CalMac Ferries have this afternoon (Wednesday April 8) issued a revised vessel deployment plan to restore what it describes as normal Barra and Little Minch services.

This intended to run from tomorrow (Thursday 9 April) until Friday 17 April inclusive. 

The service revisions come as the ferry operator deals with four major and four small vessels unavailable for service.

MV Glen Sannox returned to service this afternoon on Arran.

MV Isle of Islay, the newest vessel in the fleet, will be redeployed from Islay to Barra from Thursday to allow timetabled services to be restored on the latter.

Doing this also allows CalMac to reinstate normal services on the Little Minch, where MV Clansman has been covering three islands recently, including Barra.

CalMac is unable to provide a direct service to South Uist, but the Little Minch timetable will continue to prioritise Lochmaddy to provide a mainland link there. 

MV Alfred, recently returned from overhaul, will move to cover Islay as a second vessel alongside MV Finlaggan and CalMac is planning for her to pick up service from Friday afternoon.

MV Caledonian Isles will operate to Arran alongside MV Glen Sannox.

MV Isle of Mull will continue to serve Coll, Tiree and Colonsay, whilst Mull will face significantly reduced services with MV Coruisk providing a single-vessel service until MV Loch Frisa is back from planned maintenance on Monday 13 April.

Even with those two vessels, Mull’s service will remain below planned levels due to the smaller size of both vessels in comparison to having MV Isle of Mull on the route.

CalMac CEO Duncan Mackison said: ““In the coming days our priority is to ensure that, wherever possible, every community has a service and to provide as much certainty as we can as to what that service looks like.   

“The plan we’ve put in place in redeploying MV Isle of Islay allows us to restore two key routes – Barra and the Little Minch – to normality from Thursday, and we’ll draft in MV Alfred to cover Islay. 

“We’ve set out plans through to next Friday, the day before MV Hebrides is scheduled to return from planned maintenance. Her return triggers a cascade of vessels that allows us to restore normal service levels to a number of island communities.

“Until then, we’re pushing hard to speed up repairs on unavailable vessels and I want to assure those who rely on us that we’re doing everything in our gift to improve service levels.”

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