Viking Line

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Viking Line
Type	Public (OMX: VIK1V)
Founded	1963
Headquarters	Mariehamn,  Åland,  Finland
Area served	Northern Europe
Key people	Nils-Erik Eklund (CEO)
Industry	Shipping
Products	Ferries, port services, passenger transportation, freight transportation, holidays, business travel
Revenue	▲ 436.02 million Euro (2006/2007) [1]
Operating income	▲ 33.78 million Euro (2006/2007) [1]
Employees	2,907 (2006/2007) [1]
Website	www.vikingline.fi/

Viking Line is a Finnish shipping company that operates a fleet of ferries and cruiseferries between Finland, the Åland Islands, Sweden and Estonia. Viking Line shares are quoted on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Viking Line is operated from the Åland Islands.

Contents 1 Company history 1.1 Early Years: 1959-1966 1.2 1967-1985 1.3 1985-1993 1.4 1993-present 2 Future 3 Fleet 3.1 Current fleet 3.2 Ships under construction 3.3 Former ships 4 References 5 See also 6 External links

[edit] Company history

[edit] Early Years: 1959-1966

Viking Line's history can be traced back to 1959, when a group of sea- and businessmen from the Åland Islands province in Finland formed Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen, purchased a steam-powered car-ferry SS Dinard from the UK, renamed her SS Viking and began service on the route Korpo (Finland) — Mariehamn (Åland) — Gräddö (Sweden).^[2][3] In the same year the Gotland-based Rederi AB Slite began a service between Simpnäs (Sweden) and Mariehamn.^[4]

In 1962, a disagreement caused a group of people to leave Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen and form a new company, Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan, who began a service linking Gräddö and Mariehamn the following year.^[3]

Soon the three companies, all competing for passengers between Åland Islands and Sweden, realised that they in the long run all stood to lose from mutual competition. In 1965 Vikinglinjen and Slite began collaborating,^[4] and in the end of July 1966 Viking Line was established as a marketing company for all three companies.^[3][2] At this time Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen changed their name to Rederi Ab Solstad, in order to avoid confusion with the marketing company.^[3] The red hull livery was adopted from Slite's Ålandspilen service^[4][5] (to which it had been taken from the colour of the chairman's wife's lipstick!^[6]). In 1967 Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan changed its name to SF Line^[7] and in 1977 Rederi Ab Solstad was merged into its mother company Rederi Ab Sally.^[8]

[edit] 1967-1985

Because Viking Line was only a marketing company, each owner company retained their individual fleets and could choose on which routes to set their ships (naturally there was also co-ordination on schedules and such). Each company's ships were easy to distinguish by name: all Sally ships had a "Viking" prefix on their names, Slite took their names from Roman and Greek mythologies, while SF Line's names ended with -ella in honor of managing director Gunnar Eklund's wife Ellen Eklund.

During the 1970s Viking expanded greatly and overtook Silja Line as the largest shipping consortium on the Northern Baltic Sea.^{[citation needed]} Between 1970 and 1973 Slite and Sally took delivery of five nearly identical ships built at Meyer Werft Germany, namely MS Apollo and MS Diana for Slite, and MS Viking 1, MS Viking 3 and MS Viking 4 for Sally. MS Viking 5, delivered in 1974, was an enlargened version of the same design.^[9] These so-called Papenburg sisters can be considered to be one of the most successful ships designs of all times^{[citation needed]} (the shipyard built three additional sisters of the original design for Transbordadores for ship services in Mexico: Coromuel,^[10] Puerto Vallarta^[11] and Azteca^[12]). In 1973 Viking Line started service on the Turku—Mariehamn—Stockholm route, directly competing with Silja Line for the first time. The next year Sally began Viking Line traffic between Helsinki and Stockholm.^[13] For the next decade this route stayed in their hands, whereas on other routes the three companies operated together.

By the latter half of the 70's Sally was clearly the dominant partner in the consortium. In 1980 they took delivery of three new ferries (MS Viking Saga, MS Viking Sally and MS Viking Song), largest to have sailed under Viking's colours. This further established their dominance over the other partners, although SF Line did take delivery of the new MS Turella and MS Rosella in 1979-1980 and Slite MS Diana II in 1979.^[14] In the early 1980s Sally started expanding their operations to other waters, which became the company's failing as those operations were largely unprofitable and ultimately made Sally unable to invest on new tonnage for Viking Line service.^[15]

[edit] 1985-1993

In 1985 a new leaf was turned in Viking Line's history when SF Line's brand-new MS Mariella, at the time the largest ferry in the world, replaced MS Viking Song on Helsinki—Stockholm service, breaking Sally's monopoly on the route. The next year Slite took delivery of Mariella's sister MS Olympia and thus forced Sally out of Helsinki—Stockholm traffic completely. While SF Line and Slite were planning additional newbuilds, Sally were in an extremely poor position financially and in 1987 Effoa and Johnson Line, the owners of Silja Line, purchased Sally. As a result SF Line and Slite forced Sally to leave the Viking Line consortium.^[16]

Between 1988 and 1990 SF Line took delivery of three new ships (MS Amorella, MS Isabella and MS Cinderella) while Slite took delivery of two (MS Athena and MS Kalypso).^[17] Unfortunately Wärtsilä Marine, the shipyard building one of SF Line's newbuilds and both of Slite's, went bankrupt in 1989. SF Line avoided financial repercussions, their Cinderella had been continuously paid for as her construction progressed. Hence it was SF Line who owned the almost completed ship when the shipyard went bankrupt.^[18] Slite however had signed a more traditional type of contract, the Kalypso was to be paid for on delivery. Since the shipyard owned the unfinished ship, this led to an increased cost for the Kalypso^[19] - about 200 million SEK more than had been originally envisaged.^{[citation needed]} In the end, despite the financial problems, by 1990 Viking Line had the largest and newest cruiseferry fleet in the world.

In 1989 Slite started planning MS Europa, which was to be the jewel in the company's crown, the largest and most luxurious cruiseferry in the world. Unfortunately for them Sweden entered a financial crises during the construction of the ship, which led to devaluation of the Swedish krona. This in turn meant that the cost for the Europa increased by 400 million SEK. When time came to take delivery of the new ship, Slite did not have the funds to pay for it and their main funders (Swedish Nordbanken, who were also the main funders of Silja Line) refused to loan them the money needed. Eventually the ship ended up in Silja Line's fleet and Slite was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1993.^[20]

[edit] 1993-present

Following the bankruptcy of Rederi AB Slite SF Line was left as the sole operator under the Viking Line brand. The remaining two Slite ships, Athena and Kalypso were auctioned in August 1993.^[21][22] SF Line made a bid for the Kalypso, but both ships ended up sold to the newly-established Malaysian cruise ship operator Star Cruises. In 1995 SF Line changed their name into Viking Line.

Between 1994 and 1996 the company operated a fast ferry service from Helsinki to Tallinn during the summers on chartered catamaran ships.^[23] In 1997 they purchased MS Silja Scandinavia from Sea-Link Shipping AB and renamed her MS Gabriella for Helsinki—Stockholm service.^[24] It has been reported that around the same time plans were made to construct a pair of new ships for the Helsinki—Stockholm service so that Viking could better compete with Silja on that route, but the plans were shelved.^{[citation needed]}

It took until 2005 for Viking to order a new ship, in response to growing competition from Tallink on the Helsinki—Tallinn route. In April 2008, the new MS Viking XPRS was delivered from Aker Finnyards, Helsinki and entered service between Helsinki and Tallinn. In January 2007 Viking Line announced that they had placed an order for another new ship, a ferry with a gross tonnage (GT) of 15.000 tons at the Spanish shipyard Astilleros de Sevilla. The project name for the ship, that will replace the MS Rosella on the Mariehamn—Kapellskär route,^[25] is Viking ADCC and delivery is expected for March 2009.^[26] .

[edit] Future

In addition to building the XPRS and ADCC, Viking Line's CEO Nils-Erik Eklund stated in an interview of the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat that the company were looking to replace the ships operating between Turku and Stockholm. The volume of freight transported on the route has been steadily growing during the past years and if the growth continues the current ships will be too small to meet demand in the future.^[27] However, a large-scale refurbishment of public space and cabins is planned for all Viking ships on Turku—Stockholm and Helsinki—Stockholm routes (refurbishments of the public spaces have already been carried out on Mariella and Isabella).^[28]

[edit] Fleet

[edit] Current fleet

Ship	Built	Entered service	Route	Tonnage	Flag	Notes
MS Amorella	1988	1988	Turku—Mariehamn/Långnäs—Stockholm	34,384 GRT	Finland
MS Gabriella	1992	1997	Helsinki—Mariehamn—Stockholm	35,492 GRT	Finland	ex-Frans Suell for Euroway, ex-Silja Scandinavia for Silja Line
MS Isabella	1989	1989	Turku—Mariehamn/Långnäs—Stockholm	35,154 GRT	Finland
MS Mariella	1985	1985	Helsinki—Mariehamn—Stockholm	37,860 GRT	Finland
MS Rosella	1980	1980	Mariehamn—Kapellskär	16,850 GT	Sweden
MS Viking Cinderella	1989	1989	Stockholm—Mariehamn (one-day cruises) Stockholm—Mariehamn—Riga (summers only)	46,398 GRT	Sweden	Previously Cinderella; renamed Viking Cinderella in 2003
MS Viking XPRS	2008	2008	Helsinki—Tallinn	34,000 GT	Sweden

[edit] Ships under construction

Ship	Planned service entry date	Shipyard	Planned route	Projected tonnage	Planned flag
Viking ADCC	summer 2009	Astilleros de Sevilla, Sevilla	Kapellskär—Mariehamn	15,000 GT	Sweden

[edit] Former ships

Ship	Years in service	Owner/operator	Tonnage	Status as of 2008
SS Viking	1959-1970	Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen	1,765 GRT	Scrapped 1973
MS Slite MS Tella	1959-1964 1989 (chartered)	Rederi AB Slite Viking Line	499 GRT	Scrapped 2006
MS Boge	1961-1963	Rederi AB Slite	530 GRT	Sunk 1981
MS Panny	1963-1964	Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen[3]	761 GRT	Scrapped 1985
SS Ålandsfärjan	1963-1972	Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan	1,482 GRT	Scrapped 1972
MS Drotten	1964-1966	Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen	819 GRT	Scrapped 1979
MS Apollo	1964-1967	Rederi AB Slite	1,291 GRT	Scrapped 2006
MS Visby	1965 (chartered) 1967-1970 (chartered)	Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan Rederi AB Slite	2,825 GRT	Scrapped 2002
MS Kapella	1967-1979	Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan	3,159 GRT	Scrapped 2006
MS Viking 2	1968-1978	Rederi Ab Solstad	1,217 GRT	Scrapped 1979
MS Apollo	1970-1976	Rederi AB Slite	4,238 GRT	Since 2000 MS Apollo for Woodward Group
MS Viking 1	1970-1983	Rederi Ab Sally	4,239 GRT	Scrapped 2002
MS Marella	1970-1981	SF Line	3,930 GRT	Scrapped 2004
MS Viking 3	1972-1976	Rederi Ab Sally	4,299 GRT	Since 2007 MS Ionian Sprit for Agoudimos Lines
MS Diana	1972-1979	Rederi AB Slite	4,152 GRT	Since 2006 MS Jamaa II for Bayway Shipping Co.
MS Viking 4	1973-1980	Rederi Ab Sally	4,477 GRT	Scrapped 2005
MS Aurella	1973-1982	SF Line	7,210 GRT	Since 2002 MS C.T.M.A. Vacancier for C.T.M.A.
MS Viking 5	1974-1981	Rederi Ab Sally	5,286 GRT	Since 1988 MS Boughaz for Comarit
MS Viking 6	1974-1980	Rederi Ab Sally	5,073 GRT	Scrapped 2001
SS Apollo III MS Apollo III	1976-1981 1982-1989	Rederi AB Slite	4,334 GRT	Since 2006 MS Prince, last reported laid-up at Mekong River, October 2007[29]
MS Turella	1979-1988	SF Line	10,604 GRT	Since 1998 MS Fantaasia for Tallink, since 2007 on charter to Kystlink
MS Diana II	1979-1992	Rederi AB Slite	11,671 GRT	Since 2007 MS ARV 1 for Equinox Offshore Accommodation, under reconstruction into a supply and accommodation vessel
MS Viking Saga	1980-1986	Rederi Ab Sally	14,330 GRT	Burnt in 1990; rebuilt 1992. Since 2007 MS Cristal for Louis Cruise Lines
MS Viking Sally	1980-1990	Rederi Ab Sally Rederi AB Slite	15,566 GRT	Sunk 1994 as MS Estonia
MS Viking Song	1980-1986	Rederi Ab Sally	13,878 GRT	Since 1996 MS Regina Baltica for Estline/Tallink
MS Olympia	1986-1993	Rederi AB Slite	37,799 GRT	Since 1993 MS Pride of Bilbao for P&O Ferries
MS Athena	1989-1993	Rederi AB Slite	40,012 GRT	Since 2001 MS Pearl of Scandinavia for DFDS
MS Kalypso	1990-1994	Rederi AB Slite	40,012 GRT	Since 1994 MS Star Pisces for Star Cruises
MS Europa	never delivered	Rederi AB Slite	59,912 GRT	Would have entered service 1993, but Slite could not afford delivery. Since 1993 MS Silja Europa for Silja Line
HSC Condor 10 (marketed as Viking Express I)	1995 (chartered)	Viking Line	3,241 GT	Since 2002 HSC Condor 10 Condor Ferries
MS Ålandsfärjan	1987-2008	SF Line/Viking Line	6,336 GRT	Sold to G.A.P Shipping Co />

Additionally a large number of ferries were chartered during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s for seasonal traffic.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Tallink - rival operator
• Silja Line - rival operator (owned by Tallink)
• Viking

[edit] External links

• Viking Line - In Finland
• Viking Line - In Sweden