Breaking news: Competition Appeal Tribunal rejects Eurotunnel's appeal to continue with MyFerryLink service

I've written about this before in 2013 when the Competition Commission first got involved and with an update in early 2014, but the long and the short of it is that the Competition Commission decided that Eurotunnel's acquisition of SeaFrance assets and setting up MyFerryLink created unfair competition on the Dover/Calais straights that when combined with Eurotunnel's undersea traffic would create a market dominance.
Eurotunnel has appealed this decision at several junctures including the Competition Appeal Tribune and today they finally reached the end of the road as the Eurotunnel Judgement was handed down by the C.A.T.

In essence the C.A.T. has rejected all of Eurotunnel's claims and as such the original Competition and Markets Authority appeal decision that Eurotunnel must cease MyFerryLink operations within 6 months stands.

Eurotunnel's press release talks of the 'illogical' nature of the CMA decision but confirms that MyFerryLink will now be put up for sale. MyFerryLink is still not making a profit (despite Eurotunnel claiming its commercial success) so be interesting to see whether one of the existing ferry companies (DFDS or P&O) makes a bid - which will surely get referred to the CMA as well - or whether a new entrant wants to join the market.

As pointed out by Kent Online, up to 600 jobs could be affected with the closure of MyFerryLink if a buyer cannot be found.

MFL is still operating and taking bookings, even just now giving out sailing details and prices when I tried for Autumn 2015, but presumably this will cease.

MyFerryLink rebranding

Surely not a date-related activity (hint: look at the date) from MyFerryLink who have just announced their rebranding to MyFerretLink:

Of course the Competition Commission have been investigating Eurotunnel's purchase of SeaFrance vessels to form MyFerryLink since October 2012, which has been back and forth since then with the CC provisionally confirming that it does have jurisdiction in the Eurotunnel/MyFerryLink case on the basis that Eurotunnel acquired the SeaFrance vessels and staff and was able to start up MyFerryLink rapidly almost as a going concern. Eurotunnel responded with incomprehension of the Competition Committee provisional ruling (perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly), ending ominously with "if prior to its final decision the Competition Commission does not wish to review its perspective on the competition which exists across the Strait of Dover in the light of the current reality, Groupe Eurotunnel will withdraw its ferries from the Channel".

So the jury is still out on that one, but back to MFL, is this a cynical attempt by Eurotunnel/MyFerryLink to hide their new identity? Who knows, but at least they did go to the trouble of an amusing 30 second MyFerretlink video, giving away free cuddly ferrets and announcing that you can save £29 and take your ferret across the channel for free during April!

See also Dover Express's article on rebranding of MyFerryLink to MyFerretLink.

There's a barney brewing above and below the Straits of Dover

Changing topic slightly, I've been following with interest recent developments in the emerging spat between Eurotunnel and the Competition Commission over the recently launched MyFerryLink.

Last summer I wrote about SeaFrance going into liquidation and then in June Eurotunnel announced that they had bought 2 of the 3 defunct SeaFrance vessels, spending €65m in the process, and in August I included photos of their nearly launched new Dover/Calais service named MyFerryLink.

Some might think it odd that the undersea channel tunnel ferry operator is funding what is effect a direct competitor to Eurotunnel whose ferry boats will carry freight and passengers over a pretty much identical route.

P&O and DFDS as the other two incumbent Dover/Calais ferry operators at this point cried "foul" and their unhappiness was further intensified when Eurotunnel considered bidding for the concession to run Boulogne and Calais ferry ports as well.

In October 2012 the whole Eurotunnel/SeaFrance takeover was referred for investigation to the Competition Commission. Preliminary findings from the Competition Commission's investigation into Eurotunnel's actions were that Eurotunnel acquired the boats to prevent DFDS doing so and that "the transaction may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition in the freight and passenger markets. This could be expected to lead to an increase in the prices charged".

The Competition Commission's recommended remedy for the Eurotunnel/SeaFrance issue is for Eurotunnel to dis-invest in MFL (i.e. sell the boats), but the possibility of P&O investing in its place was also rejected as being another conflict of interest.

Eurotunnel not surprisingly contests this point of view and in an interview with ThisIsKent, the chairman and chief executive officer of Groupe Eurotunnel said: "Eurotunnel intends to continue to work with the Competition Commission to allay the concerns raised by existing ferry operators and to demonstrate that the creation of MyFerryLink is a good thing for the market as it is both pro-customer and pro-competition".

Today Eurotunnel published their formal response to the Competition Commission's report, saying that:

• Groupe Eurotunnel took part in an open and transparent tender process for the assets of the defunct company, and put forward the best offer
• The acquisition was approved by the French Competition Authorities, subject to some restrictions including a requirement not to market a bundle of Tunnel/Ferry options
• Eurotunnel considers the maritime activities of MyFerryLink to be complementary to those of Le Shuttle, in particular for the new breed of super-large lorries that won't fit onto the tunnel trains
• Eurotunnel does not envisage the activity putting the two incumbent operators at risk.

The CC's deadline for resolution of the issue is currently set at 22nd of April so there will no doubt be further spats and press releases over the forthcoming month.

One news item that the Competition Commission will undoubtedly take into account when coming to their final ruling is that for the first time in Eurotunnel's 19 year history, official Government statistics reveal that it outperformed the ferries. When the tunnel was first built it was predicted that the quicker undersea route would serve as the death-knell for the ferry operators, but its taken all this time for rail passenger numbers to overtake the ferry operators - in 2012, 20 million people used Le Shuttle or Eurostar services, compared to 19.7m travelling by sea.

Ferry pricing peculiarities

I'm off to our Brittany Holiday Gite next week, a combination of using up my remaining holiday allowance from work and taking the opportunity to go and do some more work. I've an accumulation of things to take over to the Gite since we were last over there in August 2012 and so by going it'll clear up some space in the garage as well.

Some of the ferry companies (notably Brittany Ferries and LD Lines) are running a lesser service with not all routes running and a service not being run every day, and having had a quick look at their sites I didn't find any crossings I fancied.

So it was down to the shorter Dover/Calais or Dover/Dunkerque routes with P&O, DFDS (Norfolk Line as was), and newcomer MyFerryLink who took over the SeaFrance boats in late summer last year.

I wanted to go out early on Saturday morning so I could drive down through France during the day and call in at Leroy Merlin to buy some 2-core 6mm mains cable for the oven in our slowly-being-converted-second-Gite, and then return back on Friday night late so we didn't have to rush out of the Gite and we'd be back home in time for youngest son Jack's birthday party on the Saturday.

P&O's service in February is roughly once an hour, and I quite fancied going out on one of their new massive €360m super-ferries, now named Spirit of Britain and Spirit of France after they were forced to withdraw from cashing in on the Olympic theme with the originally chosen names of Olympic Spirit and Olympic Pride.
P&O wanted £82 for the return crossing (£45 outbound and £37 return), but with a £4 supplement if I used a credit card.

Next up I tried DFDS who are now sharing boats with LD Lines and are sailing again about every hour, but two out of every 3 boats go to Dunkerque rather than Calais. It doesn't makea lot of difference but Dunkerque is a slightly longer crossing and slightly further autoroute drive, so a Calais crossing is preferable.
Unfortunately at the time I wanted to go DFDS were operating only a Dunkerque sailing, and wanted a slightly cheaper £74 for the return journey (£39 out and £35 return) with the option to pay by paypal for no credit card fees.

Last up was MyFerryLink who with only two boats (Rodin and Berlioz) are running the smallest number of crossings, only 5 crossings each way each day between Dover and Calais.
MyFerryLink offered to take me for £69 return (£34 out and £35 return) with no credit card surcharges.

Remember all these crossings were on the same dates and as near as I could get the same time of day, so it shows the value of shopping around.

In the end I decided that the MFL outbound sailing and the DFDS inbound sailing offered the best timings for me and it was with some trepidation I searched for the single journey prices.

Sometimes you find that the return prices are much cheaper than the single prices, especially if the return journey is completed with a certain number of days and I have heard that it can even be cheaper to buy a return and not use the return ticket although I've always been to scared that the ferry company would then surcharge the full single ticket price if I misused the return ticket in this way.

Anyway, it wasn't a problem this time, My Ferry Link's single ticket price to Calais was still £34 with no surcharges so job done, ferry booked.

DFDS however did surprise me. The return journey was coming out at £74 (made up of £39 for the outward leg and £35 for the return leg from France), but when I went to book just a single ticket from Calais to Dover they only wanted £33 to take me one way ! Why it should cost £2 more to sail on the same boat for a return journey instead of a single, I don't know, but I'm happy to have made the saving, and the all-in price came out at a very respectable £67 for the two ferry trips.

How peculiar !

MyFerryLink starts service, taking over SeaFrance's vessels

You may recall that I wrote back in June about the demise of SeaFrance and the surprise purchase of their assets by Eurotunnel.
In amongst the list of blog postings I was going to write about once I'd come back from holiday was my conjecture as to the new replacement service, but Craig over on ThisFrenchLife and Dover Port itself have both beaten me to it yesterday.

Dover Port announced the introduction of MyFerryLink as a new ferry provider on the Dover/Calais route, initially with 16 crossings a day using the sister-ships 'Berlioz' and 'Rodin' (both purchased from Sea France).

Craig on TFL posted two articles yesterday, announcing the introduction of the new service, and then later on, that the timetable and online booking service is now available.

What I was most amused about was that the MyFerryLink website is just a single page deep and then redirects you through to seafrance.com to handle all the actual booking and ferry service details.
The SeaFrance website has only undergone a superficial makeover from when Sea France went into receivership last year, and all the photos of My Ferry Link's ferries appear to have been suspiciously Photo-Shopped with the new MFL logo being super-imposed onto the side of the existing Sea France boats.

What I can however claim a first on though is this shot of the MFL check-in booths that we snapped as we came through Calais 2 weeks ago: