Nova Star ferry posts modest July, plans winter service in Europe
Nova Star Cruises reported Tuesday that 13,341 passengers rode the ferry between Nova Scotia and Portland in July, up just 2.3% over July 2014, and that it had secured a winter route for the vessel across the English Channel between Ramsgate, England, and Boulogne, France.
“This is the winter solution we’ve been looking for that will help make the route between Portland and Yarmouth more economically viable,” Mark Amundsen, president and CEO of Nova Star Cruises, said in a release announcing the new winter route. “We have exactly the kind of modern vessel that ferry service providers want to sail in today’s global market. With our passenger counts steadily increasing this year and a new route for the offseason, we are much closer to achieving the goal of managing Nova Star Cruises as a successful business operation.”
Amundsen said the winter route also will give Nova Star Cruises an opportunity to market the Portland-to-Yarmouth route and the attractions in Nova Scotia to the European passengers.
A Nova Scotia official, however, told the Portland Press Herald the ferry company’s business plan is flawed because it calls for the provincial government to continue subsidizing Nova Star Cruises over the winter. “The idea of Nova Scotia taxpayers subsidizing a ferry route between the UK and France is simply unacceptable,” Nova Scotia’s Transportation Minister Geoff MacLellan told the newspaper in an interview Tuesday.
MacLellan also cast doubt on Nova Star Cruises reaching its goal of carrying 80,000 passengers this season, expressing concern that the modest 10% increase in June and July’s overall ticket sales (from 19,822 last year to 21,871 this year) was insufficient to provide enough revenues to cover the ferry service’s costs.
Last year, Nova Star received $21 million (Canadian) from Nova Scotia’s provincial government — subsidies it was originally supposed to receive over a seven-year period — and closed its season three weeks early due to lower-than-expected passenger bookings. This year, the ferry is getting $13 million (Canadian) in funding this year from the provincial government, but an expectation that Maine would provide a $5 million line of credit as well was dashed in late May when George Gervais, commissioner of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, dispelled that notion, telling the Portland Press Herald that it's up to the ferry operator to obtain a loan on its own by going to a commercial lender.
The newspaper reported that a final decision on whether to award the contract for the 2016 season to Nova Star Cruises or to seek another ferry operator is expected Aug. 17, adding that three other companies have shown interest in taking over the run next year.
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