Interislander hires more staff to cope with refund demand

The Interislander Cook Strait ferry Kaitaki docked at CentrePort in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

After weeks of cancelled sailings, Interislander has had to hire more staff to cope with the almost 1000 refunds to passengers and try to minimise the delays in getting money back to stranded customers.

General manager of operations Duncan Roy told the Herald cancellations are always a last resort – but when they do happen, customers are given a refund.

Roy said currently, 900 refunds are being processed and for some of these customers, delays in the refund process are creeping up to a month.

“Refunds for payments made with a credit card usually take around three days, but it can be up to two weeks,” he said.

“There has been a delay of up to a month in some refunds being made for payments not made by credit card because these have to be manually processed and because of the larger than normal numbers needing to be processed due to the Kaitaki breakdown.”

He said the Interislander recognises this issue and has employed more staff to cope with the increased demand.

“We are also committed to further improvements to the system to ensure refunds are made as quickly as possible.”

The Herald asked for the number of refunds issued since the beginning of the year, but was told the information would take longer to procure and would not meet the deadline.

Vanessa Horne, General Manager of Fair Trading at the Commerce Commission told the Herald the Commission has received 15 complaints about the Interislander so far this year.

“The enquiries relate to allegations that Interislander are misleading consumers about their rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act and/or are not properly compensating customers for losses caused as a result of cancellations or delays.”

She said the Commission will consider these complaints, and following an assessment of the information will decide whether to open an investigation into the Interislander.

“In considering whether to investigate issues that come to its attention, the Commission considers the available information for its relevance to the Commission’s responsibilities and current work programme, its enforcement criteria and priority areas for new enforcement work.”

The Interislander has been plagued with problems since the beginning of 2023 when the Kaitaki suffered a gearbox failure amid a roaring southerly in Cook Strait.

All four engines shut down with 884 people on board - a nightmare scenario. However, the ship managed to make it to shore safely.

From here, the woes of the Interislander only grew.

About two weeks later the Aratere experienced a technical issue causing a partial loss of power on the way to Picton, and slowed for a short time.

After five weeks of running a freight-only service, Interislander announced last week the Kaitaki would start taking passengers again after its mayday call.

But the next day a problem was found with one of her gearboxes and she was expected to remain out of action for at least two weeks.

The Kaitaki is still out of order now, with sailings expected to recommence on March 30 – however Roy could not fully confirm this would happen.

“We are looking at all options to ensure as many booked passengers as possible will be able to travel should it not be ready to sail over Easter.”