ANEK Lines

Large passenger shipping companies no longer dominate the Greek market. According to a study by XRTC Business Consultants, the big players, Attica Group (which operates Blue Star, Super Fast and Hellenic Seaways), ANEK and Minoan Lines, accounted for 38 percent of sea passenger traffic in 2018, down from 57 percent in 2014.

A passenger ferry with 1,016 people onboard returned safely to the port of Piraeus in the early hours on Wednesday after it reported a fire while en route to Crete, the coast guard said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, a coast guard official said.

After eight years of rough economic seas, Greece's major coastal shipping companies are sailing at half their size and under major financial pressure, but still managing to carve out some profits. Even after their extensive restructuring due to the domestic recession and competition from air transport, however, they are still at risk.

The coastal shipping sector showed a reduction in turnover in 2016 but not operating profits, thanks to the significant decline in fuel prices.

A new round of restructuring is under way in the Greek coastal shipping industry, with its catalyst being the tender by Piraeus Bank for the sale of a 40.44 percent stake in Hellenic Seaways (HSW) that belongs to the lender's portfolio.

The black box of the fire-stricken Norman Atlantic, the Italian-flagged ferry leased by Greek ANEK shipping company, failed to reveal the audio recordings as had been anticipated. Italian paper Corriere della Sera reported that the recordings were missing.

Italian sources from the prosecutor's office in Bari found that one of the two charred bodies found on the ship could belong to a 60-year-old missing truck driver following the disastrous Norman Atlantic shipwreck. The second body possibly belongs to an undocumented migrant whose name was not on the passenger list. Official autopsy results are still pending.

The search for 18 passengers feared dead on the Norman Atlantic ferry, where nine were killed in a fire that broke out as it traveled between Greece and Italy on December 28, is being hampered by toxic smoke and heat in the parking area, investigators at the Italian port of Brindisi told local media there on Monday.

The representatives of four seamen?s unions expressed concern on Friday at the lack of progress in investigating the causes of the Norman Atlantic tragedy, which has so far led to 10 confirmed deaths, including three Greeks.

Italian firefighters at the port of Brindisi have recovered the main black box data recorder from the Norman Atlantic ferry but there are fears that it may have been seriously damaged by the fire that broke out on board.

Another black box had been discovered on Friday. Italy?s Rai TV reported that authorities believe the fire may have been caused by a short circuit.