The Gothenburg, Sweden-based ferry company, Stena Line has pulled out of the race to run services between the UK mainland and the Channel Islands.
The ferry operator, which has a route network across northern Europe stretching from the Baltic Sea to Scandinavia, the North Sea, and the Irish Sea, had started working on a bid for the English Channel routes to Guernsey and Jersey. However, the company said it had decided to focus on a new route in north Africa, involving former Rosslare-Fishguard ferry Stena Europe, as Afloat previously reported linking Spain and Morocco on the Strait of Gibraltar.
Last month, the States of Guernsey and the Government of Jersey launched a process to find an operator for the next 15 years on the contract to link south of England ports and the islands off Normandy.
Another Nordic-based operator, the Danish firm DFDS, which also operates on the Strait of Gibraltar, and the current Channel Islands operator Condor Ferries have announced they will be bidding for the routes. The UK-Channel Islands operator is also owned by Brittany Ferries and Columbia Threadneedle Investments.
More from BBC News on the withdrawal by Stena, which leaves the two ferry companies that have announced they are bidding.
Since December, Afloat.ie notes that both DFDS and Brittany Ferries have carried out berthing test trials in the Channel Islands. This has involved the DFDS freight ferry Finlandia Seaways calling at St. Peter Port, Guernsey, and the Brittany Ferries Cherbourg-Poole cruise ferry Barfleur berthing at St. Helier, Jersey.
Condor operates from Portsmouth and Poole to the Channel Islands and to St. Malo, Brittany. In addition, there is a UK-France route between Poole and St. Malo via Jersey. Combined, the network consists of 18 routes using conventional ferries, fast craft, and a freight ferry.
Stena Vinga, which operates between Denmark and Sweden, Stena said would have been a suitable ship to serve Channel Islands operations, as it is near sister of both Condor’s ropax's. They are the Commodore Clipper and Condor Islander, the former Straitsman was acquired last year from New Zealand operator StraitNZ, a subsidiary of Bluebridge Cook Strait Ferries.
Incidentally, Stena Vinga spent last summer, it is understood, was chartered to Africa Morocco Link (AML), which, as Afloat reported, Stena acquired a shareholding in recent months. However, the ropax operated for Intershipping on the Strait of Gibraltar that season before resuming service in Scandinavia.
