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Cross-channel rivals square up
A spat has developed between the bosses of two rival ferry companies over a subsidy provided for one route.
The two companies - Brittany Ferries and LD Lines - both run services from Portsmouth. But Brittany Ferries has taken issue over a subsidy worth more than £10.3m that LD's sister company LD Transmanche receives each year from the Conseil Général of the Seine Maritime to run the Newhaven-to-Dieppe service.
Brittany Ferries has refused to comment publicly on the issue but in an article for the French language magazine Le Marin Jean-Michel Giguet, general manager of Brittany Ferries, which runs the Portsmouth to Caen and Portsmouth to Cherbourg services, said it wasn't fair that the Newhaven-to-Dieppe service, operated by LD Lines, received the subsidy, while the line lost £13.8m a year. He wanted the subsidy to the private company to end, adding that the port city of Dieppe had only 20,000 inhabitants.
Now LD Lines has come out fighting in the belief that Brittany Ferries was concerned more about passenger numbers on the Portsmouth run.
Pierre Gehanne, the director general of parent company LD Armateurs and also president of LD Lines and LD Transmanche, said Brittany Ferries had never had a problem with the subsidy until the private company LD Lines began to run it in March 2007, and the subsidy reduced to 14.6 million euros a year. He said: `Jean Michel Giguet now wishes us to believe that the Dieppe-to-Newhaven line is solely responsible for the downturn in the use of the Cherbourg, Caen and Saint Malo lines. `Let's be sensible about this. This assertion is both ridiculous and grotesque.' Passengers numbers are rising for both LD Lines and LD Transmanche, and for Brittany Ferries numbers from Portsmouth are slightly down this year - though that is because capacity has been cut.
LD Transmanche said the number of cars on its Newhaven-to-Dieppe route was up 31 per cent to 8,000 in May, compared with 6,120 in the same month last year. The rise followed a six per cent increase in April and a 15 per cent rise in March, despite the number of daily crossings being cut to two.
Travel figures
Recent statistics for ferry travel between the UK and France show that there were 16.79m passengers in 2005 and 16.87m in 2006. At Portsmouth, ferry operator LD Lines' Portsmouth-to-Le Havre service has seen passenger numbers grow to 130,000 for the first six months of this year. It hopes to raise the number of passengers on the Le Havre to Portsmouth cross channel route to 300,000 a year in the medium term. The target figure is below the 700,000 to 800,000 passengers carried in the early 1990s when P&O Ferries operated the route.
The two companies - Brittany Ferries and LD Lines - both run services from Portsmouth. But Brittany Ferries has taken issue over a subsidy worth more than £10.3m that LD's sister company LD Transmanche receives each year from the Conseil Général of the Seine Maritime to run the Newhaven-to-Dieppe service.
Brittany Ferries has refused to comment publicly on the issue but in an article for the French language magazine Le Marin Jean-Michel Giguet, general manager of Brittany Ferries, which runs the Portsmouth to Caen and Portsmouth to Cherbourg services, said it wasn't fair that the Newhaven-to-Dieppe service, operated by LD Lines, received the subsidy, while the line lost £13.8m a year. He wanted the subsidy to the private company to end, adding that the port city of Dieppe had only 20,000 inhabitants.
Now LD Lines has come out fighting in the belief that Brittany Ferries was concerned more about passenger numbers on the Portsmouth run.
Pierre Gehanne, the director general of parent company LD Armateurs and also president of LD Lines and LD Transmanche, said Brittany Ferries had never had a problem with the subsidy until the private company LD Lines began to run it in March 2007, and the subsidy reduced to 14.6 million euros a year. He said: `Jean Michel Giguet now wishes us to believe that the Dieppe-to-Newhaven line is solely responsible for the downturn in the use of the Cherbourg, Caen and Saint Malo lines. `Let's be sensible about this. This assertion is both ridiculous and grotesque.' Passengers numbers are rising for both LD Lines and LD Transmanche, and for Brittany Ferries numbers from Portsmouth are slightly down this year - though that is because capacity has been cut.
LD Transmanche said the number of cars on its Newhaven-to-Dieppe route was up 31 per cent to 8,000 in May, compared with 6,120 in the same month last year. The rise followed a six per cent increase in April and a 15 per cent rise in March, despite the number of daily crossings being cut to two.
Travel figures
Recent statistics for ferry travel between the UK and France show that there were 16.79m passengers in 2005 and 16.87m in 2006. At Portsmouth, ferry operator LD Lines' Portsmouth-to-Le Havre service has seen passenger numbers grow to 130,000 for the first six months of this year. It hopes to raise the number of passengers on the Le Havre to Portsmouth cross channel route to 300,000 a year in the medium term. The target figure is below the 700,000 to 800,000 passengers carried in the early 1990s when P&O Ferries operated the route.
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