Last winter Caledonian MacBrayne introduced a second ferry dedicated to freight preference traffic in order to meet unprecedented levels of demand and increased production levels from the Islay whisky industry. This proved to be successful. Following discussions once again this year with the distillers and the local community CalMac have agreed to continue with the second vessel this coming winter 2008/09, and to remove the freight restriction. This along with the decision to match the winter timetable as closely as possible to that which applies in the summer, means that the whole island will benefit from the changes which CalMac intend to apply until the new ship arrives in 2011. At that stage CalMac will review the service.

Story published with kind permission of the Ileach

Tag: ferry transport travel winter