Red Funnel has announced that it’s hi-speed Red Jet service will be suspended this evening (Saturday) due to critical staff shortages.
Passengers – many of whom will be enjoying a Christmas evening out in Southampton – will have to travel on the vehicle ferry service to East Cowes instead.
It had been said that the last Red Jet from Southampton will depart at 18:15 with the last crossing of the night leaving West Cowes at 18:55.
However, Red Funnel has issued a further update to say that the above sailings have now been cancelled.
It has been confirmed that the Red Jet service will be suspended for the remainder of today and is expected to resume on Sunday morning.
Red Funnel apologise for the inconvenience caused to your journey.
UPDATE SUNDAY – Red Funnel has confirmed that staff shortages are also affecting today’s timetable, with every other sailing cancelled.
Further details and a full revised timetable can be found at www.redfunnel.co.uk.
But we don’t need a fixed link
No we don’t if you do then go simple
Badger maybe you dont use the ferries ,but times have to change, and we should now consider our siblings and the younger generations for the future ,we cannot keep going on with all these cancelations after cancelations or just remove a ferry because it cannot be filled, and prioritised profit and dividends to the shareholders first .
When are Red Funnel going to fire their CEO and operations manager as they are definitely not fit for purpose.
This is absolutely disgraceful, surely this company should have a backup crew, now all the people who have parked in Cowes and gone shopping in Southampton have to make their way to Cowes via East Cowes, what happens if the Jenny boat is not running? No consideration for your passengers at all,
Problem is a lot of the time they don’t want to do the overtime.
Having a crew on paid back up all the time means extra costs as they expect pay for being on back up as can’t drink or do other things and where do you think that money comes from….
correct biker- to crew the boat you need specific qualifications and the shore based staff are not qualified. To have more crew on standby, you need to pay them and if you do have a shore based staff member who is trained to crew, then you need to pay someone else to cover them, if they go and crew the boat.
this is not a socialist utopia – you want the boats to run but you don’t want to pay higher ticket prices, to pay for the extra staff. You cannot have it both ways – lower ticket prices, means less revenue, which means less staff – pretty straightforward
overtime is voluntary – why should someone give up their free time, in addition to the 40 hours they already do.
Good point, but I wonder how other organizations work such as retained fire fighters and the lifeboat service.
Who all or most manage to hold down a full or part-time job ?
the companies they work for let them go, if they can, to a call out ….if a volunteer isn’t available same rules apply….you cannot get the office staff to jump on the lifeboat and drive it
Seems to me that this is more a case of health and safety gone crazy.
I don’t know, yet expect that each ferry has to have some trained member clutching a dubious piece of paper showing they have attened a course on some H & S course.
Likely to be a qual re fire, first aid, allegry attacks, navigation, fuel spillage, etc etc.
Without such a qualified person, the companies insurance would not cover them in the ten million to one chance of such an incident happening on their craft.
IF I am correct then all staff should be trained in all such to prevent this issue
santa ho ho ho – based on your logic, would you be happy with with the receptionist at the doctors, treating you instead of the dr.
each crew member will need to have a full STCW95 qualification and depending on the role, officer of the watch certification, navigational qualifications and in the case of the captains, a masters ticket.
you cannot be accepted on a radar operators course unless you have the “sea time” logged in your records and have a certain level of expertise and qualification already.
you cannot train your ticket office staff to be a radar operator or tie up the boat, just in case – doesn’t work like that anymore.
The receptionists seem to be running the medical centres so why not the Red Jets. You can’t get to see a doctor as they are in hiding so it seems its perfectly safe to see Nurse practitioner but not safe to see a doctor. I wouldn’t pay GPs at Cowes Medical Centre until they turn up for work.
This seems to be happening more and more. If you are running a business that provides an essential service to the general public, surely you must have standby staff?
Disgraceful. Is it the Red Jet’s staff Christmas do tonight?
The entire company is an absolute shambles.. needs chucking in the bin and starting again