Delays, cancellations and website problems at BC Ferries “aren’t acceptable,” the company’s board chair said Friday, but Joy MacPhail insists the ferry service has made progress in addressing some of its woes.
MacPhail, a former NDP cabinet minister, was appointed as chair of the BC Ferries Services Board in June 2022 as the company grappled with staffing shortages and service disruptions.
A year into that appointment, she acknowledged the multi-sailing waits and IT issues that have plagued this busy travel season are a problem.
“No one at BC Ferries, the board or the leadership, thinks this is acceptable,” she told Global News.
“We are doing everything we possibly can until medium- and long-term solutions are implemented to get customers to the ship and sail, and to make those who miss a sailing, or have to wait in our terminals, as comfortable as possible.”
However, righting the ship of the publicly-owned company won’t happen quickly, she added.
In the short term, MacPhail said the company learned “several good lessons” over the Canada Day weekend, which was marred by scores of cancellations, massive lineups and parking problems days before it began.
BC Ferries is using discounted fares to try and encourage people to take less busy routes and sailings, she said, and working with its parking contractor to prevent future confusion at terminal lots.
The company is also working to ensure information from terminal control towers is better relayed to gate and customer service staff who can keep travellers informed about what’s happening in real time.
She attributed problems with BC Ferries’ website, which displayed incorrect information about a nine-sailing wait and 12-hour delays earlier this week due to the loss of the Coastal Celebration ferry. When the vessel was drydocked for repairs, the system became “overloaded” as it tried to move reservations around, she explained.
Earlier this week, a BC Ferries spokesperson said the problem was a result of people failing to show up for reservations and information not being manually updated in the system.
MacPhail said a fix for the website glitches is in the works, and she has “enough information from our operators that I am cautiously optimistic it will work.” The Coastal Celebration coming back from its unplanned maintenance should also relieve pressure on the system, she added.
Despite the high-profile service issues this summer, however, MacPhail maintained longer-term solutions are slowly starting to have an effect, pointing to a marked decrease in sailing cancellations due to staff shortages — a chronic problem during the 2022 season.
The company is also eyeing upgrades to its fleet and terminals, she said.
“There have been investments, increased capacity — that’s really worked this summer, you’re not seeing big lineups on Denman and Hornby and Gabriola. So the answer, of course – the lesson learned from that – is its capacity, increased capacity, and capacity is ships,” she said.
“We are working on that. We have a $5-billion investment plan for building ships, for bringing in technology … and upgrading and modernizing our terminals.”
MacPhail acknowledged the procurement process for a $250-million ferry is slow and said the investment plan had been delayed by several years by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Renu Bakshi, a Vancouver-based crisis manager and media trainer, said BC Ferries could earn back some of the public’s broken trust by shoring up its communication strategy.
“NASA has a great media philosophy — when things are going right, tell the media and public everything. When things are going wrong, tell them even more,” she said.
“What we’ve seen with BC Ferries is a complete failure of crisis communication.”
Bakshi called the failure of senior leadership to step forward and take ownership of the issues that have cropped up this season “inexcusable.”
Friday’s interview marked MacPhail’s first comments on the summer season challenges, although BC Ferries CEO Nicolas Jimenez did a round of media interviews in the days after the disastrous Canada Day long weekend.
MacPhail confirmed Jimenez is currently away, on time off that she said was planned before he signed on with the ferry company, but still in regular contact with other executives.
“I would go directly to the CEO’s office and say enough is enough, we need to address the media and the public right now, and you are the person who needs to do it,” Bakshi said.
“The executives need to come back from holiday or get their mind out of holiday mode. They need to have a meeting now and a press conference in short order, and address the public directly. They need to tell us what went wrong, why it went wrong, and what they’re doing to make it right.”
Eric McNeely, president of the B.C. Ferry and Marine Workers’ Union said front-line staff have had a “tough week,” and would like more support from upper management.
That could take the form of support on the ground — like cooling stations for workers interacting with the public during long delays, or scheduling support to ensure crews can get time off if they need it.
“I know my members would like to be able to take more time off in summer, especially those with family, and be able to spend some of the extra summertime with kids or grandkids, so it does seem like a bit of a two-tier system,” he said.
“You don’t want to burn out your remaining crew because you’ve had a time loss injury or someone who needed to take time away for a legitimate reason.”
With no short-term fix in sight to the ferry company’s structural problems, MacPhail is urging travellers to book a reservation if they can. She also pledged upper management will be out at the terminals come B.C. Day, alongside front-line workers.
“The executive and our directors, our middle management as well, will be out there on this long weekend, and were at this last long weekend as well,” she said.