Olau Line scraps Sheerness-Vlissingen ferry
Immo Huneke
I read in the newspaper yesterday that Olau Line are ending over 100 years
of ferry service between Sheerness in Kent and Vlissingen in the
Netherlands, by selling the Olau Britannia and Olau Hollandia superferries
to P&O, who will use them on the Portsmouth-Le Havre run.
My family and I are quite upset by Olau's sudden decision, which appears to
have been caused by a labour dispute with their German crews. I have
written to the company to express our disappointment at their apparently
precipitate action.
If you would like to do the same (perhaps in a bid to change their minds
and continue to operate the service after all), here's the address:
Olau Line (UK) Ltd.
Olau Line Terminal
Sheerness
Kent ME12 1SN
(fax: 0795 666 919)
OHG Olau Line
Mattentwiete 8
20457 Hamburg
Germany
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Immo Huneke
> I read in the newspaper yesterday that Olau Line are ending over 100 years
> of ferry service between Sheerness in Kent and Vlissingen in the
> Netherlands, by selling the Olau Britannia and Olau Hollandia superferries
> to P&O, who will use them on the Portsmouth-Le Havre run.
>
> My family and I are quite upset by Olau's sudden decision, which appears to
> have been caused by a labour dispute with their German crews. I have
> written to the company to express our disappointment at their apparently
> precipitate action.
>
> If you would like to do the same (perhaps in a bid to change their minds
> and continue to operate the service after all), here's the address:
>
> Olau Line (UK) Ltd.
> Olau Line Terminal
> Sheerness
> Kent ME12 1SN
> (fax: 0795 666 919)
>
> OHG Olau Line
> Mattentwiete 8
> 20457 Hamburg
> Germany
>
By return, Olau wrote:
As you can imagine, the staff in both Vlissingen and Sheerness are
devastated by the news that both our ships... are to be taken off our route
as from mid-May of this year and leased to P&O...
The decision has apparently been forced on the shareholders of Olau Line by
the German Union and Works Council, and after that date they are no longer
allowed to participate in this ferry service. However, as we have no ships,
that in effect means we have no service. It is a great shame that Olau Line
has to come to an end because of political pressure in Germany.
Nevertheless, the Management here in Sheerness and in Vlissingen are
looking at ways of keeping the line open, but the chances of this are very
slim...
[A press release dated 23 March hardly makes things any clearer:
...meetings came after the service was returned to normal, following a week
long strike by German crew aboard the Olau Hollandia ferry.
The Directors said that as a result of an agreement with OTV, the German
transport union, Olau's shareholders were now prevented from participating
in running the service between Sheerness and Vlissingen. All crew aboard
the two vessels are to be made redundant. The ships are to be chartered to
another ferry operator. They will leave the route some time after May 15...
Bookings are still being taken until May 3.
Olau's UK General Manager, Case Rietkerk, said he was amazed and saddened
by the announcement. "The route remains viable. We have excellent staff and
we have been successful for 19 years. The unions have succeeded in doing
what our competitors never could.
The management here in the UK is actively seeking a third party to take
over the route. We have a good business, but time is very short and because
of that we are not very optimistic".
]
I continue to be mystified by this. What sort of an agreement can it be
that prevents one ferry operator from operating a route, making all its
employees redundant, but leaves the field wide open for another one?
Still, if you know of someone with a couple of passenger/car ferries
knocking about doing nothing, perhaps you would let them know what's going
on ;-)