No more delays to Ferguson Marine's hugely-late ferries? - Alastair Dalton

He’ll be hoping for that during the coming holiday season after two years of baggage disruption visited on Edinburgh by failings at other airports.

Other travel operators would no doubt also concur with Mr Dewar’s sentiment, because when transport hits the headlines, it’s often for negative reasons.

These things tend to come in waves. Chronic problems with punctuality and reliability on the Scottish rail network have dogged Network Rail and ScotRail in past years, but have subsided into far less of a popular concern.

The issue dominating Scottish transport so far this year has been ferries, and especially the two large CalMac vessels getting progressively later and further over budget as they take shape at the Ferguson Marine shipyard at Port Glasgow in Inverclyde. Except something different happened in the yard’s latest update on Friday last week - it contained no new delay or cost increase for Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa, which are six and seven years late respectively and four times over budget.

As someone who confidently predicted on television a year ago that Glen Sannox would be completed by the end of 2023, I’d be foolish to say that means it’s now plain sailing to the finish line.

It would perhaps also be odd if Ferguson Marine, having sacked its chief executive for alleged “performance concerns”, then published a letter from his interim successor detailing further problems with the project.

The update from John Petticrew stated the yard was “endeavouring to achieve the handover date of July 31” for Glen Sannox, while the total cost of the two ferries remained within the previously announced range of up to nearly £400 million. Glen Rosa is still on course to be completed in September next year.

Deputy First Minister and economy secretary Kate Forbes acknowledged the letter confirmed the existing delivery dates and cost forecasts. However, she also said she had impressed on Mr Petticrew “the importance of keeping up momentum”.

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On that subject, and on closer inspection, things may not be quite as rosy. In Mr Petticrew’s previous update, in April, he referred to the timescales for “critical elements” for finishing Glen Sannox.

These included “completion of all activities not affected by liquefied natural gas (LNG) [part of its dual fuel propulsion system]” and “completion of installation of LNG systems” - both “by the start of May”.

But the latest update suggested these might not have been achieved. It stated: “We have started the testing phase of certain portions of the system and a daily review of progress is made and direction provided to ensure we achieve the overall completion schedule.”

The letter also listed “challenges”, which included “completion of the LNG to allow other areas to complete” and “completion of the steam cleaning painting in the machinery compartments”.

The handover date of July 31, which Mr Petticrew is responsible for achieving, is just eight weeks from today. I’ll make no further predictions - except to observe that really isn’t long at all.