BC Ferries will cut its service levels nearly in half starting Saturday, reducing sailings on major routes by half and suspending several others.
The company is adjusting its service levels across its network for the next two months to meet significantly reduced demand and protect the health and safety of both communities and ferry workers.
While the changes mean significantly reducing the sailings on major routes, it will also mean people will lose their jobs.
CEO Mark Collins said the corporation hopes the temporary layoffs won’t last long. “We need all these skilled people back as soon as possible to help restore ferry services when traffic returns.”
The changes include reducing the major routes (Swartz Bay-Tsawwassen and Tsawwassen-Duke Point) to four round trips a day from eight, adding four cargo-only round trips between Tsawwassen and Duke Point.
BC Ferries has also announced it is suspending all sailings between Horseshoe Bay and Nanaimo, effective Saturday.
According to the ferry service, the route is being halted because it carries much less commercial traffic than the other two routes connecting Metro Vancouver to Vancouver Island. “Commercial traffic is the priority right now to move essential goods to Vancouver Island,” according to the ferry corporation.
The move will be re-evaluated “based on demand,” the corporation wrote in a press statement.
Service on the Langdale-Horseshoe Bay route will be reduced to six round trips a day from eight.
Service on the northern and mid-coast ferry routes will continue to operate at the current levels, and the summer direct service from Bella Coola to Port Hardy will not be introduced at this time.
Changes to routes between Tsawwassen, the southern Gulf Islands and Swartz Bay have yet to be finalized.
Most of the service reductions will go into effect April 4 and run for 60 days.
BC Ferries said it will monitor service levels to ensure essential service levels are maintained and to determine when services should resume to normal levels.
The Coastal Ferry Services Contract with the province has been amended to permit the service reductions.
“These changes are designed to ensure we have sufficient capacity to allow the flow of essential goods, services, supplies and workers to their destinations,” Collins said. “We will continue to transport the goods communities rely on, and we will get people to where they need to go.”
With files from Jane Seyd/North Shore News
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