Labour has accused the Scottish Government of incompetence as figures revealed "spiralling" cancellations impacting lifeline ferry services to many island communities.
State-owned ferry operator CalMac cancelled 40,989 sailings between September 2018 and April 2023, the figures obtained by Labour using freedom of information legislation show.
Non-weather related cancellations rose from 1371 in 2017-18 to a peak of 5,805 in 2021-22, before dropping last year.
There were 4,620 sailings axed for reasons not related to the weather in 2022-23 - 237% higher than the number in 2017-18.
The data comes just days after it emerged sea trials for the Glen Sannox ferry - one of two delayed and over-budget vessels being built for CalMac by the Ferguson Marine yard in Port Glasgow - have been further held up due to last-minute changes.
Meanwhile, problems with the firm's ageing vessels impacted sailings during the summer months.
Labour's islands spokeswoman Rhoda Grant blamed the Government.
READ MORE: CalMac ferry is diverted to help eight striken canoeists
She said: "These spiralling levels of cancellations are a direct result of SNP incompetence.
"For years they have failed to modernise our ferry fleet and now the island communities are paying the price.
"The consequences of this chaos are huge for islanders, who miss hospital appointments and are cut off from loved ones, and they are a hammer blow to businesses.
"The SNP must get a grip of the mess they have made and deliver a national ferry building programme to modernise our lifeline ferry fleet and support Scottish shipbuilding."
Transport Scotland said providing six new ferries for service across the Clyde and Hebrides is a "priority" for the Scottish Government.
A spokesperson said: "Should there be cancellations to CalMac services due to weather or technical issues, then a full refund will be provided to the customer.
"Statistics show that in 2022, of the 171,403 scheduled sailings across the Clyde and Hebrides ferry service network, 11,301 (6.6%) were cancelled.
"Of these, 1,830 (1.1%) were cancelled due to technical issues.
"We recognise the impact that disruption has regrettably had on our island communities and are fully committed to investing in our ferry services.
"There have been ongoing technical issues with vessels which resulted in delays to last year's annual overhaul programme and cancellation of sailings."
Transport Scotland is continuing to work with CalMac and CMAL, the body which owns both the ferries and harbour infrastructure, to "improve reliability and resilience", its spokesperson added.
While some communities "have been more greatly impacted than others", the spokesperson stressed: "Delivering six new major vessels to serve Scotland's ferry network by 2026 is a priority for this Government.
"We have also provided funding to CalMac to charter the MV Alfred, which provides additional resilience for a nine-month period."
A CalMac spokeswoman said: "These figures reveal that since May 2017, CalMac has only cancelled a very small percentage of sailings because of technical failures. More than 95% of all sailings went ahead in the past five years.
READ MORE: CalMac boss details the 'truth' behind Scotland's ferry woes
"The main reason why sailings are cancelled are due to poor weather, which can happen at any time in the year in the challenging waters off the west coast of Scotland.
"Regarding cancellations for reasons other than weather or for technical problems, more than 40% of these were Scottish Government-approved and involved vessels being moved around the network so that lifeline services could be preserved.
"More than a third were directly related to the global Covid pandemic, while the rest included pier work being carried out by harbour authorities, and berths not being available.
"We continue to work hard to prevent unscheduled breakdowns and look forward to welcoming 10 new vessels to the fleet over the next five years.
"This will have a huge effect on resilience and our ability to provide a quality, reliable services to customers."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel