The estimate that the cost The ferry tickets will not go up in the summer season by the President of the Dionysis Theodoratos passenger shipping association, speaking today (5.5.2025) on the first ERT program, provided that the conditions for international prices remain the same as to international prices. fuel.
“The reduction of port charges and port expenses, which was a decision by the Greek government to deal with the additional increase in the final costs due to the change of fuel comes in conjunction with a decrease in the price of the international fuel price to create such an environment that is not increasing in addition to the operating costs.”
«The ships from May 1stthe big ferries that people travel to our islands have changed fuel which is 20% more expensive from what they had on April 30. One government’s energy and the international fuel price create an environment that we see will be a stability in prices. (…) Since the conditions will remain the ones that are I do not see the reason for increases, “he said.
Responding to why the costs of tickets are not affected given the downfall of the fuel, Mr. Theodoratos explained that if we had not changed the fuel type, the fall in international prices would seem to fall. However, once there is a change in the fuel type, which is 20% more expensive than the fuel burned by the ships, there can be no further reduction in operating costs.
“In the speedboats that appear in the summer and travel to the islands, because the type of fuel that had the speedboats that have been changed, I think the operating costs are there, so every company will judge how it will move on the market,” he noted.
Mr Theodoratos admitted that the ferry is indeed expensive in our country. “I will not disagree, we have an expensive ticket because the operating cost of the ships is very expensive. Clearly the ticket is expensive. There are many factors that set ticket prices. Are the costs that create this issue, is oil is about 40% of operating costs, A about 20% is the payroll costsbut there are and other costs that set ticket prices. We have a industry which, its performance is about 3%, we are not talking about over -performance, we are talking about very low performance. (…) We have never said that ferry is a sector of the Greek economy, which brings high profits to companies. What Greek ferry is actually doing is a social good that offers islands’ connections. ”
As to what can be done to reduce costs, Mr Theodoratos referred to the reform of players who will be able to make the ferry more affordable, such as VAT, where he noted that we have the highest percentage of all other European countries, while there are countries with 5% – 10% and others.
Regarding the fact that there is no competition in most routes, keeping the cost of tickets high, Mr Theodoratos pointed out that the Greek shipping is governed by laws for its operation, which enables anyone who wants to invest, to launch ships in the Greek ferry lines without free ships.
“The fact that there is no big competition must concern us, because it comes in response to your colleague who you told me, why did we do that? The rates are very low, so many lines at the moment do not produce profits so there is no interest from many. So the monopoly is not created by the company but the market creates it in the sense of not having viable routes on many lines of Greek shipping. “