Caledonian MacBrayne has defended Brodick pier staff after confirming that a car jumped the queue for the Ardrossan ferry unchallenged.
The move follows a complaint to the Banner from June McKay, of Stonehouse, Motherwell, claiming pier staff allowed the vehicle to take the last car space available on the delayed 1.50pm sailing last Friday.
Mrs McKay accused the staff of incompetency and said her sister and five young nieces and nephews were denied the last place after having waited for 90 minutes to go on.
In a letter to the Banner, she said the driver of the red Astra car which jumped the queue should be ashamed.
‘Are managers at the pier not paid more money to take charge and deal with such issues?’ she said. ‘No, they walk away.
‘Are staff there not trained to deal with such simple situations where the obvious answer was to listen to the protestations of others and sort out who was rightfully next?’
A CalMac spokesman said it regretted the inconvenience caused in what he said were ‘trying’ circumstances. The company had to deal with a serious backlog of traffic due to ferry cancellations on Wednesday, all day Thursday, and on Friday morning.
‘The port was therefore very busy and the car marshalling area was manned all day in pretty atrocious weather conditions,’ he said.
‘It was extremely frustrating for staff that one driver chose to take matters into their own hands by jumping the queue.This has nothing to do with lack of training or courtesy on the staff’s part. There were communication difficulties on the day which meant marshalling staff could not be appraised of what happened. CalMac does not condone such actions.'
He added that Mrs McKay’s comment about managers and how much they were paid was not worthy of a response.
