Extra ferry service

[simonhill]

Good point Andy. Probably worth a new post where it can be discussed properly.

[irc]

I think you are forgetting a couple of things here. Yes flu does kill thousands but not the thousands we are talking about with covid. Flu does hospitalise so many people. The number of people who need any hospital treatment with flu is tiny. It also rarely becomes an epidemic or pandemic.

I'd suggest flu does kill thousands.

Public Health England estimates that on average 17,000 people have died from the flu in England annually between 2014/15 and 2018/19. However, the yearly deaths vary widely from a high of 28,330 in 2014/15 to a low of 1,692 in 2018/19. Public Health England does not publish a mortality rate for the flu.

https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus ... influenza/

Covid will only kill 10s of thousands this year because it is new. By next year many of those vulnerable to it will have already died. Once Covid is an extablished virus many people will have immunity. Yes it is much worse than flu this year. That won't be true a few years ahead.

Meanwhile a cancer specialist estimates the lockdown will kill more people than Covid. We need to get the country moving agaiun rather than sitting frozen, startled in the headllights of Covid.


https://www.itv.com/news/2020-04-22/60- ... s-dilemma/

[Vorpal]

Maybe but so far, this pandemic is spelling disaster for the Ro-Ro ferry industry especially on routes where the bulk of the profit comes from tourist traffic.

In an unbelievable move, Stena (regarded as a highly efficient player in the ferry industry) cut a historically important route between Denmark and Norway. Tallink operating in the Baltic is going to need state aid - so too Tirennia, an operator in the Med. Already, Stena and Irish Ferries have got emergency government subsidies for operating their routes between Ireland and UK.

It's not an unbelieveable move. That ferry route was struggling to compete with the Oslo - Copenhagen route & the fast ferry between Larvik and Hirtshals. The fast (Color line)ferry from Larvik to Hirtshals takes about 4 hours, so driving from Oslo, waiting for the ferry, and disembarking on the other side, put the whole journey at 6 to 6.5 hours. The Oslo - Frederikshavn ferry takes about 10 hours.

[Vorpal]

I think you are forgetting a couple of things here. Yes flu does kill thousands but not the thousands we are talking about with covid. Flu does hospitalise so many people. The number of people who need any hospital treatment with flu is tiny. It also rarely becomes an epidemic or pandemic.

I'd suggest flu does kill thousands.

Public Health England estimates that on average 17,000 people have died from the flu in England annually between 2014/15 and 2018/19. However, the yearly deaths vary widely from a high of 28,330 in 2014/15 to a low of 1,692 in 2018/19. Public Health England does not publish a mortality rate for the flu.

https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus ... influenza/

Covid will only kill 10s of thousands this year because it is new. By next year many of those vulnerable to it will have already died. Once Covid is an extablished virus many people will have immunity. Yes it is much worse than flu this year. That won't be true a few years ahead.

Meanwhile a cancer specialist estimates the lockdown will kill more people than Covid. We need to get the country moving agaiun rather than sitting frozen, startled in the headllights of Covid.


https://www.itv.com/news/2020-04-22/60- ... s-dilemma/

Can we save it for one of the COVID-19 threads, please?

[simonhill]

Maybe we need a Touring forum where we can discuss Touring.

[PH]

Maybe we need a Touring forum where we can discuss Touring.

I don't know how you could do so.
If I tour, when I tour, how I tour, where I tour, who I tour with, how I get there... These are all, to a huge degree, covid questions. The question at the start of this thread is broached with a direct reference.
I think there's zero chance of a new cross channel ferry, it might appeal in the short term while people are nervous about the close proximity when flying and even train and coach travel, but as soon as people feel it's safe to do so, and there's several scenarios where that comes about, they'll be back to whatever they were doing before, if they can still afford it. I can't imagine any operator starting a service they didn't see a long term prospect for.

[st599_uk]

Today P&O are announcing 1100 redundancies (despite taking £150M in emergency cash to keep oeprating)

I doubt there's much need for extra capacity.

[PDQ Mobile]

Today P&O are announcing 1100 redundancies (despite taking £150M in emergency cash to keep oeprating)

I doubt there's much need for extra capacity.

Yep and given that Dover voted Leave in the Referendum and that business decisions are based on multiple factors, should we be surprised?
Feet and Shooting spring to mind.

[Cyril Haearn]

P+O and others employ(ed) lots of cheap labour (from the Phillipines?) but I read that workers in Hull and Dover were to be released