Friday 20th August 2021
Hurtigruten boss Skjeldam
“First ship before 2030 emission-free”
Next week, Hurtigruten will start the first expedition ship to Norway from Hamburg after the forced Corona break. The Norwegian shipping company reports record bookings for 2022 – and, according to CEO Daniel Skjeldam, wants to accelerate the pace of sustainability.
After a long break, it starts again: next week the “Otto Sverdrup” will start in Hamburg in the Norwegian fjords – an important restart of its expedition ships for the Norwegian shipping company Hurtigruten. “We are all very excited and the employees are incredibly happy,” said boss Daniel Skjeldam in the podcast “Zero Hour”. “The time was extremely challenging for our industry.” But customers would really be hungry for new experiences and trips.
Hurtigruten was one of the few providers that had at least a few post ships in use during the pandemic, which were essential for the connections in Norway. The cruises were interrupted, as was the case with the major providers Carnival, Royal Caribbean or MSC Cruises.
The Norwegian specialist provider, whose mail ships have been in use since 1893, is almost euphoric when it comes to the views. Business has been “pretty good” since the summer, reports Skjeldam: “We are now experiencing that people really want to travel again. The advance booking figures for 2022 are at a record high.” In his opinion, the rather small ships compared to other providers will be particularly popular. After the pandemic, customers would “feel much more comfortable there than on a very large ship with thousands of people”.
Skjeldam is also speeding up when it comes to the environment. “The cruise industry should have done more for sustainability much earlier,” says Skjeldam, who joined the Norwegian airline in 2012 and became Norway’s youngest CEO. You shouldn’t use ships to pollute the places you visit. Hurtigruten has banned heavy fuel oil since 2008 and is now relying on hybrid drives with batteries and biodiesel. “The cruise lines that don’t take carbon emissions seriously will sooner or later disappear from the market,” said Skjeldam. Customers didn’t want that anymore. “Our first zero-emission ship will be on the market before 2030.”
It’s not the first time that the almost 130-year-old company has had to reinvent itself: when Skjeldam became CEO, Hurtigruten had been making losses for decades. The service was bad, the morale of the teams on the ground. Skjeldam cut costs, improved service – and made Hurtigruten a successful brand that focuses on “boutique ships” in a niche. It is no longer just trips through fjords. The Norwegians are now also heading for destinations in Africa and the Caribbean, and the Galapagos Islands have been on offer since June.
Listen in the new episode of “The Zero Hour”:
Whether Skjeldam sometimes works on Hurtigruten’s ships himself
What advice he can give young CEOs
Which are the favorite travel destinations of Hurtigruten’s German customers
You can find all episodes directly at Audio Now, Apple or Spotify or via Google.
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