After some great weather in April, May has been a bit of a let down. We have seen a fair bit of ferry and even flight disruption. As part of our service we have to keep a close eye on what’s happening weather-wise and how it’s affecting our clients, so that we can come up with alternative plans when necessary. To do this effectively we need to be able to access accurate and timely information from transport providers – some are better than others! One of the better innovations in recent years came from Calmac the ferry company, who now have an “app” so you can monitor all their routes in one place. While this is convenient, the system works on a green/amber/red indicator – green being normal service, red being cancelled, and amber being defined as “may be delayed or cancelled at short notice”. Problem is, that’s so general to be almost useless, especially when you are trying to work up back-up plans for clients who can be travelling in remote parts of the country. So then it’s back to the old fashioned method – call the ports and find out the full story. I have even been in contact with a couple of vessels directly, just to make sure they were going to make a sailing and get our clients to where they needed to be.
As you can imagine “Ferry on Amber Alert” is not the news we like to wake up to in the morning.
All part of the McKinlay Kidd service!