Cunard May Sell The Queens

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31113, 16 July 1966, Page 15

Cunard May Sell The Queens

W.Z.PA. Reuter—Copyright)

SOUTHAMPTON, July, 15. The Cunard Company may be forced to sell its entire passenger fleet, including the transatlantic giants Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, unless they i a *h e next two years, the line’s chairman, bir Basil bmallpeice warned in Southampton last night.

Arriving in the 83.000-ton Queen Elizabeth the world’s biggest passenger ship as it docked in the line’s home port, the 60-year-old former airline chief disclosed he would meet Cunard directors next Monday to discuss plans for putting the company on a paying basis.

Many suggestions had been put forward by crewmen, he said. In the last five years a period marked by a rapid increase in the size of transatlantic airline fleets Cunard Line passenger ships have lost £14,100,000.

Continuing losses in the passenger trade are at the root of the company’s money problems, and the recent 46day seamen's strike, estimated to have cost Cunard £330.000 a week, is said to have made an over-ali loss for 1966 inevitable.

The dismal accounts picture was outlined recently by Sir Basil Smallpeice, the for-

I mer British Overseas Airways | Corporation chief who took I over the helm of Cunard in 1 November, 1965. Last night at a press conference, he disclosed that last year’s “frightening loss” of £2,700,000 in Cunard passenger trade was not the sole

trouble. The freighter side of the company was also suffering.

"Rising costs and fewer voyages more than halved the profits of the Port Line (a Cunard cargo subsidiary) to only £600.000 last year compared with £1,300,000 in

1964,” Sir Basil Smallpeice said. One suggestion for attracting trade—made by a ship’s officer and a steward during personal talks with Sir Basil Smallpeice had with the ship’s staff during his recent crossing—was for the Queen liners to take a more southerly track across the Atlantic. Passengers would get more . sunshine and there was no . reason the route should not “ be changed to miss the weather of the Newfoundland . bank, he said. The trip would add one day • to the normal five-day cross- . ing. Speaking of the company’s losses, Sir Basil Smallpeice said: “If we go on as we are we would have to sell off the Queens and all the passenger ships within two years.” He added: “We have just that much time to get things straight. We must stop the losses on the passenger side within two years before the Q 4 starts work. “After that, the passenger ships must not break even, they have got to pay.” Ships Mortgaged The Cunard Company has 18 passenger ships under its own flag, including the two Queens, a third luxury liner, the £25 million Q 4 now being built in Scotland, and 54 other ships operating with subsidiary companies. In June last year, Cunard announced they had mortgaged 11 ships to pay in advance for the streamlined twin-screw steam-turbine successor to the Queens. It is expected to be completed in 1968.

Cunard have also invested £8,400,000 in the airline company 8.0.A.C.-Cunard over the past five years, as a safeguard against loss of seaborne traffic to airlines.