How prepared is Interislander for summer?

Monday, 13 November 2023

Would-be travellers who were caught up in last year’s ferry travel chaos haven’t had their confidence restored.

Would-be travellers who were caught up in last summer’s ferry chaos haven’t had their confidence in Interislander restored since.

Heather Tucker’s South Island road trip from Whakatane was unduly extended in early March after the Kaitaki developed another mechanical fault.

She said she had spent an extra $1200 extra in accommodation and ferry fares but said she had received no compensation for those added costs.

“We had planned to go down this summer and take our car for a month, just to do some travelling and some camping down there. But after that experience, there’s no way.”

The fault on the Kaitaki that caused her delay occurred weeks after it had lost power off the south coast of Wellington and drifted perilously close to the shoreline.

Stuck in Motueka, she was told at the time there were no sailings for another two weeks, leaving them effectively stranded on the South Island.

“We bought a week's accommodation at a motor camp in Blenheim with the idea that we would just pick up our stuff every day and drive to Picton and hope that we could get on a ferry.

“We went to the terminal, even though they told us not to, and we managed to get a ferry eight days later.”

Transporting New Zealand chief executive Dom Kalasih said delays had a huge impact on commercial confidence in inter-island freight routes.

The early part of 2023 was a horror period for the Interislander Cook Strait ferries.

In March, then Transport Minister Michael Wood said he’d met with KiwiRail’s senior leadership and board to “put down the Government's expectations.”

“We need a clear plan around both safety and reliability.”

With the arrival of the new, bigger Interislander ferries delayed until 2026, Kiwirail is entering this coming summer using ships that caused so many issues almost one year ago.

The new iRex ferries have been delayed until February 2026, meaning Interislander has to nurse its ageing fleet through another three summers.

The company’s general operations manager Duncan Roy says the company was better prepared for this summer, a period when demand surges by 300% and passenger sailings increase by 10 a day.

He said reliability had improved this year.

“This includes extra rigorous maintenance and inspections and scheduled maintenance periods for each ferry where they are taken out of service.

“They’re also taken out for longer periods in either a wet or dry dock environment for more comprehensive maintenance programmes.”

Roy said that Interislander on-time performance had a 10- percentage-point improvement year-on-year - up to 83% in 2022/23.

“Reliability has also improved from 79% to 87% and was now well above the 90% mark.

“We continue to take a safety-first approach, which means we will not sail ships unless we are satisfied it is safe to do so.”

Furniture mover Peter Grant runs his removal business out of Oamaru and occasionally delivers to North Island customers.

People in Picton queued up at the Interislander ferry terminal trying to rebook after sailings were cancelled due to Cyclone Gabrielle.

In late February, he said he had customers waiting in empty houses on the North Island because their stuff was stranded on the other side of the Cook Strait.

He said the unreliability had caused him to steer clear of inter-island work.

“But if I'm going to be running commercially up and down and rely on them, you're really taking a gamble and looking forward six weeks ahead.

“Because of that, I've come unstuck a few times without loadings coming back and basically I've had three or four bad runs financially and I've said to hell with it.”

When Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand chief executive Dom Kalasih was asked if he’d heard similar sentiments from commercial operators, he responded “absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.”

“Unexpected delays play havoc with a driver's work time limitations.

“So what we are doing is working with Waka Kotahi to see how we could have greater flexibility to cater for these sorts of scenarios and at the same time manage the risk of fatigue. So that's a fairly significant piece of work.”

He also said they were working with local authorities to improve commercial vehicle rest areas and facilities around ferry terminals as well as standing areas for livestock, which can be stored in vehicles only for a limited time.

“We’re just about at that point where you’re resigned that it will go wrong.

“People don't realise that depending on the length of the delay, some of those drivers might have to be flown home and other drivers have to be flown in. So it can be a significant increase in the cost of that trip.”