30% of staff at Red Funnel are currently having to self-isolate which, when tallied with recruitment struggles, an influx of tourists and roadworks, is causing disruption on the East Cowes-Southampton vehicle ferry service.
Island Echo readers have been complaining about regular and lengthy delays when travelling across the Solent, as well as traffic jams at both terminals and numerous sailing cancellations. But until now it wasn’t entirely clear what the root cause of this sudden and impactive disruption was.
The company’s CEO, Fran Collins, has finally revealed the numerous reasons behind the recent deterioration in the company’s service, with the main factor being COVID-19.
It’s now known that 30% of the workforce are currently unable to work as a result of being contacted by the NHS Track and Trace System or self-isolating. Less shoreside staff means that loading and unloading is a slower process, which in turn is resulting in queues out of the gates. A number of ferries have had to be cancelled because the company cannot meet the legal requirements in terms of staffing.
Recruitment has also been a struggle this year with 51 roles currently available across the business in both Southampton and here on the Isle of Wight. These roles vary from Customers Advisors to Deck Hands. The lack of seasonal staff and the 30% reduction in available staff has led to a massive understaffing issue for Red Funnel.
Island Roads have also been blamed for some of the earlier disruption with roadworks in East Cowes putting additional pressure on traffic in the area. Red Funnel say they are now working with the Isle of Wight Council to devise a traffic management plan for the summer holiday period and will be encouraging travellers not to arrive more than 30 minutes before their sailing.
A boost in the popularity of staycations this year means a lot more visitors are heading to the Isle of Wight, which means the route is becoming busier than normal – all at a time when the company is understaffed.
The next 8 weeks are expected to be even busier as children break up for the summer holidays, which could well cause even more disruption for the cross-Solent operator. However, from 16th August, the requirement for self-isolation will change meaning those who are double vaccinated won’t have to self-isolate if they come into contact with a positive case, which should help keep the workforce in work.
Fran Collins, CEO of Red Funnel, says:
“We recognise that recent disruptions to our service have contributed to delays and cancellations, affecting the community in East Cowes. We sincerely apologise to both passengers and the local community. Red Funnel provides an essential service for many Islanders, and we want to ensure we are open and transparent with our communications to both our customers and the Island community.
“We will continue to keep the community updated as we work hard to improve the essential service we know residents rely on during these challenging times, minimising our effect on the Island infrastructure”.
Details of Red Funnel vacancies can be found here.
So nothing to do with poor customer service! Over pricing. Poorly maintained ships. Plus poorly treated staff. . Yep that’s it road works is the cause of poor service!!
The truth is out at Red Funnel at last, took long enough. The hospital should release the actual figures next, not just the fudged and fiddled versions.
Only one word can describe this, Mismanagement.
All of the excuses you’ve used should have been foreseeable. Stop whining and get on with it.
I think most islanders can see through this.
Shameful
There’s plenty of reasons they can’t get the staff. They’re treated poorly by the management, abused by irate customers and the pay is rubbish.
Blame your customers for wanting to use the service, blame the roadworks, blame everything except yourselves. If you didn’t need all your staff last year then you should have furloughed them – they’d now be available to you. But no – you made 38 or so redundant. Gross mismanagement.
Shocking treatment of the staff ie shift patterns imposed on them that nobody is happy with and poor pay. 51 vacancies surely should show the new chair of the board that people don’t want to work there and that the top management are not fit for purpose
Staff shortages after redundancies.
Bad management and greed.
The latest variant of covid is so strong the boats need to self-isolate
That’s business…. Shareholders/ directors first and F888 everyone else.Shameful.
I cant believe what i have just read, blame everyone but themselves. It has to be time for a tunnel.. Thank god i am going abroad for 2 weeks
Thats if you can get of the Island
Fran Collins should start writing children’s stories as she obviously off with the fairies or is she trying to bring back Jackanory
Is this the same Rad Funnel that made 50 people redundent,refused to share finacial forecasts with the unoin at the time and stated they wanted to go for casual labour during the summer months? The same Red Funnel that were warned by the union not to get rid of experinced staff and now are short staffed and are struggling with recruitment while using the old Covid excuse for everything?
Type in “Red Funnel Redundacies” in your search engine…it is all there
Sorry, Have i missed the boat lol…….did they not make 50 staff redundant last year……
…..kers total …t non service now was never like this 10/20 years ago
really??? ye right..