7 May, 2009

NORTHERN isles ferry operator NorthLink is floating proposals to make radical changes to its timetable promising daytime sailings between Lerwick and Kirkwall in summer, but fewer journeys to Aberdeen during the winter.

The proposal, which was made public for the first time at Shetland Islands Council external transportation forum meeting yesterday (Wednesday), will now be consulted on widely by the Shetland transport partnership ZetTrans.

NorthLink chief executive Bill Davidson told the meeting that the company was looking at ways to offer more sailings during the summer when demand was the highest.

The downside would be fewer sailings between Lerwick and Aberdeen during some winter months, effectively reducing the service to three days a week.

The proposal, should it be adopted, would not become a reality before the summer season of 2010.

Mr Davidson said: "We are looking at the possibility of running daytime services between Lerwick and Kirkwall, down in the morning and back in the afternoon. This would allow the standard overnight service between Lerwick and Aberdeen to continue."

The change would allow NorthLink to better link in to its existing service between Stromness and Scrabster, and would enable it to transport more travellers as they would need no cabin accommodation during daytime sailings.

Mr Davidson continued: "In the current environment the government's cash is constrained and we are looking at ways to pay for all this by achieving savings elsewhere in the service.

"One possibility would be reducing the frequency of the passenger service between Aberdeen and Lerwick in the winter months when it is very quiet and very few people are travelling."

He added that the freight service would not be affected and if people wanted to travel during the winter months on a day the passenger vessel was in Aberdeen they could always use the cargo boat which can carry up to 12 passengers.

ZetTrans chairman Allan Wishart said the proposal was interesting and worth considering.