These past two months has been anything but normal for those taking BC Ferries — crew shortages, cancelled sailings, website outages and mechanical failures have impacted travel between the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island. And with the busy BC Day holiday coming up fast, the beleaguered corporation is pulling out all the stops to reassure travelers this weekend will be smoother than previous.
In an interview with Global BC, BC Ferries CEO Nicholas Jimenez outlined their plan for the holiday weekend with a full fleet of vessels in the water, extra staff onhand to supplement callouts, and improved website resiliency. Jimenez also recommends that travellers make reservations or consider sailings outside of peak hours.
During the Canada Day long weekend, the MV Coastal Celebration (pictured at top) sat in a North Vancouver dry dock when scheduled maintenance took longer than expected, causing multiple cancellations on the Tsawwassen-Swartz Bay route. When did return to service, it went back into dry dock after a blade seal failed, leaking fluid into the water. Then on July 25th came issues with the website which showed a nine sailing wait for Tsawwassen-Swartz Bay when in reality it was much closer to two at most, resulting in a rebuttal from the provincial Minister of Transportation.
Then earlier this evening, the MV Queen of Surrey was taken out of service on the Horseshoe Bay-Langdale run; the MV Queen of Coquitlam was tagged in to pick up the slack, 90 minutes behind schedule and low on food for the cafeteria.
Check in with BC Ferries on Twitter to keep on top of sailing delays and other conditions at the terminals.
Did you find a typographical or factual error in this article? Please let us know!