Summer Timetables

This year’s summer timetables will be open for booking on Friday 20th. As previously announced by Transport Scotland the fares will also be frozen, right through to the end of the summer season on October 22nd.

Below is the new Craignure-Oban timetable, together with the 2022 summer timetable (that was in place before the arrival of the Loch Frisa) for comparison. We have one additional Loch Frisa return on Tuesday evenings, and one on Saturday evenings. But these are not new for ’23, since they began at the end of last summer.

We have been able to improve public transport connections, with a minimum of 15 minutes for connection between the train and ferry (except for one connection of 14 minutes).

We tried to take advantage of the Loch Frisa sailing time made available by her being double-crewed. But it proved impossible due to both berths in Oban being occupied at each end of the day when she could otherwise have operated additional sailings.

We got the agreement of CalMac to enable the Loch Frisa to operate the late Friday sailings (instead of the IOM), by having the Isle of Mull briefly move off the Oban berth to allow her in. This would have resulted in reduced working hours for the IOM on Friday, and for those released hours to be used for additional Sunday morning sailings. This could have provided much-requested additional capacity over the busy weekend. That proved impossible however, because Sunday mornings are needed for crew safety drills. So despite there being significant unused Loch Frisa working time available, we were unable to find any way for her to utilise any more of it. Friday evening sailings will therefore continue to be operated by the Isle of Mull.

The timetable is a little more consistent across the week, but a return to clock-face timings of old is not possible due to the lengthened sailing and turnaround times.

Don’t forget that we are looking for your suggestions for the winter 23/24 timetables. If you have requests or ideas, please do get in touch.