News / New French rail freight service upgrade will boost Turkey-UK trade corridor

DFDS Ferry at Séte. Photo: DFDS

SNCF subsidiary VIIA is planning to double the capacity on its new rail freight service for semi-trailers and containers between the Mediterranean port of Sète and Calais, a further boost to the trade corridor between Turkey and the UK.

Danish ro-ro shipping company DFDS is a partner in the service operating six weekly sailings between two Turkish ports and Sète.

From January, VIIA will increase weekly frequencies on the rolling highway from three to six, having launched the service as recently as October.

“This increase in capacity is in response to growing customer demand, particularly from Turkey, but also from local customers,” explained the company’s president, Bénédicte Colin.

She was speaking at a media briefing that followed the inauguration of the new rail-road ‘combi’ terminal at the port of Sète last week.

Next year, VIIA is targeting transporting 22,500 semi-trailers and containers between Sète and Calais, rising to 40,000 annually in the longer term, she added.

Just over €19m has been invested in the facility with VIIA, the Occitanie public regional council and the port authority each making a contribution.

At last month’s Q3 earnings call, DFDS CEO Torben Carlsen, who has since stepped down, highlighted “intensified competition” from Turkey to France and Spain that would very likely impact the company in Q4.

He was referring to new operator UGR Ro-Ro, which in autumn launched a service between Haydarpasa and Marseille, around 120 miles from Sète.

However, Mr Carlsen appeared to play down the competition from UGR Ro-Ro, pointing to the frequency of its point-to-point service, plus its rail connections.

“We’ve obviously picked our terminals in a time where we had first pick, and we think that’s a quite big competitive advantage. We have looked at what capacity will come in from the competition, and it’s a different capacity that we have,” he said.

In the case of UGR Ro-Ro’s service, it is not clear what provision has been made for the on-forwarding of semi-trailers and containers arriving at Marseille.

Certainly, throughput at Sète will be far less likely to be affected by congestion than Marseille, while DFDS can also count on its long-standing experience in ro-ro to rail transfers.

VIIA also recently launched a new rolling highway between Bettembourg, in Luxembourg, and Brittany Ferries’ new ‘combi’ terminal in Bayonne-Mouguerre, near the French-Spanish border.