October 22, 2001 High speed car ferry operator Hoverspeed, who bucked the market trend during the April, May, June period of 2001 with increased vehicle carryings, has continued to grow its vehicle market with a further increase in the third quarter - July, August, September - on the key short sea route to Calais. Growth in Hoverspeed's vehicle business via Calais during this peak season period, showed a dramatic 45.3% rise in vehicle carryings on the Dover - Calais route to 133,585 in 2001 compared to 91,916 during the same period last year. Hoverspeed has introduced major developments to its services in 2001 and more significantly has concentrated its short sea operations onto the Dover - Calais route. Providing the frequency of an hourly service and extra capacity to meet customer demand, have combined to help Hoverspeed perform well in a highly competitive market, as Managing Director, Geoffrey Ede explains. "In what has been a very tough trading year for the cross channel industry, these are very positive results for Hoverspeed. Our emphasis has been focused on providing a unique style of product and our fleet transformation in 2001 on the Dover routes, has clearly appealed to customers preferring to cross the channel via our exclusive, high speed services." In the 2001 peak season, Hoverspeed operated a combined fleet of Seacat and Superseacat high speed car ferries on three routes, Dover - Calais (10 return sailings daily), Dover - Ostend (three return sailings daily) and the seasonal Newhaven - Dieppe service (three return sailings daily).Press Release Media contact: Nick Stevens, Public Relations Manager Telephone: (01304) 865170 |