An island haulage company says recent Manxman cancellations have had a ‘massive’ impact on its operations.

The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company were forced to scrap a number of the flagship vessel’s planned sailings during December due to adverse weather conditions.

The cancellations meant freight deliveries to and from the island were severely disrupted as a result.

Jason Morton, the freight operations manager at family-owned haulage company Transmann Limited, said: ‘The Manxman disruptions before Christmas had a massive impact, leading to some freight having to be disposed of such as out of date medication and shop orders being refused that customers claimed they couldn’t sell before Christmas.

‘A high percentage of our customers rely on an early delivery/collection and their businesses are modelled around this.

‘If a sailing is cancelled, we’re informed the night before so we can give businesses prior notice so they can adjust their operations accordingly and inform their staff and customers. If we find out in the morning the boat has been delayed due to tidal conditions, issues with loading in Heysham or vessels switching berths, then it throws us and our customers into chaos as you have staff waiting around and customers calling asking where their deliveries are.’

Recently, the MV Arrow has been delivering freight to and from the island due to Steam Packet employees undergoing industrial action and the number of Manxman sailings being halved.

Talking about this period, Mr Morton said: ‘The arrangement meant that the Arrow couldn’t dock until the Manxman had left at 8am, so where we would normally have a trailer on our yard at 6:30am, we wouldn’t receive it until around 9am and this had a massive impact on our staff and more importantly our customers.’

Another organisation that has felt the impact of Manxman cancellations has been G.E. White, the newspaper distribution company.

Carl Gough, the managing director of the firm, told Manx Radio: ‘This is the worst period of bad weather and non-sailings that I’ve experienced in my 30 years at the company. In the month of December there was a total of seven non-sailing days, and the period between Christmas and New Year saw barely any sailings go ahead at all.

‘It’s certainly had a considerable financial impact on us and our customers, and consistency is vital to all businesses on the island. But we do have a very good relationship with the Steam Packet and absolutely sympathise with them.’