EDITORIAL

FALSE HOPES

This year I expected many new facts around Greek Shipping scene, but we found only great disappointments, with sporadic interesting news of Summer 2005: the “SpeedRunner 1” of Aegean Speed Lines, the swift catamaran which will fly on Aegean Sea linking Piraeus with Paros, Serifos, Sifnos and Milos and the “Panagia Thalassini”, an HSC introduced by C-Link on Heraklion (and sometimes Rethymnon) – Piraeus line calling enroute to Santorini and Ios. No one of this new facts is really interesting: a catamaran on Wstern Cyclades route is an already seen fact, even if it’s the first non-Greek company operating on Aegean Sea, so probably a new competition could be seen on Cyclades traffic; instead the “Panagia Thalassini” has, more or less, the same timetables of Minoan Lines on their daily services. Well, there is a big difference between five hours spent aboard the “Knossos Palace” and aboard the “Panagia Thalassini”, and I think that the customers know this. The “Panagia Thalassini” was then reached by her sister “Panagia Parou”, even if I don’t think that she would be in service this summer; another interesting new service is those of Agoudimos Lines between Bari, Igoumenitsa and Patras, which is publicized almost everywhere except that on the Company’s official website. Are they shamed of it? Coming to the worst facts, we should underline that the “Alkmini A” was not deployed on Dodecanese service but chartered out; the same thing for the “Ocean Trailer”, which could have been a great progress for Hellenic Seaways; plus of that many other ferries would remain laid up. And no one matters about the islanders’s troubles. Why the Government had allowed this situation? It would be very interesting to have an answer.

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