Corsica Ferries - Sardinia Ferries

Corsica Ferries - Sardinia Ferries
legal form
founding	1968
Seat	Bastia

Corsica Ferries - Sardinia Ferries is a private French shipping company based in Bastia (head office) and Savona-Vado Ligure (sales management, personnel and technology). The Corsica Ferries - Sardinia Ferries brand is owned by the two companies Corsica Ferries France SAS (France) and Forship Spa (Italy), which are owned by the Corsican Pascal Lota. Pascal Lota died in January 2016 at the age of 83.

Corsica Ferries operates regular connections between Corsica on the one hand and the Italian and French mainland on the other, Sardinia Ferries operates from mainland Italy from Sardinia. Car ferries , which can be recognized by their characteristic yellow hull , are used on all routes . The shipping company's headquarters are in Bastia , but the ships all sail under the Italian flag. Most of the staff on the ships are of Italian origin. The company currently employs 1,700 people, almost 200 of them in Corsica.

Corsica Ferries - Sardinia Ferries transported almost 2.8 million passengers between Corsica and the mainland in 2017, which corresponds to a market share of 68.7 percent. This makes the company the market leader in Corsica ferry traffic.

history

Founded in 1968 by the Corsican Pascal Lota in Bastia under the name “Corsica Line”, the shipping company initially headed for Corsica exclusively from Italy . In 1973 the company was renamed Corsica Ferries with a fleet of three ships at that time . In the 1970s, a large number of lines were tested, including from San Remo , Imperia , Savona , Genoa , La Spezia and Livorno towards Bastia, Calvi and L'Ile Rousse . In 1981 the sister company Sardinia Ferries was founded. In 1982 the shipping company decided to leave the port of Genoa for cost reasons, but returned again from 1989 to 1997.

Between 1995 and 1997, the company briefly operated a connection between Piombino and Portoferraio under the name Elba Ferries , which was soon discontinued due to tough competition on this route. Since 2013, Elba has been served again as part of the Piombino-Portoferraio-Bastia route, but without its own Elba Ferries brand .

With the liberalization of European shipping traffic in 1996, Nice - Corsica opened a line from France to Corsica for the first time, which was served by the new high-speed ferries Corsica Express II and III . This means that Corsica Ferries faced direct competition with the French SNCM , which also started using two new NGVs ( N avires à G rande V itesse , high-speed ships ) from Nice from 1996 . Later, a structurally identical third fast ferry called Sardinia Express was used on the Sardinia routes .

With the summer timetable 1998, all connections from Genoa were set out definitively and those from nearby Savona replaced for the port Corsica Ferries , a concession was for 23 years.

In the following years, the shipping company posted growing profits on its Corsica routes and finally commissioned the two express cruise ferries Mega Express I and II , which were built in Livorno and have been on the routes between France and Corsica since spring 2001 Use. Previously, the concept had always been to buy cheap second-hand ships. The two mega-express ferries were the first newbuildings for Corsica Ferries & Sardinia Ferries since the three high-speed ferries in 1996.

In 2002, the company recorded a record 1.6 million passengers on the Corsican routes, overtaking long-term market leader SNCM (1.2 million passengers).

In 2004 the fleet was expanded to include the Mega Express III . Just one year later, record numbers were recorded in passenger transport, a total of 2.85 million passengers, of which almost two million were on the Corsica routes. For the 2007 season, the fleet was again expanded to include the two ships Mega Express IV and V , both of which were again bought second-hand. In the long term, they should replace two of the three Corsica Express ferries. So it did Corsica Ferries & Sardinia Ferries SNCM equal, which had in turn sold their three fast ferries in the past. The market leadership was favored by low tariffs; Costs were saved, among other things, by processing bookings via the Internet , using cheaper smaller ports and reducing the number of staff on the ships. Corsica Ferries - Sardinia Ferries determines its prices through revenue management , the tariffs change depending on the occupancy of the respective ferry.

The Sardinia Express was sold to a Korean shipping company in 2012 and the Corsica Express Seconda to a Greek ferry company. The remaining high-speed ship Corsica Express III is only used on short routes due to its high fuel consumption (Piombino - Portoferraio, irregular to Bastia).

The fleet

The Corsica Victoria in the port of Savona

Corsica Ferries' Mega Express Two in the port of Nice

The Corsica Ferries - Sardinia Ferries fleet currently consists of the following 13 ships (as of 2018):

• 1 fast ferry: Corsica Express Three
• 2 shuttle ferries: Corsica Marina Seconda , Sardinia Vera
• 2 cruise ferries: Corsica Victoria , Sardinia Regina
• 8 fast cruise ferries: Mega Express , Mega Express Two , Mega Express Three , Mega Express Four , Mega Express Five , Mega Smeralda , Mega Andrea , Pascal Lota .

The route network

Italy - Corsica

• from Savona to Bastia (seasonal also Calvi , L'Ile Rousse )
• from Livorno to Bastia (so-called Corsica shuttle )
• from Piombino to Bastia (seasonal with fast ferry, stopover on Elba)

France - Corsica

• from Nice to Bastia, L'Ile Rousse, Calvi , Ajaccio , Porto-Vecchio
• from Toulon to Bastia, L'Ile Rousse, Ajaccio

Italy - Sardinia

• from Livorno to Golfo Aranci (13 km from Olbia)

Italy - Elba

• from Piombino to Portoferraio (in the summer months)

France - Mallorca

• from Toulon to Alcúdia (since April 2018)

France - Sicily

• from Nice to Trapani

Corsica Ferries - Sardinia Ferries also markets the Bonifacio (Corsica) - Santa Teresa di Gallura ( Sardinia ) route, which, however, does not have its own ships.

Trivia

• When a ferry of the fleet arrives or leaves a port, the overture of the opera La gazza ladra (Eng: The Thieving Magpie ) sounds over the loudspeakers .
• Some ferries have on-board GSM coverage via Telenor's telecommunications provider MCP , which allows cell phone calls and internet connections on the open sea.

See also

• SNCM
• Moby Lines
• Corsica Linea

Individual evidence

1. ^ La compagnia di navigazione Corsica Sardinia Ferries , Corsica Ferries - Sardinia Ferries.
2. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from July 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ^ Goodbye, Monsieur Pascal Lota! Retrieved July 7, 2017 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b} La corsica ferries , Mare Nostrum Corsica.
5. ↑ Introduction aux lignes maritimes de Corse: lles compagnies et les lignes desservies. Retrieved July 16, 2019 . 
6. ↑ http://www.corsicaferries.com/corsicahtml/de/debat/PM0206.pdf
7. ↑ Michael Mönninger: Sea battle before Corsica , Zeit-Online, October 20, 2005.
8. ↑ Introduction aux lignes maritimes de Corse: lles compagnies et les lignes desservies. Retrieved July 16, 2019 . 
9. ↑ Message on ship2shore.it: [1]
10. ↑ Our ferries , Corsica Ferries - Sardinia Ferries.
11. ↑ MCP website ( Memento of the original dated August 30, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Telenor Maritime) 

Web links

Commons : Corsica Ferries  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website of Corsica Ferries & Sardinia Ferries
• Info page about Corsica Ferries (French)