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Displaying items by tag: New operator of feeder service

#NewOperation - A new operation has taken over the running of the only Ireland-Wales container service, writes Jehan Ashmore.

Cronus Logistics having taken over Cardiff Container Lines, have engaged with Associated British Ports (ABP) through incorporating one of their ports, the Port of Cardiff into its Irish Sea schedule. The takeover provides Cronus to strengthen and plan its expansion of Ireland-UK gateways between Warrenpoint, Dublin, Cardiff and Bristol.

The new operation will enable Cronus to offer cargoes and also specialising in the steel, forestry and building sectors to these Irish Sea and Bristol Channel ports. The call to Bristol did not feature in Cardiff Container Lines feeder network operated by Coronel as reported on Afloat a year ago.

Afloat has identified the pair of containerships that Cronus are operating on this expanded Irish Sea feeder network, they are Vanquish and Vanquish 2. Each vessel can take 45 foot curtain-sided or box containers as 20ft and 40ft boxes and refrigerated containers plus the ability to take out of gauge cargo.

At the Port of Cardiff is the 14-acre railhead that provides a connected rail terminal linking directly into the UK national rail network opening up potential new markets.

Also serving the Welsh capital Cardiff, are full-length intermodal trains which will now be discharged and loaded directly into the terminal. With an increase in rail traffic, Cardiff also has a large area of open and covered storage next to the railhead that can easily accommodate large shipments.

Irish cargoes can also benefit from onward transit from both Cardiff and Bristol on the Borchard Lines West Mediterranean service with sailings every 5 days. The routes serving the Mediterranean sail to/from Leixoes, Castellon, Salerno, Piraeus, Limassol, Ashdod, Haifa, Beirut, Alexandria, Mersin and Salerno.

As such Cronus Logistics via the Port of Dublin is now also acting as the weekly feeder service to the Line.

Published in Ports & Shipping

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).