Motorists without a booking should pack their patience and be prepared for multi-sailing waits if they are trying to get on a B.C. Ferries sailing between Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen.
Book early if you want a reservation. Sailings are filling up fast for the coming week and some days are already fully booked.
Spots are still being held for motorists without reservations, but they’ll likely need to be in line extra-early if they expect to board.
For morning sailings, some people will park and nap in their vehicles to wait for the ticket booths to open. Those arriving a little later in the morning for a standby spot could find themselves with tickets for an evening departure.
The issue: heavy summer traffic which usually runs until the third week of August, combined with the sidelining of the Coastal Celebration ferry which is going back into dry dock for repairs, resulting in a loss of eight sailings daily.
Coastal Celebration, which runs between Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen, is expected to be back in service later in the coming week.
It had just returned to service after a refit that took longer than scheduled; it went out of service again after crew noticed an oil leak.
Additional pressures on the system include the nail-biting problem of crew shortages, which leads to sailing cancellations, sometimes at the last minute, and delays caused by loading high traffic volumes.
“We’re also seeing the impact of the Washington State Ferries service not sailing in our region this summer, an option customers could have used in the past to travel to the (United) States,” Krista Boehnert, B.C. Ferries spokesperson, said Friday.
The two Spirit-class vessels and the Queen of New Westminster are serving on the Swartz Bay-Tsawwassen route, B.C. Ferries’ busiest.
At 3 p.m. Friday, B.C. Ferries said it was selling non-reservation motorist tickets for the 9 p.m. sailing from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen.
By 5:30 p.m., all motorist reservations were sold on the route for the day.
The best time to look for newly available reservation slots are 6 p.m. and first thing in the morning, said Boehnert.
Special events — such as this weekend’s Toronto Blue Jays games and Taylor Swift concerts in Seattle — add to demand for ferries to the mainland.
Another long weekend is approaching with B.C. Day on Aug. 7 and B.C. Ferries is “strongly encouraging” people to book sailings now, Boehnert said.
“Once the Celebration comes back into service, we are confident that our capacity will be able to handle demand through the rest of July and into the long weekend.”
Another option for motorists with deeper pockets is an assured loading card available on the major routes between Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland.
It runs for two years and costs $1,790 for 10 tickets, each allowing for one driver and a standard vehicle per ticket. Additional passengers can be paid for at arrival at the ticket booth.
This summer’s challenges are adding stress for workers and “there is no shortage of overtime available for my members and quite a few of them are taking it,” B.C. Ferry and Marine Workers’ Union president Eric McNeely said.
The majority of the members working overtime are making double-time, he said.
But 12-, 14-, or 16-hour work days can lead to burnout, especially in the heat, he said.
Negotiations to reopen the wages section of the labour contract are set to start between the union and B.C. Ferries on Aug. 1, he said. “It can’t come soon enough for folks.”
A union survey found that 30 per cent of regular employees are either looking for or have additional employment to supplement their wages, McNeely said.
A union market analysis puts ferry workers’ wages about 18 to 40 per cent below those in a comparable industry, he said.
He has long warned that other sectors will lure away workers.
McNeely said he knows of five former B.C. Ferries employees who have taken jobs with the new Hullo ferry service between downtowns in Nanaimo and Vancouver and knows of others considering a move. The new service is non-union but paying higher wages, he said.
Two new Hullo catamaran ferries start service on Aug. 14.
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