Isle of Man - Liverpool container service finished - Official
10th February, 2011
An official press release from Peter Dohle, the parent company of local shipping company Mezeron Ltd of Ramsey, have today, Thursday 10th February 2011, announced that their container service between the UK and the Isle of Man will cease operations on 19th February.
The Steam Packet supposedly lost 15 per cent of its freight business when Mezeron launched its direct service to and from Liverpool in October last year, using two chartered Estonian-registered vessels, the Kalana and the Kurkse.
Dohle’s Joerg Vanselow, said in a statement:"This project was always ambitious and I make no apology for that. Unfortunately on this occasion we did not see the volume growth expected and necessary to continue this particular service profitably."
It would seem that Dohle relied on their transport partner to sell the service to potential customers as the route needed growth to sustain it. That growth simply never happened with the great majority of customers and hauliers remaining with the much more dependable Steam Packet service, many with the feeling that the container service would be short lived and unreliable, they have been proven correct. The vessels sailed with an average of 12 containers per trip which only represents 10% of their capacity with frequent late arrivals and no arrivals at all on at least 5 days since inception of the service.
Having seen various companies make attempts to establish a rival freight service, we still remain firmly convinced that there is insufficient freight volume to sustain two shipping lines. The most famous battle was in the early 80's when the Steam Packet and Manx Line went head to head and the Steam Packet emerged the winner but under new ownership.
When someone with money meets someone with experience, the person with experience gets the money and the person with the money gets the experience. There is no substitute for experience.
