DFDS: Monthly volume report: Freight Up 11%, passenger recovery on track

Ferry – freight: Total volumes in May 2022 were 10.8% above 2021 driven by higher volumes in all business units, except Baltic Sea.
Channel’s volumes were elevated by a competitor’s suspension of sailings for most of the month compared to last year. North Sea volumes were above 2021 as higher activity on most UK routes offset lower industrial flows between Sweden and the Continent, partly due to supply chain bottlenecks in the automotive sector.

Volumes in the Mediterranean network continued to grow supported by higher capacity. The war in Ukraine lowered Baltic Sea volumes between mainly Germany and Lithuania compared to 2021.

For the last twelve months 2022-21, the total transported freight lane metres increased 1.5% to 43.8m from 43.1m in 2021-20.

Ferry – passenger: The number of passengers increased eightfold to 296k equal to 68% of volumes in May 2019, the latest comparable month pre-Covid-19. Transport segments are recovering faster than leisure segments as the number of cars was at 89% compared to 2019. Channel’s volumes were elevated by a competitor’s suspension of sailings for most of the month.

For the last twelve months 2022-21, the total number of passengers was 1.6m compared to 1.0m in 2021-20 and 5.1m in 2019, the latter being the latest pre-Covid-19 year.

DFDS ferry volumes
	May				LTM*
Freight	2020	2021	2022	Change	2020-19	2021-20	2022-21	Change
Lane metres, '000	2,782	3,650	4,043	10.8%	39,538	43,116	43,751	1.5%

Passenger	2020	2021	2022	Change	2020-19	2021-20	2022-21	Change
Passengers, '000	48	35	296	748.7%	4,121	989	1,640	65.9%
*Last twelve months