BC Ferries says some wait times displayed on website ‘not accurate’

After the BC Ferries website said there was a nine-sailing wait for the Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay route as of 6 a.m. Tuesday, the corporation now says what was being displayed online was “not accurate.”

Karen Johnston, executive director of communications and engagement for BC Ferries, concedes that there was a wait for most passengers, but says it was often only a one-to-two-sailing wait.

“What we were seeing represented on Current Conditions simply wasn’t matching up with what knew was happening at the terminal.”

“When the Coastal Celebration was pulled from service because of a hydraulic oil leak, we increased our reservation allocations, our booking allocations, to maximize and to honor those reservations as best we could on the other three sailings. So Current Conditions, which is the system that travellers might use to see what is booked, how much space is available, it assumes that once you’ve made a booking that you’re going to actually show up for that booking, so it holds space for all bookings made up until the cutoff time when you reach the terminal,” she explained.

“This morning, what happened was we saw a high number of those with reservations not show up at the terminal for their sailing. So what, in fact, was the situation at Tsawwassen was that most of our morning traffic was cleared by 11 a.m. with most passengers in the morning experiencing a one to two sailing wait. We also know that there were people that came early…there was traffic down the causeway, but by 5:15 (a.m.) we were able to clear that and everybody who was on at 5:15 sailing exiting Tsawwassen were able to get on that desired sailing.”

A screenshot of BC Ferries website on Tuesday afternoon shows all reservation space on the Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay route is full. (Source: BC Ferries)

She says although the Current Conditions page may appear to show long waits — like what was seen Tuesday morning — the website “does not show an accurate picture of what is happening at the terminals.”

This is due to staff manually overriding the page as they work to fit people in who were scheduled to sail on the Coastal Celebration.

“Because we are manually overriding Current Conditions now and making sure that it accurately gives information, which our customers deserve and need in order to make their travel plans, I would say continue to check that, continue to take a look at our Twitter feed because we are doing our best behind the scenes to make sure that it is an accurate picture,” she said.

It’s unclear how long the listed wait times will be impacted.

Engineer says Coastal Celebration may be fixed this weekend

In an interview with CityNews, BC Ferries Engineer Stephen Jones says they are looking into the problem with the Coastal Celebration, but he says fixing it all depends on the complexity of the issue.

He says ferries face challenges frequently, but it doesn’t happen often that ships are taken out of the water.

“Probably 99 out of 100 of those problems can be fixed with the vessel in the water by the engineering teams and the engineering support that we have. It’s relatively rare for us to have to go to dry dock, especially in summer, we hate to have to do that, but the reality is that we have no choice in this situation. We’ve got to deal with the problem,” he said.

FILE – The Coastal Celebration BC Ferries vessel. (Courtesy BC Ferries)

The ship has been taken out of the water for crews to fix the problem — but it’s unclear how long these repairs will take.

Jones says the goal is to get the Coastal Celebration back in service this weekend, but adds that that may not be the case.

“In the unfortunate event that we find out that the problem is more significant than it at first appears, then obviously our next target would be to get the vessel back in for the long weekend,” he said.

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At this point, it appears to be a problem with at least one propellor blade, however, more blades could be involved which could make matters more complicated.

“Assuming that this is just confined to a single blade, and it’s a relatively simple failure, if it is something a bit more complex and we need to go deeper or look at more than one blade on that propeller, then obviously the weekend is under threat. And in terms of where we go from there, it really remains to be seen what we find,” he said.

In a statement from the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, Rob Fleming says he fully understands the challenges and frustrations people are facing as they try to head on the route.

#BCFHeadsUp
Three ferries are in service between #Tsawwassen and #SwartzBay while we work on #CoastalCelebration repairs.

Space is limited on sailings to #SwartzBay for customers in vehicles without a booking. We’re boarding as many customers as possible on each sailing. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/IxWUHXKrlT

— BC Ferries (@BCFerries) July 25, 2023