CalMac “do not yet have enough confidence” in its first new ferry from Ferguson Marine shipyard, the MV Glen Sannox, to factor it into next year’s winter timetable, Mull and Iona Ferry Committee claim.
In a post titled ‘How the arrival – or not – of Glen Sannox affects the service to Mull & Iona’, Mull and Iona Ferry Committee said: “We have sought assurances from CalMac that this will be the last winter where the Craignure-Oban service is operated by Loch Frisa on her own.
“Weather-resilient and locally crewed she may be, but the vessel that was presented as as our new ‘core’ ship has neither the speed nor the capacity that the route requires.
“CalMac managing director Robbie Drummond has agreed that the Frisa cannot deliver an adequate service on her own, and they will deliver continuous two-vessel service as soon as they can. But their ability to deliver it relies on having more vessels in the fleet than they do right now.
“To summarise the situation, there is no chance of continuous two-vessel operation until Glen Sannox is in service (AKA hull 801). That should allow a cascade of ships ultimately benefitting Craignure-Oban.
“The current delivery is March 31 2024. So that should mean that we will have an additional ferry six months before the winter timetable starts, and next winter we will have continuous two-vessel service, right?
“Wrong. It seems that CalMac do not yet have enough confidence in successful introduction of the Glen Sannox to add her to scheduled services next winter. They are going to devise next winter’s timetables on the assumption that the Glen Sannox can’t contribute.
“From CalMac’s perspective that sounds like prudent precaution – they don’t want to timetable services that they can’t deliver. But it’s a pretty poor indictment of the 801/802 build that CalMac still can’t be sure of having her services six years after the originally planned delivery date.
“If the Glen Sannox is delivered at the end of March, and if she proves reliable, then winter timetables will be adjusted. But for now, winter 24/25 will be scheduled without her – and that will include more periods of ‘Frisa only’ for us.
“The irony here is that the Loch Frisa would not have been purchased at all, had 801 and 802 been delivered on time. The prime motivator for her purchase was increased ‘resilience’ (a euphemism for moving ferries to other routes) for a network struggling with a decrepit fleet.
“We never asked for a second ferry to operate alongside the MV Isle of Mull in winter – all that we asked for were a few additional sailings by the MV Isle of Mull at the beginning and the end of the day. Despite costing just £600k per year, these extra sailings were deemed unaffordable.
“Frisa however was bought at the cost of £12m, and has added to annual operating costs (and therefore subsidy) by several millions every year.”
Robbie Drummond, chief executive of CalMac, said: “We are currently working on the summer 2024 timetable that will be published in due course. We will shortly commence consultation over the winter 2024/25 timetable in line with normal process where we consult on behalf of Transport Scotland.
“Until we have final confirmed dates for deployment of new vessels we will continue to plan timetables without them, adding them as they become available.
“This is our standard approach with vessels, such as MV Hebridean Isles when it was unavailable, which we took out of the timetable until we were confident it would be deployed and in service. We look forward to welcoming six major and 10 small vessels in the near future.”