Red Funnel says that its vehicle ferry service will remain suspended for ‘much of today’ due to an ongoing technical issue with the linkspan at East Cowes. As previously reported by Island Echo, all sailings to and from East Cowes have been suspended leading to significant travel disruption. The issue arose late on Sunday night. Engineers are not thought to have arrived at the East Cowes terminal until around 09:00 this morning, with work now taking place to get the hydraulic system back up and running as soon as possible. It was originally hoped that crossings would resume at midday, but Red Funnel has now confirmed that all sailings up until 16:00 have been pulled – stating that the service is expected to remain suspended for ‘much of today’. Unsurprisingly, Red Funnel’s contact centre is exceptionally busy with calls from affected customers. If you already have a booking to travel today, and would like to amend to an alternative day, or cancel, you are advised to visit the amend / cancellation page and complete the form. Amendment and cancellation fees will be waived for any customers affected by today’s disruption. Additional Red Jet sailings between Southampton and West Cowes are being operated today to support foot passengers unable to travel on the vehicle ferry. Those additional sailings will be: Southampton to West Cowes: 10:55 / 12:05 / 13:15 / 14:25 West Cowes to Southampton: 11:30 / 12:40 / 13:50 / 15:00 Richard Quigley MP has said that the situation is ‘unacceptable’ and that Wightlink appearing to cash in on the issue ‘doesn’t help the Island one bit’. Red Funnel says it sincerely apologises for the inconvenience to customers and that the company is fully committed to restoring its service as quickly as possible. UPDATE @ 12:26 – Red Funnel has loaded vehicles at its Southampton terminal with the first ferry of the day – Red Falcon – departing port bound for East Cowes. The cross-Solent operator is yet to announce that the service has resumed, but the departure of the ferry from Southampton suggests they anticipate the linkspan being fixed prior to 13:30. UPDATE @ 12:37 – It has been confirmed that a normal vehicle ferry timetable will resume at 13:00 from Southampton and 14:30 from East Cowes following the completion of repair works to the linkspan. Leanna Lakes, Operations Director at Red Funnel, said:
“Thanks to the exceptional speed and dedication of our technical and wider support teams. I am pleased to announce that our East Cowes linkspan has been repaired, and our vehicle ferry service has now resumed. To help ease disruption we will continue operating additional Red Jet sailings between Southampton and West Cowes. “We would like to sincerely thank our customers for their patience and understanding during this time, whilst the repairs were underway. As well as our dedicated customer support teams for assisting everyone throughout the day.”
