TEXT: STEVE ROMAN PHOTO: JUHA MYLLYMÄKI

Transcription

1 TEXT: STEVE ROMAN PHOTO: JUHA MYLLYMÄKI [REPORTAGE] 16 Twentyfour

2 [ AFRICA AMERICAS ASIA EUROPE OCEANIA ] reportage Driven largely by Finnish bargain hunting, passenger numbers on the Helsinki-Tallinn sea lane topped 8 million last year. But this impressive volume doesn t necessarily translate into smooth sailing for ferry operators, who have to find novel ways to win clients and control costs in their pitched battle over market share. THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC Twentyfour

3 IF YOU HAD SAID IN THE 90S THAT THERE WOULD BE 8 MILLION TRAVELLERS A YEAR BETWEEN FINLAND AND ESTONIA, YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO A MADHOUSE. On the narrow streets of Tallinn s medieval Old Town, the Finnish presence is impossible to miss. Each weekend, tens of thousands make the 82-kilometre ferry crossing from Helsinki, lured partly by the city s charm, but mostly by Estonia s lower prices on everything from alcohol and restaurant meals to manicures and prescription glasses. The trip takes as little as two hours. With no border controls, no currency exchange needed and Finnish widely understood by the locals, it s easy to see why so many are willing to spring for the moderately priced ferry ticket. Finnish tourists aren t the only customers on the line, of course. Plenty of other Finns make the crossing for business and personal reasons, while Estonians, who account for around 30% of the passenger traffic, travel northward for shopping and work. And there are always the third-country tourists travelling through the region. From this mixed group of shoppers, revellers, commuters and explorers, four ferry operators compete to earn cash on a line worth over EUR 1 billion annually. But it s a high-stakes business requiring huge investments. For starters, Olli-Pekka Hilmola, a professor of industrial engineering and management at Finland s Lappeenranta University of Technology focusing on logistics, points out that a new, state-of-the-art ship costs at least EUR 150 million. With such an immense startup cost, profits are by no means guaranteed. In this game, simply transporting bodies from A to B at the lowest price isn t nearly enough for success. Passengers expect comfort, entertainment and other extras. Most of the ships on the line are large RoPax vessels that are designed for passengers as well as truck-laden cargo (for which this is a major route). Akin to cruise ships, they re packed with restaurants, bars and shops, all of which add an extra revenue channel for the operators as well as boost the quality of experience for the passengers an important aspect of customer satisfaction and retention. Operators also partner with land-based businesses in both countries to offer specially priced hotel packages and discounts at popular attractions. These add-on services, where costs are relatively stable, have proved essential for operators, especially at times when fuel prices peak. Margins in this business are very low and moving space is limited. The companies are trying to offer more and more services and experiences, not only on the sea route, but also as part of the whole trip, to avoid fluctuations in fuel and other input factors. I have been in some seminars where these companies have said that it s the only way to survive, Hilmola said. The leading company on the line, the Estonia-based giant Tallink, goes the farthest in offering land-based extras. Passengers disembarking in Tallinn can jump into a Tallink-branded taxi now the city s largest taxi company. They can also opt to stay in Tallink s own hotel in the city centre or in its spa and conference hotel, located just a few steps from the harbour. It s a value chain, said Tallink CEO Janek Stalmeister. We work hard to get our customers, and we want the benefit of having contact with them, those who are already buying our services, to be able to offer them even more of our services. In the end, according to Stalmeister, getting ahead is all about customer numbers. Everybody does have their shares, but passenger shipping is a volume business. Over the years, the costs have gone up much faster than the countries economies. So, therefore, the only way to continue making good money is to get more customers, not simply to get the customers to spend more money or [raise] the ticket prices, he said. RUN FASTER, RUN CHEAPER Hilmola attributes Tallink s dominant position on the route to large investments it made a decade ago, transforming the business by adding the line s first fast ships that could operate year-round. Prior to the mid-2000s, the ice-class ferries took an arduous four hours to make the crossing only during the summer months was it possible to cross in less than two hours. So the new Tallink ships changed the game by creating the first practical year-round commute. They have really deserved all the results that have followed in recent years. Tallink is able to offer adequate capacity, high frequency and lead-time to its customers. This has been a powerful combination to attract customers both in passengers and freight, he said. As Stalmeister describes it, fuel, salaries and other costs have shot up over the past 15 years, while ticket prices have remained relatively low. The resulting squeeze has led to a shift on the line towards reducing the number of ships while increasing capacities. We have fewer ships, but bigger and higher-standard ships. 18 Twentyfour

4 The spire of St Olaf s Church dominates the cityscape of Tallinn. Twentyfour

5 MARGINS IN THIS BUSINESS ARE VERY LOW AND MOVING SPACE IS LIMITED. Here, a few of the millions of passengers who visit each year disembark from a ferry. 20 Twentyfour

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7 Tallink s new dual-fuel ferry will have two-level loading on its car deck, to keep turnaround time to the current one hour. 22 Twentyfour

8 JUST TO STAND WITH THE COMPETITION, WE NEED A MORE EFFICIENT SHIP. ILLUSTRATION: MEYER TURKU OY Efficiency is the word that describes Tallink s new LNG-powered ferry the best. The shops add an extra revenue channel for the operators as well as boost the quality of experience for the passengers. Therefore, we have been able to optimize the cost side and take more passengers on each voyage, he said. Hilmola noted that speed and turnaround time at the ports are also critical factors in keeping costs down. Since staff and electricity costs are fixed, to allow this expensive ship to reach the highest possible utilization level means the number of round trips should be as high as possible. This year, all four competitors are no doubt looking for every opportunity to trim costs and boost efficiency as new SECA area emissions requirements, which came into effect on 1 January, mean a compulsory reduction in sulphur output from 1% to 0.1%. For Tallink and others, the switch to low-sulphur fuel has meant a 50% jump in fuel costs, a change that essentially cancelled out the benefits of last year s drop in oil prices. Operators have the option of continuing to use high-sulphur fuel after installing exhaust scrubbers, but either way, there s a cost involved. NEW TECHNOLOGIES Faced with ever-tightening emissions requirements and rivalry to keep its competitive edge, Tallink recently made the decision to change tack all together. Late last year it put in an order with the Meyer Turku shipyard in Finland for what will be the first LNG-powered ferry on the Helsinki-Tallinn line. The fast RoPax ferry, to be delivered to Tallink in 2017, will feature Wärtsilä dual-fuel engines that will automatically switch to a fuel oil backup if there s any interruption in LNG supply. Jukka Paananen, general manager for sales at Wärtsilä, noted that LNG now has a huge advantage over more traditional fuels, as its sulphur content is practically zero while other controlled emissions levels are lower as well. The new environmental requirements are really defining how the ship machinery and propulsion should look, he said. Operators just cannot continue operation, or economical operation, of their existing fleets without doing any modifications. So there must be a plan for how to modify the existing fleet, or sooner or later they must get rid of the old fleet and try to replace it with new ships that fulfil the environmental regulations from day one. In addition to being environmentally friendly, the new ship will have other technical advantages that should help Tallink compete, said Tarvi-Carlos Tuulik, Tallink s CEO for Ship Management. Just to stand with the competition, we need a more efficient ship and one that s more attractive for the passengers, he said, mentioning a more efficient hull design, better use of passenger and cargo areas and a propulsion system should make it more comfortable to ride than past models. With a passenger capacity of 2800, it can carry about a third more people in one go than Tallink s current shuttles. And with the help of two-level loading on its car deck, the plan is to keep turnaround time to the current one hour. Tuulik said that the company s decision to go the LNG route was based an analysis of trends in the marine sector. At the moment, LNG seems to be the future, he said. But being a pioneer isn t always easy, or cheap. The ship s EUR 230 million price tag is roughly 60 million higher than a conventional ship would cost, Hilmola estimated, though he predicts that the price will come down as the technology matures. Then there s the fuel storage question. With no LNG bunkering currently available in either Helsinki or Tallinn, a facility will have to be built. Whether that will be a Tallink-borne cost or some sort of partnership is still unclear. Like with LNG everywhere, it s a chicken-and-egg problem, Tuulik said. With no bunkering, nobody will want to switch to LNG. With no users, no bunkering option will be created. Something has to give. WATCHING THE CURRENTS Tallink is confident that, once the infrastructure problems are solved, LNG will gradually become more prevalent on the Helsinki-Tallinn line. Longer-term trends for the route are, naturally, harder to gauge. Plotting the recent trajectories, Hilmola predicted that passenger numbers on the line soon will plateau. But cargo traffic, he pointed out, has been booming since 2009 and will likely continue to grow as higher marine fuel prices push Finnish logistics companies to seek shorter sea routes on their paths to Central Europe and beyond. There will be roadblocks to this growth, he said. The harbour areas in downtown Tallinn and Helsinki are already becoming crowded with big rigs, and the streets can handle Twentyfour

9 only so much traffic. As in the past, the next game-changer for the Helsinki-Tallinn route will likely require heavy investment. That change might be improved facilities for container traffic. It might even be the long-discussed and muchmaligned idea to build an undersea railway tunnel beneath the two capitals. Many consider the latter idea laughable, considering that it would be twice the length of the Channel Tunnel and cost billions. However, Hilmola pointed out that, with rising fuel costs, such a rail option could eventually be the best way to link Finnish exporters to outside markets. And ferry operators would not need to worry, he said. The Channel Tunnel example shows that a tunnel can effectively coexist with ferry operations. If you had been standing in the Tallinn seaport in the early 90s, and if you had said there would be 8 million travellers a year between Finland and Estonia, you would have been taken to a madhouse, Hilmola said. Of course, it s difficult to justify, but that s the kind of vision we need now. As far as passenger travel goes, the medium-term outlook for the Helsinki-Tallinn line looks fairly secure. So long as large enough price differences exist between Finland and Estonia, the bargain-hunters will continue to flow, and the ferry operators will continue to battle for their business. Just a few hours from Helsinki, Tallinn shows no signs of losing the Finns love. 24 Twentyfour

10 THE NEW ENVIRONMENTAL REQUIREMENTS ARE REALLY DEFINING HOW THE SHIP MACHINERY AND PROPULSION SHOULD LOOK. Twentyfour

11 CARVING THE PIE TALLINK IS THE CLEAR front-runner in the Helsinki-Tallinn race, scooping up 55% of market share last year, according to its own data. Large Finnish rival Viking Line is a major force on Finland-Sweden routes and was the first operator in the Baltic to implement LNG technology on one of its ferries, the Viking Grace. However, Viking controls only about a quarter of the Helsinki-Tallinn market. Close behind it is another Finnish company, Eckerö Line, followed by Linda Line, which offers smaller, slightly faster catamarans for passengers only. As Viking and Eckerö s ferries make the round trip only two to three times per day compared with Tallink s seven, they have to compete mainly on price. Linda Line offers nearly the frequency of Tallink with a faster journey time. However, its catamarans can t take cars or trucks aboard or operate outside of the eastern Baltic s few warm months. No matter their relative market positions and capacities, each of the operators has to work hard to maintain its share of the market in an atmosphere of ever-rising costs. AT THE MOMENT, LNG SEEMS TO BE THE FUTURE. Through a remote internet connection the crew can get instant techical support onboard. Passenger comfort combined with efficiency could be the winning formula. 26 Twentyfour

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