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Ferry agent bucks the trend in stagnant market…

[ January 22, 2020   //   ]

Ferry booking agent Freightlink says that it has seen strong growth in 2019 despite downward market trends.

In the year up to and including September 2019, overall volumes of accompanied and unaccompanied units using short-sea ferry routes to and from the south east Kent ports and terminals declined by 4.6% – equivalent to a shortfall of over 125,000 units for the year to date. Since 2017, volumes to September 2019 have declined on these routes by 5.4% which translates to well over 200,000 unit movements in the past two years.

Western Channel routes in general are also underperforming by around 4% this year, but Irish Sea routes have shown greater resilience with 1% growth up to September. Although the numbers are very small by comparison, direct services between Ireland and Continental Europe are buoyant too.  Freightlink director Mark Stephens, comments: “There are many reasons for this market contraction, but it is clear that Brexit uncertainty has played a major part in constraining trade between mainland Europe and the UK and vice versa. However, at Freightlink we have bucked the trend and maintained our growth levels well into double-digit figures during this period. We expect to see this direction of improvement continue.”

Prior to the vote to leave the EU market, growth year on year had generally been in positive territory.

Freightlink has meanwhile witnessed a dynamic change whilst the future trading relationship between the UK and the EU is being determined. “We are extremely pleased with our results against this tough market backdrop”, continued Stephens. “To have substantially increased our market share during these challenging times speaks volumes of the investments we have continued to make to provide an extremely attractive one-stop trading point for our clients using the Channel Tunnel and a multitude of ferry services across Europe.”

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