POLL: Should those who don’t cancel unused ferry bookings be charged?
Calls have been made this week to penalise people who fail to cancel inter-island ferry sailings they have not turned up for.
An Unst resident told The Shetland Times she intends to move out of the island due to ongoing issues with the ferry service.
Among the problems she faced this week was being able to secure a booking back into Unst after travelling to Lerwick.
While she could get into town without difficulty on Tuesday morning, when she tried to book her return journey she was told all ferries to Unst were booked up until 4pm.
However, after arriving in Gutcher for an earlier ferry, she found there was only one car in the booked lane – and only three more joined it.
She believed this was due to people block-booking sailings and failing to cancel them when they were no longer needed – calling on those who fail to cancel their sailings to be penalised.
Robert Jones
I’d suggest retiming ferries to allow 45 minutes to cross Yell. The current timings are tight, and if you come off one ferry behind a slow lorry or a tractor it’s a lottery as to whether you’ll make your connection, so a lot of people will book the next one and not use it.