Wants England ferry back

The travel industry on the west coast of Norway has started the battle to reopen the ferry route between Bergen and Newcastle.

Together with Newcastle authorities, the local travel industry in Bergen and Stavanger are now looking at the possibilities for bringing back the regular services between Stavanger, Bergen and Newcastle.

Ended after 128 years

On the 3rd of September 2008 the final DFDS ferry cruise set out from Bergen, towards Newcastle in Northern England.

It had been running for 128 years consecutively, apart from a short break during the war years 1940-45.

Lost money

At the time it was the Norwegian DFDS servicing the route, but the three weekly cruises were making a loss.

DFDS had put in the old ship “Queen of Scandinavia” on the route, which at the time was dubbed as “mocking the passengers” because it was so old and tired.

Negative for tourism

Bergen Reiselivslag (Bergen Tourism board) say they have felt the axing of the route on the stream of tourists to the region.

“There’s no doubt the axing of the England-route has had huge consequences for West coast tourism. We are talking about as much as 240,000 tourist nights in the region. Therefore we are not putting pressure on various ferry and cruise liners to relaunch the route”, travel exec Ole Warberg told vg.no.

But, despite their pressures it might still be some time before the route is up and running again – so far the campaigners have contacted around 20 potential companies, without luck.

There are also direct flights with Eastern Airways and Wideroe from Newcastle and Bergen and Stavanger. Read more about Bergen.