Sorry for ferries chaos ...there’s more to come
Boss’s dire warning as passengers left to sleep in cars
ISLANDERS have been told to brace themselves for another year of chaos and cancellations as a ferry boss issued an apology for disruption that forced passengers to sleep in cars.
CalMac withdrew one of its oldest ferries last week because of problems with its firefighting system – the third time in recent weeks a key vessel has been taken out of service.
With no back-up boats, many sailings were cancelled and the ferry operator imposed a reduced timetable leaving some would-be travellers with no option but to sleep in their vehicles.
Island shops had to ration food and essentials after a spate of panic buying because all sailings last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between Uig on Skye, Lochmaddy on North Uist and Tarbert on Harris were axed.
It comes amid a huge drop in passenger numbers compared with pre-pandemic levels.
CalMac managing director Robbie Drummond apologised for the latest chaos.
He said services were ‘getting back to normal’ but told islanders to brace themselves for at least another year of travel misery.
‘Clearly customers are deeply upset at the latest disruption last week and everyone at CalMac is deeply sorry for what they’ve been going through,’ he said. ‘We’re working very hard to maintain a current resilience with the vessels we have got and there is significant investment into that.
‘The new ferries are due to arrive in 2023 and 2024, and then there are two new ferries for Islay too that will make a real difference.
‘So the service will be challenging for the next year but when we see that new tonnage coming in, that will make a real difference.’
CalMac is pinning its hopes on the two boats at the heart of the Ferguson Marine ferry scandal that will be delivered at least five years late and which have gone substantially over budget.
Mr Drummond added: ‘The challenge is that every single one of our vessels are fully deployed to the end of the working day. So when we do have a disruption event, we are looking at having to try to spread those ferries across all of our routes that provide lifeline services everywhere and that’s difficult.’
Mr Drummond is urging the Scottish Government to commit to long-term funding to try to improve the reliability of services.
Passenger numbers have also shown a dramatic drop compared with before the pandemic, with 4.9million estimated journeys by ferry this year compared with 5.7million recorded in 2019. But Mr Drummond claimed it was not due to travellers shunning the unreliable service and was instead as a result of fewer people commuting or having less money.
He added: ‘We are seeing reductions which we believe is potentially due to cost of living challenges, but also less commuters travelling on the network too.’