Eurotunnel saw summer revenues rise by 7% to €343.9 million, the channel tunnel operator revealed today.
Revenues from shuttle services grew by 7% to €160.3 million while the MyFerryLink cross channel ferry service saw revenues increase by 20% to €30.3 million in the three months to September 30.
The company is appealing a decision by the Competition and Markets Authority to prevent MyFerryLink from operating the former SeaFrance ferries Berlioz and Rodin on the Dover-Calais route.
“The summer season has been a great success, despite the strong competition from the two other ferry companies who each operate almost twice as many cross-Channel services,” the company said.
“As a reminder, the French competition authority gave its blessing to the acquisition of these ships by the Eurotunnel Group on 8 November 2012.
“Eurotunnel contests the argument that it acquired SeaFrance, when that company had been liquidated seven months before the acquisition of the ships.”
However, Eurotunnel admitted that MyFerryLink’s revenues account for just 8% of the group’s total revenues.
Eurotunnel also predicted that the introduction of new Marpol environmental regulations on ferries from January 1 is likely to cause price rises in the cross-Channel market.
Le Shuttle broke several records this summer with 375,000 vehicles transported in August and its daily record for carryings broken on three separate occasions, reaching a new peak of 16,416 vehicles.
More than 85,400 vehicles were carried during the week of August 11-17 – the highest number in 20 years of operations.
Eurostar passenger carryings in the three month period rose by 3% to 2.8 million.
Eurotunnel chairman and chief executive Jacques Gounon said: “This summer Eurotunnel set new records for traffic and this momentum is continuing.
“The energy in the UK economy and the application of the Marpol environmental regulations to the ferry companies from January 2015, strengthen the Eurotunnel Group’s competitive advantages”.