Latest official (via Shippax) figures show that Stena have had a strong double digit growth in passengers, cars, and buses on Dublin - Holyhead during April, whilst everyone else is down with the exception of marginal growth in car numbers for Irish Ferries.

A "Double digit" increase could be as low as 10%, whereas a "Strong Double digit increase" could be interpreted as meaning 15%+.
On this basis, I would describe the 8% increase in IF car numbers as better than "marginal".

But IF didn't have an 8% increase in cars on Dublin to Holyhead in April........  We are talking very low single digit figures here.  The Stena numbers are towards the top end, with buses being up more than 20%.  Bear in mind I have the numbers in front of me, but cannot publish specifics.

If I was to hazard a guess as to where the Dun Laoghaire traffic will go, I would say:
- 50% will be retained and transferred to Stena's Dublin sailings (as long as DL does not re-open to alternative provider)
- 25% will go to Irish Ferries (mainly Swift)
- 25% will use Fly / Drive
I also assume it will lose as many customers as it generates new customers.

We'll probably never know, especially given that year on year Explorers figures have been significantly down for a while now.

In other news, I am told the HSS ramps are to be removed from all 4 ports shortly.

According to the Irish Times last Saturday, Dublin port experienced a 6.3% increase in ferry tourism passengers in the first 9 months of the year, to over 1.4m.  That's an increase of about 80,000 passengers.  If you assume all of these were previous HSS passengers, then just over 50% of the traffic has been retained across all the other sailings, rather than the 75% I predicted.  There could, of course, be other factors that I have missed.

According to the Irish Times last Saturday, Dublin port experienced a 6.3% increase in ferry tourism passengers in the first 9 months of the year, to over 1.4m.  That's an increase of about 80,000 passengers.  If you assume all of these were previous HSS passengers, then just over 50% of the traffic has been retained across all the other sailings, rather than the 75% I predicted.  There could, of course, be other factors that I have missed.

The HSS would not have been sailing for all of those 9 months though.  I have yet to do the maths on the number of total pax lost versus last year, BUT I will say it is important to remember that Explorer's year-on-year carryings have been falling very sharply over the past number of seasons.  In other words, its pretty much impossible to say if passengers that Stena have "lost" would not have been travelling with them had Explorer stayed (at considerable cost to the business), as hers was a shrinking market.  What I can however say is that significant numbers don't seem to have gone to Irish Ferries from the HSS, given that their figures appear to have grown by much, much less than the numbers Explorer took last year.

According to the Irish Times last Saturday, Dublin port experienced a 6.3% increase in ferry tourism passengers in the first 9 months of the year, to over 1.4m.  That's an increase of about 80,000 passengers.  If you assume all of these were previous HSS passengers, then just over 50% of the traffic has been retained across all the other sailings, rather than the 75% I predicted.  There could, of course, be other factors that I have missed.

The HSS would not have been sailing for all of those 9 months though.  I have yet to do the maths on the number of total pax lost versus last year, BUT I will say it is important to remember that Explorer's year-on-year carryings have been falling very sharply over the past number of seasons.  In other words, its pretty much impossible to say if passengers that Stena have "lost" would not have been travelling with them had Explorer stayed (at considerable cost to the business), as hers was a shrinking market.  What I can however say is that significant numbers don't seem to have gone to Irish Ferries from the HSS, given that their figures appear to have grown by much, much less than the numbers Explorer took last year.

For what it's worth, I would still travel on the Explorer if she was in service... but now I travel on Superfast X, and it's always very busy...just what Stena want!

Superfast X had a good complement of freight and 100 cars when i travelled home on her 10 days ago,

Just on the numbers thing, I asked some stat-nerds to comb through figures for me (ICG, Shippax, CSO & Bord Failte) and this is what they came up with.

Every 1% rise in visitor numbers equates to a certain number of airline passengers/ship arrivals (averaged out). 

There was a considerable increase in visitors from the UK (up above 3 million for the first time since 2009).  This increase was reflected to an accurate extent in increased airline passengers but not so much in Ferries.  The stat nerds tell me that passenger traffic at Dublin should have been up by about 160k to match the curve but it fell significantly short of that (up 73k or so). 

In summary, about 50% of the "HSS" patrons appear to have transferred to a Dublin Port operator but 50% didn't transfer (presumably changing to air) and the market growth has been negated by that fall off.  Nerds say that figure is more than enough to make it statistically relevant and comparable.

With a marketing hat on, that points to a soft market which can go one of two ways.  Either it can continue to contract (which would be a surprise given that it has stabilised quite well after the worst of the budget-airline-effect) or that soft market can be stimulated with a decent 150k (lost numbers + percentage of higher visitor numbers averaged) available. 

Need to lie down....

Pete