Hundreds of commuters crossing the Gozo strait on May 1 were stranded for hours in long queues, as only two of Gozo Channel’s three ferries were in service.
Gozo Channel normally drops its usual schedule and operates a shuttle service between the two islands to cope with the high demand when there is a long weekend. This year, May Day fell on a Monday. However, one of its vessels was instead used by the Labour Party to ferry supporters to its Valletta mass meeting.
The vessel was chartered by the party to operate directly to Valletta and to take the Gozitans home after the meeting.
Labour Party supporters enjoyed a special service from Gozo Channel ahead of a mass meeting last Monday. Photo: Facebook“We waited for almost four hours in scorching sun to get the boat back to Malta last Monday,” a 33-year-old man spending the long weekend with his family in Gozo complained.
“When I was told that this was because one of the ships was being used by the Labour Party, I was fuming,” he said.
“It could have been the PN or whatever other party for me, as I don’t give a hoot about politics.
“It’s simply not on that common mortals are given such a bad service because some political party decided to charter one of the vessels,” said another commuter, who had been stranded for five hours.
“The company should have foreseen this and refused to rent out one of its vessels on such a busy day,” he said.
The delayed service negatively affected many Gozitan students, who also wanted to cross back to Malta.
In a statement, the Gozo University Group said that it was extremely disappointed that on a public holiday, when the majority of students commuted back to Malta, they were left stranded because of a mass meeting.
“This behaviour is unacceptable. We understand every weekend, we have to spend an hour or more in the queue in order to board the ferry because there are so many cars. But allocating a ferry for a mass meeting in such a situation is not serious.”
Meanwhile, questions sent to Joe Cordina – the chairman of Gozo Channel and also a Labour candidate on the Gozo district – had not been answered by the time of writing.
FERRY OUT OF SERVICE NEXT WEEK
Meanwhile, Gozo Channel said this morning that the MV Malita will be out of service for repairs at Palumbo, between next Monday and Thursday.
The company will be operating the morning trips between Monday and Thursday from 5 to 7.30am from Mġarr and from 5.30 to 7.30am from Ċirkewwa on a shuttle service so as to reduce waiting time to a minimum.
Other trips will be performed according to the published schedule.
A shuttle service will also be provided if demand so necessitates.