A long queue of people waiting to catch the ferry to Waiheke Island on a busy day at the Downtown Ferry Terminal. Photo / Dean Purcell
Last Sunday, 15 supermarket workers, two American tourists just off an international flight, and others arrived at the Downtown Ferry Buiding to catch an early morning ferry to Waiheke Island.
The departure board said the next ferry was leaving at 6am. At 6.15am there was no sign of a ferry and the departure board changed to say the next ferry was at 7am. This was followed by a message at 6.20am saying the 6am ferry had been cancelled.
This story was relayed to Fullers360 chief executive Mike Horne later in the day by Rob Griffin, who operates Waiheke Shuttles, a bus service that carries about 6000 people a month to and from the island’s restaurants, vineyards and accommodation providers.
“Fullers’ inability to provide a reliable and regular service, according to its published timetables, is killing business on Waiheke Island,” Griffin told Horne in an earlier email.
In an email exchange between the pair, Horne disagreed, saying in his five years as chief executive Fullers has been a huge enabler for Waiheke businesses and communities.
Griffin told the Herald that cancellations without any warning are now the norm and cause chaos to his bookings and event locations, such as Wild on Waiheke, which allocates two or three hours for each group.
“If the group is an hour or two late they miss out on their event, maybe even lunch altogether,” he said.
Griffin blames Horne, saying the ferry boss cannot see through the eyes of the public he is providing services for.
“Sure his ferries are at maximum capacity this time of the year, especially when there are 600 people waiting on the wharf and the ferry can only hold 450.
“What about the 150 left over? Each of those people has a story to tell, their first visit to New Zealand and to Waiheke, a commuter who misses connecting services, a group out for an annual celebration, and only half of the group got on the ferry,” he said.
For some time now, cancellations, breakdowns, an ageing and rundown fleet, buses, taxis and Ubers replacing services and poor communications have blighted the city’s ferry services.
Waiheke residents and its economy are the worst affected, commuters on the city’s busy service to Devonport regularly complain, and the Gulf Harbour and Half Moon Bay routes have been routinely cancelled for five years, mostly because of bad weather.
Despite the setbacks, ferry patronage is booming and exceeds pre-Covid levels. Hobsonville has had more than 50 per cent growth since 2019 to 4000 weekly boardings this year.
This should be a boon for Horne and his Scottish owner, Sir Brian Souter, who visited New Zealand last week for talks with Transport Minister Michael Wood and officials about the future of Fullers; in particular its exempt status from the Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM) which would require it to meet standards applied by Auckland Transport.
Horne said Fullers has become a political football for a whole range of reasons, but mostly because of this exemption. Instead of being under AT’s oversight, Fullers is a commercial operation on the Waiheke service and can run according to its own profitability requirements rather than the needs of public transport users.
Horne said if the Waiheke route was to come under the PTOM, Aucklanders would end up subsidising summer visitors who account for 70 per cent of its business. The other 30 per cent of off-peak trade loses money every year, he said.
When it comes to cancellations and breakdowns, Horne blames the combination of a critical skills shortage with increased demand. Ideally, four vessels operate the Waiheke service and four backup vessels, but the shortage of skippers and deckhands means there have only been four vessels this summer and, at best, one backup vessel, he said.
The company is getting by with a 30 per cent shortage of qualified maritime staff and cancelled its charter business this summer to ensure all possible crews were available for the Auckland passenger network, said Horne.
Fullers signalled staffing issues as far back as July last year and the company is taking a number of steps to address the compounding issues.
They include a targeted recruitment campaign domestically and internationally, including the Philippines, South Africa and Australia, working with Government ministers on immigration and visa rules for skilled maritime staff, an active training and development programme and pay rises.
But even with increased pay, Horne said, Fullers is competing with Australia, where overseas maritime staff can earn 25 per cent more than in New Zealand and immigration rules make it easy for them to bring their families.
According to Darek Koper, Auckland Transport’s manager of metro services, the city’s contracted services are 35 staff short of qualified skippers and deckhands, saying the best guesstimate for resolving the skills shortage is 12 to 18 months.
Horne said reducing or cancelling services is not a decision Fullers makes lightly, rather it is a last resort once it fully understands the flow-on effects for customers and staff, saying as a marine business it will never compromise on health and safety.
When mechanical breakdowns occur, he said, they are managed by a rapid response and recovery team and often rectified by putting on another ferry.
A further problem plaguing ferry services is the fleet of 29 noisy, diesel ferries have an average age of 19 years and are coming up for retirement.
In a major overhaul, $150 million is being spent on overhauling the fleet.
AT is working on a partial fleet replacement and upgrade programme with a 200-seat electric vessel due by October next year for the Devonport, Hobsonville and Half Moon Bay services. That will be followed by a 300-seat electric/diesel hybrid vessel for Devonport a few months later.
All up, there will be two new electric vehicles and five new hybrid vehicles. AT has also purchased four diesel ferries from Fullers for refurbishment. The first one has been repowered and will resume service next month. The other three will be refurbished over the next 12 months.
Asked why the new and refurbished ferries are only being done now, Koper said it had been a long process to get new ferries commissioned and AT had chosen to go with new low-emission technology that is still evolving.
Modelling shows the new fleet will meet pre-Covid growth figures, but if patronage continues to grow, Koper said, more vessels might be required.
Then the downtown ferry terminal, Hobsonville, and Halfmoon Bay wharves will need superchargers to provide five-minute battery top-ups as passengers disembark and board.
If cancellations, breakdowns and staff shortages are not bad enough, ferry users are having to put up with delays from cruise ships berthing in the ferry basin and services being replaced by buses, taxis, and Ubers. This occurred on about 2000 ferry services last year.
When an unexpected cruise ship refuelling caused major disruption and cancellation to ferry services last month, one Devonport resident posted on the local Facebook page that he had to spend $110 on a taxi to get his daughter to the airport.
North Shore councillor and regular Devonport ferry user Chris Darby says commuters have had a gutsful of all the excuse-making on unreliable ferry services.
He admits to being a “pain in the arse” raising ferry issues with AT. When it comes to cruise ships, Darby said they need to be tied up in the ferry basin and tugs gone by 6am and should not depart until 7.30pm when the evening peak is over.
Darby is also in the camp that believes Fullers needs to do a much better job with its communications.
“People are a bit over ‘due to an operational issue’, ‘due to a vessel breakdown’. Make it real, tells us the keel has fallen off rather than these generic, meaningless communications,” he said.
One Devonport ferry user who works in communications said recent problems at Fullers have exposed a lackadaisical approach to customer service, saying people can put up with delays and breakdowns but lack of communication annoys them.
“Too often, commuters are told too little, if anything. They queue, it’s crowded, the boat is delayed and we shrug our shoulders. In other countries, they would really kick-off,” said the person, who did not want to be named.
Koper also acknowledges problems with customer communications, which under a new contract AT is responsible for with input from Fullers.
He said Fullers operates the “My Ferry” app to communicate with customers and AT operates its own “AT Mobile” app.
The way it currently works, said Koper, is that information is manually downloaded from the “My Ferry” app and manually updated on the “AT Mobile” app, leading to delays in people receiving information about changes to ferry services.
“We are currently working on a project to put all ferries on live tracking and have more automated updates to AT Mobile the way you can see it on trains and buses,” he said.
“Can we do communications better?” said Horne. “Yes, absolutely,” adding it is a work in progress with AT.
“We always have pre-emptive information going out. I’ve briefed more councillors and people you can poke a stick at [about] exactly what is happening and why. We put stuff in the media. Any issue we have generally is out within five minutes of knowing.
“If you are not getting a pre-empted message that something has happened, it’s because it is only just happening,” he said.
Back in Waiheke, which swells with visitors in the months between Christmas lunches and autumn weddings, Waiheke Local Board chairwoman Cath Handley said the summer ferries have been “totally unreliable”.
Nine months on from Fullers signing up to a Quality Partnership Agreement with AT and six months after being told by Fullers about staff shortages, Handley said there are no signs of improvement and wants Waiheke to come under PTOM.
In July last year, AT integrated the Devonport service into the PTOM with the other passenger services, but the Waiheke service kept a commercial exemption.
“It’s a public service to get people to work. It’s a public service to get people to the hospital and back. It’s not about the discretion of Fullers in my mind around operating a visitor service,” said Handley.
Waitemata and Gulf councillor Mike Lee, who has lived on and off Waiheke for years, said for a lot of that time Fullers were notable for their reliability.
“The goodwill the company built up over those years, especially under the old management of George and Doug Hudson, sadly now is being burned off, week after week, one service failure after another.
“Given Fullers’ successes in the past I still hope they can turn things around,” he said.
Yesterday afternoon, AT and Fullers warned of delays and alternative transport options on ferry services this weekend because of a shortage of workers.
The boy’s family and friends came together this week to farewell him at his home.