Ferry operator Caledonian MacBrayne is reporting one of its best ever years in terms of traffic carried with more than five million passengers using the company’s services on its 31 ships, throughout the network and in excess of one million cars.

The network statistics are the best for car carryings since the Kyle-Kyleakin service ended in October 1996. This is the first time since then that CalMac has broken the million car marker.

And there are special celebrations on the island of Bute which has seen its millionth passenger in the calendar year for the first time in 30 years within the last ten days. The company operates two services to the island, from Wemyss bay to Rothesay and from Colintraive to Rhubodach.

Caledonian MacBrayne Managing Director Lawrie Sinclair said: “This is tremendous news at the end of what has been an extremely challenging year. Our traffic figures show clearly that the benefits of a good Easter followed by some special weather in the summer created circumstances which enabled us to stretch our busier periods. Significant factors such as the Balamory effect in relation to Mull need to be factored in and there could have been even better news had we not had to cease operating the Gourock to Dunoon vehicle service for nearly three months when the Dunoon linkspan failed. The addition of the new Sound of Barra service with the bigger vessel introduced on the Sound of Harris also contributed, as did the new 19-week summer service to Islay with the three-ship operation out of Oban for the first time.. More targeted and better marketing has also enabled us to boost the traffic figures significantly. All in all, it has been a tremendously successful year and we look forward to building on that in 2004.”

The network figures to date represent and increase of six per cent in passenger traffic and just over three per cent for cars. Full year statistics will not be available until the middle of January, when it is anticipated the statistics will have shown some further, slight improvement.