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The Journal

27 mei 2008

Ferry operator to axe Newcastle to Norway route

By Karen Dent, The Journal

AROUND 350 people are set to lose their jobs after DFDS Seaways announced it was axing its Newcastle to Norway route.

The Danish company, which took over the loss making service from the North East to the Western Norwegian ports of Stavanger, Haugesund and Bergen in 2006, will close the route on September 1.

Around 270 staff on the MS Queen of Scandinavia ship - 72 of whom are UK-based and some of whom are on time limited contracts - plus 70 land-based jobs in the UK, Norway and Denmark will go. Most of the affected staff are from the UK and Denmark but DFDS UK managing director John Crummie said he could not comment on how many were from the North East while a consultation with staff was going on. The Danish-owned company had tried to turn around loss-making route which it took over from Norwegian company Fjordline, by changing the tonnage, on board crewing and service.

But Mr Crummie said: "Over the last couple of years there have been a couple of business trend: skyrocketing oil prices have doubled year-on-year.

"There is is general overcapacity in the market, with a combination of air and sea, and particularly competition in Norway, which has meant a downward pressure on volumes and average prices.

"We are clearly into a downward part of the economic cycle and we didn’t see the basis of a viable route."

See tomorrow's Journal for more on this story.


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