Unusually high volumes of freight and passenger traffic are behind a run of delays affecting Interislander ferry services across Cook Strait, though the operator expects the situation to improve by the weekend.
Over the past two days, the disruption has been considerable. Tracking data from the Interislander website shows daytime departures running as much as three hours and 45 minutes behind schedule, while overnight crossings, though less severely affected, were still averaging more than three-quarters of an hour late across the same period. Further delays were forecast to persist through Thursday.
The root cause lies with Bluebridge's Connemara, which was out of service for nearly 11 days following a technical fault before returning to operation last night. With Connemara sidelined, passengers and freight operators who had been booked onto Bluebridge sailings were forced to rebook onto Interislander services, pushing load levels well beyond normal operating conditions.
Interislander's Taru Sawhney acknowledged that the knock-on effect from those cancellations was slowing turnaround times at port. "If any sailings do run late, impacted customers are contacted directly and kept informed," she said.
Sawhney pointed to a predictable seasonal shift in cargo volumes as grounds for confidence. "We typically see a drop-off in freight volumes over Easter, which means lighter vehicle deck loads. We expect the fleet to be on time by the weekend."
