Ageing Ferries Won’t Be Replaced, Putting Passengers and Trade at Risk

Published on December 15, 2023

The New Zealand government has forced KiwiRail to abandon plans to replace its ageing fleet of ferries, which carry freight and passengers across Cook Strait. The fleet is prone to regular breakdowns, frustrating the transport sector: Freightways, for instance, moves over 25 trucks a day each way on Cook Strait ferries, and chief executive Mark Troughear says cancellations “play absolute havoc” with logistics. The freight industry says more than NZ$15 billion (US$9 billion) worth of freight crosses Cook Strait on KiwiRail and BlueBridge ferries every year, but one in every five sailings was cancelled in the 2022 financial year. The average age of KiwiRail’s three passenger ferries—branded the Interislander—is 26 years old. One is 28 years old, meaning it is effectively at the end of its useful life....

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