Eurotunnel Announces Half-Price Freight Fees
In a move to try and seize market share from ferry operators, Freight International has learnt that Eurotunnel is to slash the costs it levies on freight using the Channel Tunnel. The current charge is, on average, £6,000 per train of freight, but, with effect from January 2008, this will reduce to £3,000.
Eurotunnel stated that the freight division of its business had seen a steady declines over the past few years. In 1997, three million tonnes were carried, but, ten years down the line, this has plummeted to a little over one million. Today’s announcement is but part of a wider effort through which Eurotunnel is aiming to transform its fortunes.
Eurotunnel attributes the drop in volume of freight carried in the past decade to an ever-widening gap in respect of how its prices compare to those offered by ferry firms. Steeper security charges, it said, were one contributory factor to this chasm.
With the new reductions, said the company, it believed “considerable potential” now existed for it to get back in the frame.
In the most recently available data, Eurotunnel’s net losses for the period January-June 2007 were quoted at 32 million Euros. In the same six month period a year earlier, the loss figure was 105 million Euros.
Earlier in 2006, Eurotunnel was able to reduce its debt by half, after a lengthy fight with creditors.
Groupe Eurotunnel SA’s Chairman and Chief Executive Jacques Gounon described the revised freight charge terms as a “...voluntary and pragmatic strategy”. He added “..backed by our existing railway partners and by the British government, (the strategy) shows that Eurotunnel is strongly committed to the re-launch of cross-Channel rail-freight”.
Source – Freight International’s Assistant Editor
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