In December we were told that our summer timetables were delayed whilst decisions were made in Edinburgh about next year’s fares. It seemed like a strange reason for delay, since RET fare calculation usually follows the prevailing inflation rate and is quite straight forward. We perhaps now know the reason for the delay – fares are being frozen until September.
This is welcome and unexpected. It will do nothing to address the core and chronic issues of reliability and capacity, but its is certainly a small piece of positive ferry news. As well as helping the island cost of living it will give tourist businesses something positive to market on, after so much negative ferry news.
In the next few days we should also be able to confirm next summer’s timetables.