SHIPPINg & FREIgHT

Following its investment in Brittany Ferries late last year, CMA CGM has followed through on its commitment to increase the ferry company’s focus on freight transport.

CMA CGM has developed a network of freight ferry services out of its home port of Marseilles to Morocco, Algeria, and Libya, connecting also to Barcelona and Genoa, operating under the SSL MED

CMA CGM offers trailer slots on Brittany Ferries Services

EXPRESS brand. These services carry trailers, containers, and out of gauge cargo. In January 2022, CMA CGM and

Brittany announced a co-operation enabling the deep-sea container company to feed containers from its

Le Havre terminal to Portsmouth on board the Brittany Ferries service using quay to quay flat trailers, a similar type of operation to that offered by P&O Ferries and Seatruck on its Liverpool services.

This has now been followed up by the establishment of a slot charter arrangement for both accompanied and unaccompanied trailers on the Brittany Ferry services linking Rosslare with Bilbao, Cherbourg, and Le Havre. The new arrangement facilitates through bookings from Ireland to North Africa using the SSL MED Express services.

CMA CGM has also announced an agreement to acquire a majority shareholding in the French last mile delivery company Colis Prive, furthering its spread into third-party logistics and e-commerce as part of its strategy to be an integrated provider of supply chain services. Colis Prive will operate within the CEVA Forwarding Group which already has an e-commerce business service ability worth $4.2 trillion.

CLdN orders Hybrid Ro-Ro vessels

Following the recent delivery of a pair of LnG fuelled vessels of similar style and capacity to the ‘Delphine’ class of 5,000 lane metre capacity vessels, CLdn has now signed a contract with hyundai Mipo Dockyards for two 8,000 lane metre Con-Ro vessels of similar cargo specification to the Brexit Buster ‘Celine’ but with a hybrid propulsion system.

The vessels will be equipped with two LNG dual fuel main engines of 11mW each as well as two electric propulsion motors of 6mW each. In full electric mode the vessels will achieve a cruising speed of 16 to 17 knots. According to the company, both vessels will also be future proofed to allow expansion or integration of technical advanced equipment as it emerges. Compared with ‘Celine’, the new ships will operate with a 40% reduction of Greenhouse Gas emissions and will be NOx III compliant.

DFDS reports issues in the Ferry business going forward

The DFDS Annual report 2021 carries a wide-ranging discussion on emerging trends and issues in the European Ferry industry. It reports that the past two years have been strong for the freight ferry activity and picks out the success of the Rosslare/Dunkirk service, reporting near capacity carryings on that route.

Further development of such services is being frustrated, as per the statement: “There has been a high demand for combined ferries with an overweight of freight capacity, to the extent that no vessels were available for chartering during most of 2021”. On the pure freight ferry market all new vessels are currently fully committed, and they do not see an easing of the situation until 2023 or even 2024.

DFDS is critical of the decision of Irish Ferries to enter the Dover Straits ferry business which is likely to impact freight and passenger pricing negatively for 2022. Significantly increased levels of duty-free sales on board vessels operating there may offset the revenue drop.

On the question of truck driver shortages DFDS expects these to persist in the coming years, and this will support continued growth in demand for unaccompanied ferry services on the North Sea and Mediterranean, in particular.

Lufthansa Cargo opens Dublin link

On 15 March, Lufthansa Cargo operated its first Dublin/Frankfurt service using its recently delivered and converted Airbus A321F freighter aircraft. The Dublin service links to an additional Frankfurt based Lufthansa Cargo short-haul network which includes Istanbul, Malta, Tunis, Tel Aviv. Manchester and Cairo. This network is very much focused on eCommerce and the aircraft can take a payload of 28 tonnes being shipped on 24 pallets making full use of the A321F’s main deck and lower deck capacity.

Text: Howard Knott - howard@fleet.ie