A bold move in the midst of a crisis from short sea freight operator CLdN has been announced, starting the first pure RoRo-service in a triangle trade between Santander (ES), Liverpool (UK) and Dublin (IE). With effect from week 25 2020, CLdN will operate one sailing per week from Santander to Liverpool, followed by calling Dublin. The schedule has been created very agile, enabling the vessel to make additional Landbridge calls between Liverpool and Dublin before returning to Santander. Having recently increased frequency and capacity on CLdN’s Irish and UK services from the continent, the company is now expanding its network by connecting Spain directly to the UK and Ireland, which bucks the trend of ships being removed from service or laid up during the COVID crisis and without subsidy of any kind.
With all cargoes being moved in an unaccompanied mode (i.e. without truck-driver) on pure freight ferries, CLdN does not have the current burden of restrictive measures put in place by authorities relating to driver or passengers transport. This new offering will provide a very green and efficient solution to the alternatives, cutting down on excessive road and sea miles for the trailer business especially, by following the shortest, most direct route and avoiding channel and road trips.
CLdN in the past few years has invested heavily in a fleet of modern vessels with environmentally friendly credentials offering high capacities for freight crossing the North Sea. As the company is still able to maintain its regular sailing schedules on all routes, CLdN is there to serve the market with a robust and reliable product during this challenging period. With a network of short sea services, connecting Rotterdam (NL) and Zeebrugge (BE) to London (UK), Humberside (UK), Dublin (IE), Cork (IE) as well as Santander, (ES), Porto (PT) Gothenburg (SE) and Esbjerg (DK), CLdN plays an essential part in the logistics of all types of goods. This service expansion includes the increased coverage of direct shipment possibilities from Iberia to Uk and Ireland. A CLdN spokesman commented: “We have observed an increasing demand from trailer, container and project cargo operators for a direct connection from Iberia to the Uk and Ireland in certain markets.
Opening the first pure RoRo alternative on this route, provides our customers to optimize usage of their assets because of improved lead-times compared to current transshipment or Channel tunnel routes. Whilst our vessels are designed to move four product groups, being trailers, containers, project cargo and finished vehicles, all industries and cargo types can gain advantage from this service. Besides the schedule has been setup in such a way, that we are able to execute Landbridge sailings between Liverpool and Dublin also. Increasing unaccompanied freight capacity between the UK and Ireland at the same time, proving freight routes can flourish without any governmental aid and add another route which is Brexit resilient.”
Source: CLdN
