Another long weekend is upon us. How is B.C. Ferries preparing?

Long weekend warriors are preparing for a few days off this weekend: packing up the car for a roadtrip, setting up a pool in the backyard or, for some, taking a ferry for a little getaway.

But it's been a rough go for B.C. Ferries lately. The company has seen mechanical difficulties with its vessels, last-minute cancellations, staffing shortages, long waits for sailings and confusion about the availability of reservations — just in July alone.

The corporation has blamed an out-of-commission vessel, the Coastal Celebration, which could carry up to 1,604 passengers and crew each trip.

It's also cited staffing shortages, which they've been facing since the pandemic began to ease.

How will it all shake out during one of the busiest travel weekends of the year?

B.C. Ferries CEO Nicolas Jimenez spoke with All Points West host Jason D'Souza ahead of the B.C. Day long weekend.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

How would you assess the performance of B.C. Ferries over the month, especially the last couple of weeks?

In our first quarter, we moved almost six million people in the first three months of the year. That's the most we've ever moved in the history of this company. We've been around for 63 years. So we're moving a ton of people.

There have been moments where we've been significantly challenged and in between I think we've done reasonably well because people are getting to where they need to go. That doesn't mean that it's not busy. That doesn't mean that people aren't coming without a reservation and having to wait for a couple of sailings. But when you're on the vessel itself and you're getting to where you need to go, generally I think we're moving the people who want to get moved.

Are you concerned that the extent and consistency of the issues, especially during busy summer travel, has caused significant damage to the corporation's credibility?

I think people are right to be frustrated. The Coastal Celebration was down twice, once delayed coming out of refit and then we had the problem with the o-ring seals on the propeller blades leaking. None of those things are planned. We don't have a lot of capacity in the ferry system at our peak moment. We don't have a bunch of extra ships sitting in reserve waiting to be deployed when we are running at full tilt, which is what we are typically in the summer. If this happened in October or February, we'd be able to react and adjust more quickly or easily. 

The other thing people need to recognize is the business doesn't have the resilience it needs in terms of staffing. We're taking steps to address that. But that's a systemic problem. It's true of B.C. Ferries. It's also true of ferry systems up and down the West Coast here in Canada and the U.S., on the East Coast in Europe.

What are some of the lessons learned from the chaos at the ferries that we've seen the last few long weekends?

The issues in July were really acutely a result of the fact that the Coastal Celebration was delayed coming out of refit. When we lose a vessel like that, it takes thousands and thousands and thousands of passenger spaces out of the system and that's what really created the challenge for many customers. That's not going to be true this weekend. 

On any given day a vessel can run into a mechanical problem. We've got an operations security centre that's monitoring the system 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year and they get between 30 and 50 issues that come up. We resolve most of those issues, but it's just a reminder that we're working in an environment where anything can happen. 

What are the priorities for B.C. Ferries when it comes to solving some of its issues?

We hired a whole bunch of people this year, 1,200, more than any other year in the 63-year history of this company. But now we've got to make sure we've got the right training because in our environment it's not just about getting people into roles, it's getting them certified. 

We've got a lot of very old or nearing-end-of-life vessels. We've got a plan to replace them but that doesn't happen in a month or even a year. That's years and billions of dollars of investment that's required. But we've got those plans in place.

We've got a project that's going to improve the experience people have at our terminals. That will essentially change the experience that people have when they come into a terminal. It'll give us better data so we can share that with customers and give us some insight as to what the sailing looks like and what future sailings look like. That's data we don't have today.

B.C. Ferries and the Marine Workers Union have opened up bargaining. Eric McNeely, the provincial president of the union, tells us at least five people, including long-term employees have left B.C. Ferries to go to the soon-to-launch ferry company Hullo. What do you make of that?

We have over 5,100 people in this company. I don't like to lose anybody but the fact of the matter is people have choices. I hope they find success with Hullo. I hope Hullo has great success as a business. Hullo doesn't offer a defined benefit pension plan. That's something that we provide for people. Now that doesn't pay your rent, and it certainly doesn't buy groceries, but it provides lifetime support once you stop working. You mentioned we have just begun a conversation with our union to negotiate a different wage settlement. Will we be the best payer in the market? Maybe, maybe not. But we will always have benefits that nobody can match us because we've got a defined benefit pension plan. That doesn't resonate with everybody. But for the people for whom that does resonate, you can have a great career at this company and I'm proud that we can offer it.

How are things looking at the ferries for the long weekend ahead?

It's gonna be a busy weekend. We're expecting close to 600,000 people, over 200,000 vehicles. So we know this is going to be a very busy travel weekend up and down the coast

How prepared are you feeling?

We feel very prepared. We've taken a lot of steps to make sure that all our vessels are going to be in service. We're going to have 1,800 people on any given day working on our ships and in our terminals. We'll have 100 people staffed in our call centres — we're probably going to get about 9,000 calls over that time. We've done work to improve our website to create more stability in case there's a surge in demand. We've worked with traffic and parking control, the terminals to make sure that there's on-site help and really good triaging.