Ferry use rises following volcano travel misery
Ferry Online Travel News 26/07/2010
More people are using ferries to travel between the UK and Holland after the ash crisis.
Travel on ferries between the UK and Holland is rising in the wake of the air-travel misery caused by the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Ash from the volcano threw European air-travel into complete disarray in April and had a knock-on effect on travel around the world. Another ash plume caused problems in May. As a result of the travel problems, fewer people have been flying to the continent and there has been a marked increase in the number of travellers using road and ferry links.
From April to June this year, Stena Line reports the number of cars and passengers using its ferries from Britain to Northern Ireland and Holland rose by up to 14.5%, year-on-year. On Stena’s North Sea route between the Hook of Holland and Harwich, in England, the number of cars was up 2.1% and the number of passengers rose 14.5% across the quarter. This route also saw Stena Line launch the first of its two 1,200-passenger Superferries, on 16 May. Through the same quarter, Stena Line carried 38% more coaches across the North Sea.
Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority said the number of passengers flown between airports in the UK and Holland fell over this period by three per cent, year-on-year. Stena Line’s general manager for the Irish Sea, Dermot Cairns, said that some of the increase in travel on the firms North Sea routes was accounted for by the extra passengers Stena carried during the ash-cloud crisis. However, he pointed out that even after the ash plume had subsided, Stena Line carried 14% more passengers and nearly 5% more cars on its North Sea routes than over the same month in 2009.
← Cancer patient triggers nuclear alert at Dover port | Index | Take a vacation to live a longer, happier life →