Wightlink have cancelled a number of sailings on their Fastcat catamaran service this morning (Friday).
Sickness of an essential member of the crew has been blamed for the decision.
The 06:40, 07:40 and 08:40 sailings from Portsmouth Harbour and the 07:10, 08:10 and 09:10 sailings from Ryde have been cancelled.
All booked customers will travel on the next available sailing.
UPDATE @ 13:00 – Wightlink have now confirmed that the 18:45 from Portsmouth Harbour and the 19:15 from Ryde have also been cancelled.
For help with your booking, call 0333 999 7333 (Mon-Fri 08:00-20:00 and Sat-Sun 09:00-18:00).
Absolute disgrace. Shame on you Wightlink.. The government should impose very heavy fines on Wightlink if they cancel sailings due to crew sickness and the fines should be 10x more than a couple of staff’s annual salaries . Maybe then, they will employ more staff ..
Probably not crew sickness at all, remember ferries being cancelled due to an unspecified piece of equipment? This is the latest excuse to reduce sailings to save money.
@babs
perhaps you should be fined for not turning up for work as well – or carrying out something you are contracted to do, due to illness.
They have enough staff to operate the boats, however, if they had more on shift, they would be sitting around doing nothing, as there is no work for them to do. The company would incur additional costs training them – they would then put the ticket prices up to compensate for the additional costs incurred and you would pay the higher prices to travel for demanding extra staff be on hand.
The way you are talking none given , sounds like you are a shareholder in Wightlink
I don’t know, but GUESS it is due to stricter Health and Safety rules. Likely in these pathetic days, they have to have so many with certain pieces of paper to ‘show’ they are qualified enough for some ‘unlikely’ potential disaster etc.
Yet the UK knowingly allow in thousands of unchecked people onto it’s soil each year, some of whom do the most vile atrocities with seemingly then, little regard for the publics safety.
The world, or at least, the UK, has gone mad.
To both ferry operators, just a quiet word in your shell-like. “WE DON’T BELIEVE YOU ANYMORE “ . You’ve milked this excuse dry now. Sort your costly and very annoying problems out or get in some management who can.
Heaven knows they make enough profit at our expense
too many snowflakes calling in sick because they cannot handle the hours more like and want to go out with their friends.
You would be surprised how many hours are spent by the shift managers over the course of a year, calling round crew trained staff, to see if someone is available on their day off, or legally allowed to work the extra hours, based on the minimum rest periods as dictated by legislation.
This is stupid people getting severely SiCK because of these silly crew sailings ugh