CalMac has warned passengers in Craignure there will be no standby tickets for sailings for today.
Breaking a long-held tradition of passengers being able to turn up and wait at the ferry in Craignure to take a sailing to Oban, the operator says people must now book a ticket.
Over the last week, people on the islands have reported numerous problems with a new booking system.
One passenger who checked three times that she still had a booking on a ferry on Saturday morning to Mull, but was told her ferry was cancelled at 10pm last night.
ℹ️INFO #Oban #Craignure 20May Please be advised that all passengers travelling from Craignure must have a booking. Passengers without a booking will not be permitted travel and unable to join standby.
— CalMac Service Info (@CalMac_Updates) May 20, 2023
She was told to go via the Lochaline Ferry. But was informed by locals that the Corran ferry was not working and it was an extra hour-and-15-minutes onto her journey.
CalMac thanked people for their patience as it worked through questions and queries about the booking and ticketing platform.
In a statement online, CalMac said: “Please be advised that all passengers travelling from Craignure must have a booking.
“Passengers without a booking will not be permitted travel and unable to join standby.”
The ferry operator said that to help with capacity issues to and from Mull, the MV Loch Linnhe will operate an additional shuttle service as and when required.
The ferry operator added: “Due to this service running with reduced capacity, we strongly recommend foot passengers book ahead where possible to be accommodated on your preferred sailing.”
Top tips for using the ticketing system
Mull and Iona Ferry Committee gave ferry users some tips about using the new ticketing system.
- If you only see five sailings listed when you know there are others, try clearing the cache on your browser. The easiest way to do that -on a PC at least- is to press CTRL and F5 when you have the booking system open. After that, the issue should not appear again.
- Does the “Register” button at the bottom of the account creation page remain stubbornly greyed out despite all fields being completed? Try deleting the contents of the address boxes, and start again by typing in just your postcode manually. This should prompt a drop-down list of available addresses to select from. If you don’t use this drop down (either by filling in all the address boxes manually or by allowing your computer to auto-fill them), the Register button remains greyed-out.
Conversation