Consistency is key on the seas
THE latest accounts filed by Condor Ferries, widely reported, show a trading loss in the 2022-23 financial year – a nod perhaps to the ‘temporary but challenging time’ it referenced towards the end of last year, which seemed to send the CI governments into a tail spin.
We know that running a cross-Channel ferry service is tough – attracting passengers is not easy, and though it seems there is money in carrying freight, you’ve got the always-high expectations of islanders to satisfy.
It’s something of a surprise that it appears very likely that competition is on the way in our waters – for the tender process at least. While some would call for competition on the route, history has proved that to be unsustainable.
So what do we want from our ferry services? The islands insight that DFDS gained, which they have fed back, was reliability and convenient scheduling – that placed much higher than price.
There is little doubt that running a ferry service in these waters is a real challenge. But if you can get things right, there’s probably a reasonable future for an operator, given the captive market.
Consistency is key. Customers, passengers, whatever you call them, on public transport don’t always thank you for getting them from A to B. But consistency of operation, of schedule, and of the way that people are treated, are very important.