Ferry furore? Wayne Brown directs review of routes amid fuel crisis

Wednesday, 27 May 2026

Auckland Transport has been instructed to review the profitability of its routes in light of the fuel crisis and the Gulf Harbour ferry service is first in line, says mayor Wayne Brown.

On Wednesday, the transport agency took media and dignitaries on the first sailing of the Waitemata I, the city’s first hybrid electric ferry.

But Brown, who was there to mark the occasion, revealed he had his doubts about the profitability of certain ferry services.

“We will grapple with some difficult things before too long … And not everybody in the council will be entirely happy about those things,” Brown told The Post.

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The new $20m hybrid ferry will be servicing the downtown to Devonport route, which Brown said was among the best performers with fares covering 68% of the cost to operate it.

“It’s double all the other [ferry] routes. Several of the routes struggle to reach 10% and you'd have to say they're a bit under threat.”

The mayor’s office has signalled through its budget that it would be looking at “high diesel, low patronage” routes.

Brown told The Post scrapping the Gulf Harbour ferry service from Whangaparāoa to the city was “already being considered”.

“It's not actually an island. You can get a bus,” he said.

At a budget meeting this month, Brown went further, suggesting the council could look at scrapping free ferry trips for SuperGold card holders after 5pm.

“In the evening we [Auckland Council] are the only ones that suck up the gold card … There’s something that could go,” he said.

Meanwhile, Brown told The Post he had asked Auckland Transport’s new interim chairperson Andrew Ritchie to review public transport routes, and “the level of subsidy will be the first tool”.

Brown claimed that before the fuel crisis the council was subsidising the Gulf Harbour route by $80 per passenger per trip - and now it was more than $100.

He said that the council was expected to face $50 million in fuel pressures as a result of the conflict in Iran and the new AT board would have to “make some difficult decisions”.

In addition to the Gulf Harbour ferry, Brown suggested the Warkworth to Wellsford bus service in Rodney needed reviewing.

“Never miss an opportunity presented by a crisis,” he said.

AT chairperson Andrew Ritchie had a somewhat different view of things when speaking to The Post at the ferry launch event.

“It's not as quite as scary as it looks at the moment because there's a big uptake uptick in people using public transport,” he said.

He said “the last thing” AT wanted to do was cut routes in a fuel crisis.

But he was aware that Brown had some routes in mind.

“We've got to get the numbers and see how it looks … And then if they've got to go, they've got to go.”

Albany councillor John Watson said his constituents would be “outraged” to lose the Gulf Harbour ferry service after long-running consultation on the topic.

“It’s a typically destructive short-sighted response. If you look at the transport networks as a whole, ferries benefit the wider transport network because it takes people off the road.”

He said the ferry had become less reliable and less profitable “under Brown’s watch”, but patronage figures had been steadily restoring.

New hybrid stuck on diesel for now

Meanwhile, a new generation of hybrid electric ferries like the one AT is putting into service in Devonport are expected to bring down running costs.

Fullers360 chief executive Mike Horne said they would run at about 70% cheaper than their diesel equivalents.

But that won’t be the case for another 12 months - with the new hybrid ferry continuing to burn diesel until a charging station is built at the Downtown terminal.

It’s been reported that the charger’s resource consent has been delayed due to opposition from heritage experts.

AT chief executive Stacey van der Putten said that AT’s two new hybrid ferries would save money in the long run, being cheaper to run and maintain.

“Logic tells you electric maintenance is going to be less over time because you're not dealing with combustion engines,” she said.

However the new efficient ferries won’t yet help the Gulf Harbour service become more profitable.

“The working assumption is that they won't do the outer harbour,” said van der Putten. “But with constantly advancing technology, they will at some point right?”

Another feature the new generation of ferries don’t have compared with the classic models is a licensed bar.

“It's built for the commuter market,” said van der Putten. “I'm not sure you ought to be drinking on board public transport.”