Scandanavian sailings? (Graham Irvine)
I call on all six prospective bidders for the Northern Isles ferry services contract to enlighten the island residents on their position with regard to possible sailings to Scandinavia.
Would they actively promote this option, would they lobby the Scottish government to permit the extra sailings and would they want to carry out the sailings if demand was evident?
The Scottish government has made no mention of this option in the new ferry tender, once again failing to actively promote our islands’ business opportunities, social inclusion and heritage which are claimed to be the aims in the tender document. Thus effectively marginalising our islands.
With continual monetary strife in the European zone I would expect a forward-thinking government to actively increase trade links with our relatively unscathed Scandinavian neighbours at virtually no extra cost.
Any comments from the Scottish government clarifying its reasoning would be much appreciated.
Graham Irvine
Whiteness.
Ian Hornby
There would be big demand from norwegians if this link was re-established, Norway have had no direct ferry link with UK for over 3 years (when DFDS stopped the Newcastle to Stavanger route, this route was run 3 times a week and was packed solid in summer, it’s demise was that it ran the same schedule in the winter when demand was low).
I’ve worked on Norway for over 3 years and norwegians love the links to the UK, SAS, Wideroe, Eastern airways run six flights a day into Aberdeen alone, SAS with 737’s have no spare seats at weekends.
The financial crisis has not hit Norway like many countries and most folk are still very prosperous.
It makes no sense to not run the North boat once a week into Bergen during the summer. The beer sales alone on the boat would pay for the fuel……
andrew johnson
i agree with Ian Hornby – the problem is link to norway – currently only we have to drive to harwich to demark then change to any ferries eg to norway (bergen on fjord line)
we need links to iceland from UK because there no way to travel on long distances with two changes – i want see a better service for all people not to cut off the links