HD Ferries Vs Condor Ferries. The story continues......

It's still very messy down at the docks, with HD Ferries this week announcing that it would be suspending it's service to St Malo for the winter and at the same time taking steps to sue Condor Ferries for describing their operation as 'low safety'.

Rob Provan, Chief Executive of Condor Ferries released the statement back on 3rd August, following a collision between one of their high-speed vessels and HD1. This was not the first such incident and you can sense the frustration in the words used in the press release. You can read the original statement in full by clicking here.

Why it has taken 2 months for Chris Howe-Davies, HD's Chairman, to decide to sue Condor I don't fully understand. Perhaps he has had other priorities - namely trying to keep his vessel sailing under very heavy restrictions laid down by both the St Malo & Jersey port authorities. Nonetheless HD's statement (click here to read it) issued this week clearly demonstrates that they are not prepared to surrender the route as a result of what they see as bullying tactics by both Condor and the port authorities.

Which brings us to the suspension of services. This has been presented as a decision created by the incessant demands of 'stakeholders' that prevent them operating the service they would like. Of course cynics would suggest that the decision has as much to do with the fact that the winter period is very unprofitable and there could well be problems with weather affecting sailings and creating more image problems for the company.

One thing is for sure, HD have brought lower fares to the St Malo - Jersey route and when the vessel has been operating, there is little to differentiate between the two companies in terms of service. If they can sort their operational problems out and come back in March with all four engines working and the highest level of seamanship, then they might just be able to survive.

In the meantime, we'll see whether their threat to sue Condor makes it to court. This sorry tale could become as long as a Harry Potter novel!

Latest score update: Airport 3 : Harbour 0

Not content with announcing one new route in a week, there's more good news from Jersey Airport today. Jet2.com are to start direct services between Jersey & Leeds/Bradford from 25 May 2008. The service will operate 3 days a week (Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday) until 26 October. Fares start from just £28.99 one way and are on sale now. So yet another new low-cost route starts up - and hints of more to come from Jersey Airport Director, Julian Green.

Meanwhile, doom piles upon gloom down at the harbour. Poor old HD Ferries are in trouble again - this time with the French authorities. Apparently a spot check by the Affaires Maritimes on Tuesday revealed 'deficiencies' and the vessel is now in St Malo along with the company's CEO, Chris Howe-Davies to try and resolve the matter.

All HD services are cancelled until at least Friday causing yet more inconvenience to passengers. The impact of all these issues on their forward sales must be dramatic - most people I speak to will not book with the company because of the risk of not travelling.

In the meantime, Condor must be quietly rubbing their hands together with glee. They believe that the vessel HD are using is not capable of operating the route & is a risk (as it almost proved to be on at least two occasions this summer). They may well be right, but as someone commented today, whilst a day return with their car on HD costs £99 - Condor wanted over £200 for the same journey. The route needs competition - but it also needs robust, dependable & safe operators.

Latest score: Jersey Airport 2 : Jersey Harbour 0

More good news from Jersey Airport this week – another new route launches this Saturday and there’s increased capacity on another from next year. Meanwhile the July passenger figures show that arrivals from St Malo hardly grew at all – despite the arrival of HD Ferries this year.

This Saturday, Manx2 – a relatively new start up airline with ex-Rockhopper/Blue Islands chairman, Noel Hayes, at the helm – starts flights to that well-known international airport….er, Gloucester! Initially it will be weekends only, but at the end of October it will fly Friday and Sunday evenings – thereby creating a whole new short-break opportunity to and from the Cotswolds. In order to be sure that everyone knows where the airport is, they have rather grandly re-branded themselves Gloucester (M5) – and to be fair, it is well placed for getting to lots of other places. The 19 seat aircraft will also fly on from Gloucester to the Isle of Man, thereby once again providing a link between the two finance centres.

At the same time, Flybe have announced that from March next year there will be four flights a week to/from Newcastle. The growth in routes is very encouraging and apparently there are more announcements to come over the next few weeks.

While Julian Green and his team continue to achieve good things at the airport, down at the docks, it’s a different story. July’s arrival figures are out and amongst all the positive news, it was surprising to see that arrivals from St Malo had grown by less than 1000 passengers.

Remember that with HD Ferries, capacity on the route dramatically increased. Now I know that HD have had all sorts of problems and some sailings would have been cancelled due to poor weather, but even with a few days excluded the route has hardly grown at all and the market has been split between two operators. It will be interesting to see if August shows improvement – especially as the third operator, Corsaire, started last month.

HD Ferries - is patience wearing thin?

Following weeks of delays, collisions and technical problems, last weekend Jersey Harbours, finally lost their patience with HD Ferries and withdrew their licence to operate the route between Jersey and St Malo.

The vessel has been running on only 3 of its 4 engines for some time and as a result, had been experiencing difficulties in berthing in Jersey. This culminated in a fairly serious collision with a rival Condor Ferries craft in July which caused damage to the HD ferry and caused it to be withdrawn from service for some days whilst repairs were made.

Then last weekend, it happened again and this time, the harbour authorities had no choice but to suspend their licence on Friday, resulting in hundreds of passengers having to find room on Condor at the last minute. Needless to say, Condor were only too delighted to take all this business - and to charge HD clients through the nose to transfer.

Surprisingly, despite all this, the goodwill that HD Ferries has built up in a relatively short time seems to be carrying the operator through this very tricky period. Take a look at their website and see how many messages of support have been posted. It seems that Condor's monopolistic position on the UK ferry route and subsequent high fares, rankles with many. I suspect that memories also linger of the demise of the much-loved Emeraude Ferries - caused in part by Condor's marketing muscle. Recent comments by Rob Provan, Condor's MD who suggested HD Ferries vessel was not designed to operate on the St Malo route, did not help.

The good news for HD fans is that, this afternoon, they announced that the resumption of services from this Saturday morning. Let's hope they can maintain the service without further problems. It is important to have competition on this route to keep prices low - but patience will run our eventually if the service suffers further delays or cancellations.

St Malo - Jersey ferry routes. Here we go again....

mm,

Like London buses, you don't see one for months and then 2 come along at once. So it is with St Malo ferries. In the space of a couple of days last week we learnt that 2 new operators are to start services this summer.

HD ferries (what does HD stand for - anyone know?!) are a new operator using a vessel built 8 years ago. Starting mid-March with 1 departure a day in each direction and a vessel that carries 400 passengers & 100 cars - that's 180,000 passenger spaces available from mid-March to end of September.

Then we've got Corsaire, who until 2003 were owned by Emeraude. They currently pootle around The Bay of St Malo on sightseeing tours, but have now decided to enter the big boy's world of ferry operations with a new 204 passenger-only vessel, currently being built in Australia. Corsaire plan to operate 1-3 services a day from June to September, so conservatively that will add 100,000 more passenger spaces.

Existing operator Condor will continue to operate the route as well. Not sure how many departures, but at least 1 a day in each direction with say another 400 capacity on each. So let's say in total that there will be 500,000 spaces available between April & September to & from St Malo.

So what's changed since 2005, when Emeraude sank without trace? The demise of Emeraude was in no doubt due to a combination of over-capacity on the route & weaker marketing on their part. HD Ferries have already launched their booking system (interestingly another part of their parent company - The 2morrow Group is a ferry reservations distribution system called Aferry!) and their fare structure is based on the low-cost airline model. The earlier you book & the less busy the crossing, the less you pay. If fares are low enough, it should also encourage more frequent, impulsive travel, which I believe is a real trick to turn within the Jersey-based market. 'What shall we do today - paint the bedroom or lunch in St Malo?'

Very little is known about Corsaire's plans, but their big advantage is that they are a French operator, well known in the St Malo area and probably in the best position to take advantage of the day trip market.

And don't forget we've got daily services to Normandy with Manche Iles Express, who are introducing a bigger ferry in 2007. It's all shaping up to be an interesting year on this route. I cannot believe that demand is going to satisfy such a huge supply - but there is certainly going to be one winner. Joe Public. Get planning those day trips to Paris now!