Staff sickness causes long queues for ferry to tourist destination

Staff sickness has left motorists waiting up to 90 minutes for the Hals Egense ferry in northern Denmark, DR reports. The ferry can carry a maximum of 12 cars.

The ferry connects the eastern part of Aalborg Municipality across the Limfjord, carrying locals and tourists between Egense and Hals, a coastal holiday town in North Jutland.

Hals Samråd says queues have formed during the summer. Mikael Simonsen of the Liberal Alliance, who sits on Aalborg Municipality’s technical and environmental committee, called the situation unacceptable.

He said queues had stretched through Hals to the ferry during music events and a popular market. Hals is one of the places where the municipality wants to attract more tourists, he said.

Aalborg Municipality said in a written response to DR that it had not been possible to operate two ferries as usual because of staff illness.

Peter Lindholt, Aalborg’s technical and environmental councillor, said two ferry captains had gone on long-term sick leave within a short period.

“It is really unfortunate that we have ended up in this situation. As far as I know, we have not experienced anything similar before. And we do not have extra ferry captains hanging around,” he said.

The ferry service has been criticised by city council politician Michael Simonsen, who questioned why replacements had not been found for the sick ferry captains.

Peter Lindholt said he had only recently become aware of the situation. The technical and environmental committee is due to discuss the ferry problems at a meeting next week.