Call for compensation after ferry tech outage

A Channel Islands holiday company has said it lost more than £20,000 in bookings, following a week-long tech outage for Guernsey's main ferry operator.

Brittany Ferries' Guernsey reservation system went down last Thursday, following a fire at a data centre in Amsterdam, and was fixed seven days later.

Grant Miller, chairman and owner of Preston Holidays, said the effect of the outage had been significant, as his team had been unable to make or confirm any bookings for customers.

In a statement, Brittany Ferries apologised for the inconvenience and said it was in discussions to prevent future issues.

Miller said the outage had struck his entirely ferry-based tour company at a busy time.

"It is busy at the moment with bookings for obviously June, July, August, September but obviously we [couldn't] check availability or book any of those," he said.

He said he would like some form of compensation for the losses, as well as a contingency plan for future outages and better communication from Brittany Ferries.

"Monday was the last update [we received]," he said.

"There obviously needs to be a more robust back-up system in place, or a way of booking manually, like there used to be."

In a statement, Brittany Ferries said: "We understand how frustrating and disruptive the issues with our reservations system have been for customers.

"Discussions are taking place to avoid such issues recurring in future. We have kept the States of Guernsey informed."

Carus, the company which supplies Brittany Ferries' IT services, said: "As after every major incident there will be a follow-up resulting in recommendations that we will implement to avoid this from happening again."

Guernsey States has been contacted for comment.

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