Olympic Passenger CarryingsProfits

[Brent Holt]

Does anyone have access to the number of passengers Olympic averaged during her career. (By year) I have seen some figures in the Leviathan volumes, but not that much. For example, in 1931 Olympic averaged 450 passengers per crossing. By using some guess work, I put her 1930 averages at around 620. In 1925, her average was 870 passengers per crossing. I assume she did better than this at other times, though.
And what about profitability? Was Olympic a profitable ship? I expect she was until the Depression, although I have seen no records to prove this.
Brent

 

[Mark Chirnside]

Olympic did do better at times -- I think on one year she averaged well over one thousand passengers per crossing.

It depends how exactly you define 'crossing' -- I know it's usually half a round trip, but sometimes people refer to a whole round trip. I have more figures, some for 1935, which show the traffic rapidly beginning to pick up again (just before she left service). I also have a record book detailing such figures, but I have not got the figures down at the moment without looking at it. That said, the 1931 average seems a bit lower than I recall -- is it a typo for 550?

Do you mean Braynard's volumes? I have sent a letter to him asking about copies. I look forward to reading them.

Olympic lost less money per voyage during the depression than any equivilent size/age ships in the Cunard fleet -- her fuel and operating costs were far less, even though she was carrying roughly the same number of passengers. From memory, for example, it cost £10,000 to fuel Olympic one-way, and £20,000 + for the Majestic. This is one of many reasons why I truly believe that she was retired prematurely.

Out of interest how did you guesstimate for the 1930 data? I'd guess a similar figure, especially considering Berengaria.

Best regards,

Mark.

 

[Brent Holt]

According to the Braynard volumes, which is where I got all the figures, Olympic averaged 450 passengers per crsssing in 1931.
I got the guesstimate from the Leviathan volumes again. It listed Olympics total # of passengers for 1930, but not how many crossings that year. I just used the 1931 number with 31 crossings.
Brent