Condor booking system collapses under strain
Friday 16th April 2010, 2:30PM BST.
Would-be air travellers queuing for Condor tickets at the harbour yesterday. (Picture by Tom Tardif, 0952136)
CONDOR FERRIES’ computer system crashed yesterday as passengers rushed to book boats to the UK.
By noon the queues were stretching outside the Condor ticket office at the harbour, with passengers desperate to travel amid flight chaos caused by ash from an Icelandic volcano grounding aircraft.
The computer booking system overloaded, meaning passengers had to fill in forms by hand before joining a second queue for a seat. Even after that passengers said they were not clear whether they would get on either of last night’s boats, which left fully loaded.
More than 400 people filled both of last night’s boats. There is still some availability on sailings today and Condor has eight services between now and Monday.
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Crashed booking system & a ship with a dodgy engine
Best off waiting for the planes to start flying again!!!
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I’m sure that Condor were trying to do their best in a difficult situation but there was some considerable confusion.
On the Condor Express which sailed at 7.15pm Thursday, and arrived in Weymouth at 9.20pm, there were a number of empty seats and that was surprising. I was allowed to change my seat so I had a table and two seats all to myself. On both upper and lower tiers there were seats which no-one claimed throughout the entire journey.
Maybe up to a dozen people spent the journey on the outside decks but there were far more empty seats than that. Condor – would you like to comment?
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Nathan
I’m tempted to agree with you. While Condor were posing for the press the ticket queues just got longer. I had to wait five hours for my ticket but at least I got on the ‘full’ boat.
Condor. What is your definition of a ‘full’ boat [see my post above]? However, broken engines or not, you did get me to Weymouth so I am grateful for that.
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Regarding ‘full’ ferries which aren’t, I believe some seats are set aside for car passengers. Only a few people are taking their cars from Guernsey at the moment so these car passenger seats need to be ‘unallocated’ once Condor conclude that they are unlikely to need them. It happened whilst we were in the office yesterday. Hey presto, seats suddenly appear on ‘full’ boats.
May I take this opportunity to thank Condor for not exploiting the situation in the way that certain airlines which shall remain nameless (cough! FlyBe) surely would. £35 one way seems reasonable when people are so desperate to get to the UK.
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