Lane Sea Lines - Agios Nikolaos

Crete island is divided in four prefectures. The Chania prefecture, home of ANEK since 1967, the Rethimnon prefecture, the last with a ferry company, the Rethimniaki N.E. from 1988, the Heraklion prefecture, which since 1972 had its Minoan Lines, and the Lassithi prefecture, where in 1994 the population decides to compete with the “western cousins” establishing the fourth popularly-owned Cretan company, the Lane Lines. The first vessel of the fleet was the “Visentzos Kornaros”, in a first time wearing a blue livery recalling her P&O days, until 1995 when she was entirely repainted in white. The services were leaving from Piraeus to the main towns of Lassithi prefecture, Agios Nikolaos and Sitia, via Milos, later extending the service to the islands of Kassos and Karpathos in the weekend. The services remained unchanged until 1999, when ANEK enters the stock capital of the company by the 50% transferring to the Agios Nikolaos-based company the property of its vessel “Talos”, promptly renamed “Ierapetra L.” On her first Lane times the “Ierapetra L.” starts plying the Piraeus – Milos – Agios Nikolaos – Sitia line, later the company opened new services which are still performed, like the Piraeus – Rhodes line via Milos, Santorini, Crete (Sitia, Agios Nikolaos or Heraklion), Kassos, Karpathos, Chalki, and the services leaving from Rhodes to North Aegean (Rhodes – Kos – Kalymnos – Samos – Chios – Mytilini – Limnos – Alexandropolis and the new line Rhodes – Kos – Kalymnos – Samos – Thessaloniki). On Autumn 2006 the company changed its livery, changing also the name on the ferries in “Lane Sea Lines”.