Thousands of passengers are expected to use BC Ferries’ services this Easter long weekend.
BC Ferries said it has added 180 extra sailings to its busiest route in anticipation of the influx of travellers and to hopefully prevent long waits, including 128 trips between Tsawwassen and Swartz Bay.
BC Ferries has been plagued by staffing shortages in recent months and bonus long weekend sailings are often the first to be cancelled when there’s not enough crew.
But the organization said they have a mitigation plan for this weekend with extra crew on standby and employees accepting overtime.
“Our dedicated staff is stepping up to give us a higher level of comfort to launch extra sailings over Easter,” said Dean Dobrinsky, BC Ferries’ interim vice president of people and culture.
“We can’t thank them enough for helping us to protect the long weekend service in the face of a continued shortage of licensed officers.”
Passengers are encouraged to make travel as smooth as possible such as booking in advance, arriving at terminals early, expecting waits at popular times, ride-sharing and possibly leaving the vehicle at home and walking onto a ferry.
“There’s no doubt, we’re still critically short of licensed officers and we have more work to do as we head into the summer, but we’ve pulled out all the stops to protect each and every Easter sailing,” said Dobrinsky.
BC Ferries advises all travelers to stay updated by going to its website or Twitter pages.
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