One of the main topics was of course Brexit. Brexit came up in almost every conversation, caused a huge bubble in the first quarter and a considerable dip in the second quarter. During the month of October, we saw the same situation again followed by a dip in November as the industry was reluctant to take the risk of running out of stock.
Customers require the ferry industry to cope with market fluctuations. During the period of uncertainty, this may have caused you to experience inefficiencies within our mutual operations as the entire industry was under pressure. Due to the high demand for traffic we were not always able to accommodate all the units that our customers wanted to book with us, which led to disappointment. During this time, we were forced to create alternatives and find solutions which were mutually acceptable. In most cases we were able to find acceptable solutions for our customers.
There were many other elements that required a lot of time and attention in the preparations for Brexit. The organisation of seminars, IT preparation, customer discussions and consideration of how to solve export and import customs clearance. Many did find solutions or are convinced that they have found an acceptable way of working. Still nobody knows if it would have worked.
As a ferry company based in the Netherlands we have prepared for it to come to an industrial standard for handling the documents via Portbase. We have had to change our booking applications to accommodate the new system and are still working on improving it further.
We are now looking forward to 2020. We still do not know what will happen in relation to Brexit and in what shape or form. We will continue to prepare for all scenarios to guarantee that we can offer the service that is required in this demanding industry.
For next year we have given ourselves interesting challenges and we will continue to develop our relationship with our customers and attract new customers that want to benefit from new possibilities.