Almost 1,000 complaints about Caledonian Sleeper services have been made since the rail operator was brought back into public ownership in June 2023.
The SNP has been criticised for presiding over a ‘subpar service’, with nearly £1million in compensation payments issued since it was renationalised.
Caledonian Sleeper operates overnight long-distance services from Aberdeen to London Euston, as well as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Fort William.
The Scottish Government blamed former operator Serco for attempting to renegotiate its £800million deal because it was running a loss-making service as the reason why it was nationalised just eight years into a 15-year contract.
And the Scottish Tories revealed that nearly £1million of taxpayer-funded compensation payments have also been paid out to disappointed passengers in the last year-and-a-half, writes the Scottish Daily Express.
The party published new figures showing that 881 complaints have been made between June 2023 and September 14 2024., with a third of these about the upkeep and repair of the train.
In June 2023 Transport Minister Fiona Hyslop insisted the only option to keep it going was to nationalise the service due to “substantial uncertainty regarding future market conditions and the pace and impact of the [previous] UK government’s rail reform process.”
A total of £965,672 has been paid out to fed up passengers between April 24, 2023 and April 5, 2024, with taxpayers forking out for this.
A staggering 519 complaints were made between June 25, 2023 and March 31, 2024 and 364 complaints were made between March 1, 2024 and September 14, 2024.
About 300 of there were about the upkeep and repair of the train, while other complainants were annoyed about the reliability of the service, the attitude of the staff, the comfort of the seating area, and the complaints handling process itself.
Scottish Tory Transport Spokeswoman Sue Webber claimed that these figures suggested that the SNP had failed in nationalising another service.
She said: “The SNP’s nationalisation of the Caledonian Sleeper is not going to plan. Just like SNP-run ScotRail, it looks like they have messed up the nationalisation of the Caledonian Sleeper as well.
“Passengers are receiving a sub-par service and as a result complaints have continued to pour in from them. Taxpayers have also had to foot the bill for nearly a million pounds in compensation payments, largely for delayed services.
“If the SNP want to get people out of their cars and onto public transport, then they must change their current approach. Common sense should tell them that passengers won’t put up with train services that continue to be costly and unreliable.”
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A Transport Scotland spokesman said: “While cancellations represented less than 3% of all services (Sept 2023 to Sept 2024), it is only right that passengers are compensated when disruption does occur. Right time Caledonian Sleeper arrivals have also improved to over 88% (from 81%), well above the GB average.
“The latest ORR passenger satisfaction results show that almost 90% of Caledonian Sleeper guests were satisfied with their overall experience, with complaints (934) representing just 0.2% of the almost 400,000 journeys made since the Caledonian Sleeper came into public sector control.
“Indeed, the latest ORR figures also show that complaints were down by 39% in the 12-month reporting period (April 2023 to March 2024) in comparison to the 12 months prior – demonstrating a significant downward trend during public sector ownership.
“These often-repeated references to already well-recorded past disruption once again fail to acknowledge not only these improvements, but also that many cancellations are not within Caledonian Sleeper’s control. It is clear that public ownership is making a difference to Caledonian Sleeper, its passengers, and its staff – anyone with a genuine interest in its services would acknowledge this.”