Fjord Line bygger om sine to LNG-skip som en konsekvens av energikrisen

I think that`s really strange to take both ferries at the same time so long out of service.
There is/was no dep. to Danmark i Jan./Febr./March ? The expensive Norwegian Crews has now ca. 5 month paid holidays ?
Than starting the Catamaran only from 31.3. with 1 round-trip daily ?

And the freight-customers are accepting all this ???
The E 39 Kristiansand-Stavanger will now become "fast" motorway - so i think in long-term Fjordline would be much better with trying new routes for Stavangerfjord / Bergensfjord. Who will hang around in 4, 6, or 8 years very long time for really a lot of money on ferries with dep. maximal 1 x daily only - if Kristiansand-Stavanger is possible in 1,5 hours only day and night always on the E 39 ? And from Stavanger to Bergen will be/ is also much faster to drive than in the past.

So better to concentrate more on Kristiansand-Hirtshals - maybe also with a 2nd (bigger) Catamaran, cheaper ticket-prices and also earlier starting mid febr. or 1.march there is much more potential than today. And the cabin-ferries use on long attractive overnight-routes to Europe:
A) Bergen/Stavanger - Edinburgh/Newcastle/Aberdeen
B) Göteborg - Kristiansand - Edinburgh/Newcastle/Aberdeen
C) Bergen/Stavanger - Wilhelmshaven/Bremerhaven/Emden/(Cuxhaven)
D) Kristiansand - Wilhelmshaven/Bremerhaven/Emden/(Cuxhaven)
E) Oslo/Langesund/Moss - (Skagen/Frederikshavn) - Rostock
F) I am also 100% sure that HAMBURG(city) - LONDON(Tilbury + own ferry-buses to downtown-different main-trainstations) would work very well. So that travellers from any city in England has only 1 change f.ex. in Victoria Station to the ferry-bus (the buses are going onboard stopping at the elevator as Kombardoexpressen in Molslinjen !) - and than next stop is Hamburg-downtown. 2nd bus from Waterloo-train-station etc. . Especially with big luggage cheaper than all flights and a (big cruise-)ferry could it offer much much cheaper and easier (less changes !) as trains also.

Route A) B) and F) was very successfully operating over decades, today with full duty-free profit-chances it would be very good routes again.
Route C) would replace much more attractive than today mostly the today-route Hirtshals-Stavanger-Bergen
Route D) was a market-gap since decades also, but why to let Holland-Norway-Lines enjoy monopoly there ?
Route E) is for me not to understand since decades why this route nobody starts, from Rostock it is much faster today to the most German and European cities - than from Kiel ! So Color Line can enjoy monopoly Germany-Norway the next 100 years also with galactic tickt-prices and maybe the next new-building-plans with again much bigger ferries are already in the drawer ?

So summary my proposals for Fjordline 2024:
- close the actually route Hirtshals-Stavanger-Bergen, all "my" other routes will bring much more customers and profit 365 days per year.
- 1 cabin-ferry starts route C) - if Holland-Norway-Lines now chose Emden, than take the bigger city Bremerhaven, there was a lot of local newspaper-articles that the local politics there would support any new ferry-route massive. They are very unhappy there that Kiel, Travemünde and Rostock has "1000" ferries and they has 0 in Bremerhaven.
- 1 cabin-ferry starts A) B) or E) - all these 3 routes are good routes, difficult to say which would be the best of them... - just try and see.
- starts Hamburg-London with another chartered XXXL - cruise-ferry from Tallink, they will get back 1 or 2 more cruise-ferries until spring 2024 and has no concept anymore for to use these ferries on overnight-routes. Operation-concept is to copy from Viking Line - what means mass-transport with year-around full ships with cheapest prices, cleaning of the ship in Hamburg etc. . Ship has to be offered to the people as cruise-ship (but sure can cars, trucks, coaches and campers go onboard too) - than everybody is happy also with cheapest Phillipines-crews as it is on all other big cruise-ships (and a lot of ferries, f.ex. P&O, TT etc.) also normal standard today.
- if in Oslo-port is anywhere space for 2 hours turnaround, route E) could be started also with another chartered XXXL-cruise-ferry from Tallink. From Langesund or Moss (the ramp from the former Stena Nordica route is still there) only better start with Stavangerfjord or Bergensfjord.
 
I think that`s really strange to take both ferries at the same time so long out of service.
Ja, det virker litt merkelig. De kunne ha bygd om én ferge først, så kunne de evt. gått annenhver dag hvis gassprisene ble ekstreme. Nå er det vel omtrent samme pris for LNG og MGO.
 
I think really that the people (and freight too) from Fjordnorge would prefer to travel to Germany, Netherlands, Poland etc. more than to Göteborg. And in the other direction it will be also more Tourist-Campers and fisherman-cars going to Norway than from Göteborg... .

"De kunne ha bygd om én ferge først, så kunne de evt. gått annenhver dag"
From 100 CEOs 99 has had exactly decided so... .
But the (former ?) most important route to close completely for ca. 5 month ???
So this is route is closed circa up to may and Holland-Norway-Line has planned a new start - maybe to Emden - than from may also... .

One point forgotten in my future-proposals:
Both ferries are relatively short - compared with other newer ferries f.ex. from TT, DFDS, Stena, Viking etc. which are ca. 230m / 240m / 223m.
If the small port of Hirtshals would be deleted for these both ferries they could be extended very easy 30, 40, 50, 60m longer =
more truck-lanemeter- or/and car- capacity and - if needed - also more cabins possible - with the same crew-size = much more efficiency.
Extensions of the last years:
2 Visentinis for Stena, TT Lines Tinker Bell (ex Peter Pan) and Grimaldis Cruise Roma, with 254m the longest ferry of the world.

So first start to test new routes in 2024 - and than if more space / cabins are needed - extension of the ferries 1, 2, 3 years later in winter.

Further points:
Aberdeen - port is to small (max. 160/165m).
Edinburgh-Leigh (downtown-port) max.-size is 210m x 30m - otherwise Rosyth would be possible for XXL-ferries.
Edinburgh is the best port north of London, the city is very big with 554.000 people, a top-tourist-hotspot and Glasgow is really very close nearby. A brand-new tram is going directly from the ferry-berth in a few minutes only to the city-center and airport.
All other named ports are very big (Frederikshavn (185m now, 200m 2030) is not needed - than better chose the big Skagen-port).
 
They cannot manage daily departures if they are to go down to Germany or the Netherlands...
 
With 1 ferry per overnight-route 1 dep. every 2nd day as f.ex. Holland-Norway Line is (or was) operating.
And with 2 ferries daily departures as f.ex. Oslo-Kiel is working.
Because they have 2 ferries and it takes normally 2, 3, 4 years for to reach the full customer-potential of a new ferry-route i would split them on 2 routes which 1 ferry each every second day for the first years of the new routes. And than later if the ferries are often full-booked add a 2nd ferry on the routes = daily departures in both directions.

F.ex. for Bergen-StavangerRisavika - Wilhelmshaven/Bremerhaven f.ex. is possible with 21 knots service-speed in 22 hours incl. stops and turning in ports. So the time for unloading / loading is ca. 2 hours - the double time what needs Viking Line daily with double so big ferries on Stockholm-Turku.
Also a triangel-timetable is thinkable, f.ex. 16:00 from Germany, 9:00 arrival in Stavanger, 10:00 dep., 14:30 arr. Bergen - than 17:00 from Bergen is possible instead of 16:00 for to be back in Germany direct again at 14:00. But i would hold the stops in Norway so short as ever possible for to give mini-cruisers 1 hour more for shopping in the 3-times cheaper German supermarkets (actually price-examples 250g normal quality-butter 1,49, 20 bottles beer 0,5 l cheapest offer 4,99, but always for 5,99 possible). Furthermore Fjordline must fill all things (restaurant-food, drinks, duty free shop, fuel for the ferry etc.) also in Germany because of it is much much cheaper there. So better 1 hour only in Stavanger, 1 hour in Bergen for to have around 3 hours in Germany.

The engines are now brand-new, so 99 of 100 CEOs would have they ordered with a little bit higher speed possible also - the new DFDS Aura/Luna was going 26 knots on sea-trials, all other (TTs newb., Honfleur, E-Flexer) was on sea-trials with 25 knots.
21 knots service-speed is fast ? No - Kiel-Oslo is working always with 21-22 knots, Spain-Canary Islands is operating with 23 knots much more than 30 hours without break, TT Australia is operating with 27-28 knots every day in highest roughest sea.
The longest of "my" new route-proposals would be Edinburgh-Kristiansand-Göteborg, there 24,6 - 25 knots would be needed for 1 complete round-trip in 48 hours. Sure, costs more fuel, but some space onboard can be sold 2 x times, this route is also interessant for people travelling only between Norway and Sweden.

Rostock-Oslo is possible with 20-21 knots in ca. 19-20 hours (via Öresundsbron), stop in Skagen/Frederikshavn is thinkable as DFDS this is operating. I have never understand why DFDS is not going faster and extend the Oslo-route to Rostock - would be a super-great success.

With 24,5 - 25 knots would also Oslo-Gdynia/Gdansk be possible in 22 hours - a really Cruise-ferry route-highlight... .
Gdansk is very nice also, big sandy beaches nearby and has best new motorway-connections to all East-European countries Czech, Slovakia, Hungary, Rumänia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia etc. - so also attractive very for freight. And the polish people there like cruises on ferries very much - they was / are very angry, that Stena is replacing the both old cruise-ferries Vision and Spirit with E-Flexers from Gdynia to Karlskrona. Shorter much slowlier possible option to Poland would be also Langesund-Swinousjscie for Fjordline... .
 
Stavangerfjord har meldt avgang 23.05, så spørs om de er i mål med første skuta. Blir spennende å se hvordan innkjøringsprosessen blir.
 
So there was now for 5 month no normal departure for biggest trucks ?
Normally then all freight-customers will be away... .

Maybe better to try a new long route with 1 ferry from autumn similar as Holland-Norway-Line... .
Langesund-(Skagen-)Rostock, Kristiansand-Bremerhaven/Wilhelmshaven, Norway-England/Scotland etc. .
Or why not HamburgCity-London(Tilbury+own buses into city) ? The flights are much more expensive today (f.ex. friday the cheapest is for 200,- !) and in Germany all slowly trains are nearly free now - so in fact it would be a route London-NorthGermany - and with full Tax-free also.

Then some years later any long route could be doubled with daily dep. and both ferries - and similar Hirtshals-Kristiansand with a 2nd Katamaran.
 
Stavangerfjord har meldt avgang 23.05, så spørs om de er i mål med første skuta. Blir spennende å se hvordan innkjøringsprosessen blir.
Hun er på vei sørover, Sea Trial Fosen - Bergen, med ankomst Bergen 25.mai kl. 2159 i følge AIS.
Oppsatt i rute fra 26.mai fra Bergen til Hirtshals.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top