BC Ferries' annual ridership is up, but financial performance still lagging

BC Ferries

BC Ferries’ newly released results for its performance in the latest fiscal year show it has made a recovery in various factors, but it is still behind its pre-pandemic performance.

The results are based on the 2021/2022 fiscal year between April 1, 2021, and March 31, 2022, with the ferry corporation recording 17.9 million passengers and 8.5 million vehicles, respectively, compared to the previous fiscal year.

But the ridership increases are still behind pre-pandemic 2019, down by 20% for passenger volumes and 5% for vehicle volumes — or 80% of normal for passengers, and 95% of normal for vehicles.

You might also like:

Over the 2021/2022 fiscal year, BC Ferries’ revenue reached $965.4 million, representing an increase of $100 million or 12% compared to the previous fiscal year — the result of both higher traffic volumes and retail/food sales, and the pandemic-time Safe Restart Funding operating subsidy from the federal and provincial governments.

The ferry corporation saw a net loss of $68 million before recognizing the Safe Restart Funding. After including $102 million of the federal-provincial subsidy, net earnings were $34 million — an increase of $13 million compared to the previous fiscal year, which included $186 million in Safe Restart Funding.

BC Ferries’ operating costs in the latest fiscal year were $868 million — up by $88 million or 11% from the previous fiscal year. The increase is due to more sailings, staff required to provide more service, and rising fuel and maintenance costs.

“As we emerge from the pandemic, we are grateful to our employees for their commitment to put safety first, operate in the public interest, and ensure reliable ferry travel,” said Mark Collins, BC Ferries’ President and CEO. “We are excited to see people travelling with us again and are adding staff to meet the increase in demand for our service.”

BC Ferries is currently struggling to maintain higher scheduled service levels to meet the peak summer travel demand due to the labour shortage. In recent weeks, numerous scheduled sailings have been cancelled with little notice to passengers as a result of the staffing issues.

The labour shortage is so severe that earlier this week, the ferry corporation announced it would make an effort to rehire about 150 employees who were put on leave without pay due to the federal government’s mandatory vaccination policy for transportation workers. The federal policy ended on June 14.

You might also like: