Disorderly Passengers Policy
At Rathlin Ferry, we believe that our customers have a right to be heard, understood and respected.
Occasionally, certain actions by people using our services can make it very difficult for us to allow them to travel with us or deal with their enquiry or concern.
In a small number of cases the actions of some individuals become unacceptable because they involve abuse of our staff. When this happens we have to take appropriate steps. We have to consider whether the action impacts on our ability to do our work and to provide a service to others.
We are very clear in our supporting policy for our staff:
We will not tolerate any instance of work related violence, including verbal abuse, to our staff. All employees have the right to be treated with consideration, dignity and respect. The company will support any colleague subject to aggressive and violent behaviour and take the appropriate action to the fullest extent legally available.
We understand that people may act out of character in times of trouble or distress and we are committed to helping troubled and/or distressed customers to the fullest possible extent.
We understand that people can become angry when they feel that matters about which they feel strongly are not being dealt with as they wish. If that anger escalates into aggression towards our staff, we consider that unacceptable.
Any aggression or abuse directed towards our staff will not be tolerated.
Aggressive or abusive behaviour includes language (whether verbal or written) that may cause staff to feel afraid, threatened or abused and may include threats, personal verbal abuse, derogatory remarks and rudeness.
We also consider inflammatory statements, remarks of a racial or discriminatory nature and unsubstantiated allegations, to be abusive behaviour.
How we may deal with examples of unacceptable behaviour.
Where a member of the public has exhibited what we deem to be unacceptable behaviour, we have a number of actions that we may take, for example we may decide to:
> Turn a customer away for a particular sailing and insist that they do not return to try and sail until they are no long under the influence of drink and/or drugs.
> Ban a customer from sailing with us for a specific period of time, for example, they will no be able to sail with Rathlin Ferry for a one week period. The period of time will be determined based on the severity of the unreasonable behaviour.
> Call the PSNI and have any individual removed from our premises.
> Call the PSNI and have any individual removed from our premises and then charged for their behaviour, again based on the severity of their actions.