which without bigger rebuildings can only be used on a short but strong duty-free-shopping-rute (Eckerö or Viking Line to Aaland). So nobody has bought this ferry until now.

What about this newspaper-article ?
www.varden.no

(+) Langesund kan få Strømstad-ferje

Langesund kan bli havn for Fjord Lines nye Strømstad-ferje fra 2013.
www.varden.no www.varden.no

Langesund has a nice empty ferry-port and offers only symbolic port-fees now for any ferry-company who would start any ferry-route there.
So a route Hirtshals-Langesund with the "Oslofjord" could be a solution, better than to wait now 1, 2, 3 years with lower and lower price-ideas for a - maybe greek - buyer of the "Oslofjord".

"My" alternative route-options:
From Fredrikstad or Moss or Skjaerhalden etc. to Skagen or Frederikshavn (or Hirtshals).
Here is a big route-gap since Stena-Line has closed the route Frederikshavn-Moss which i have often used personally.
Would be also full duty-free route - but with a (half) Monopoly-position - and not direct competing with Color Line.
Timetable could be laid opposite of the DFDS-connection Oslo-Fredrikshavn.
And customers could come from all 3 countries, i have mostly from Moss continued driving to Middle-Sweden - not to Norway.
And sure with own ferry-bus from Aarhus-Aalborg - FERRY - Moss-Oslo - similar as the Kombardoexpressen and Viking Line buses.

Or complete other option:
Change of the ferries, the Oslofjord goes back to West-Norway, helping there and one of the both big modern ferries goes to Langesund.
Then start of a complete new long route:
Langesund - Skagen - Rostock.
All 3 ports would be very happy to get this new ferry-route. Would be in fact 2 routes in 1 - for Danish/Norwegian shopping-tourists - but also for holiday-families from all sides.
And Norway-EastGermany (+ Poland, Czech, Austria, Slovakia etc. behind) is a very very big route-gap since 1990.

Similar it could work with a restart of Kristiansand-Emden. There is really a big market for such a route - but it must be operated very efficiency and with cheap operation-costs. But with more than 300 persons staff and crew from expensive countries for only 1 ship as it was at Holland Norway Line it will never works.

So the Stavangerfjord OR the Bergensfjord on a new longer over-night-route - and the Oslofjord back to South-West-Norway - Hirtshals.
 
"Oslofjord" er solgt til Jadrolinja, skal inn i ruta Dubrovnik-Bari i Kroatia...
 
There was rumours that the budget from Jadronlinija for the "new" used ferry was 18 Mio. .
Now they have made a deal with a charter of 3 month + option to buy.
So i guess that the sales-prices was AROUND CIRCA 20 Mio. .
 
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