Ferries bite back as travel share rises

FERRY travel is on the increase as people become disgruntled with air travel.

The Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO) has said aggressive marketing and promotional campaigns by the major sea carriers, combined with delays at airports because of ongoing security threats may be weaning passengers back to car ferries.

Director of the IMDO Glenn Murphy said: “There is renewed optimism in the ferry sector. Over the last 10 years the industry has lost almost 1.1 million passengers but things seems to be changing. People, especially families, are using ferries instead of planes to avoid delays at airports and having to pay for extra baggage.

“The ferry companies are trying to compete in a very difficult market but they have targeted sectors that the airlines can not, such as luxury travel. Many operators are making significant changes to their operators to compete with low-cost carriers and are adopting the low-cost model to their own operations.

From 1997-2006 the number of passengers travelling by ferry declined 25% resulting in the Ireland– Britain ferry market share declining 11%.

Overall the number of passengers travelling by ferry has dropped from 3.5 million passengers in 2005 to just over 3 million in 2006.

On the Dun Laoghaire– Holyhead route passenger numbers have declined 10% but passenger numbers on the Dublin–Holyhead (Stena Seatrader) has increased by 22%.

Irish Ferries sales manager Declan Mescall, whose passenger numbers were down 5% in 2006, said: “For the last few months there has been a definite shift away from air towards ferry travel. People seem to be fed-up with the hassles attached to air travel. We had quite a battle for some time but it looks like we’re eventually beginning to win.”