Another long weekend, another round of travel woes for B.C. Ferries

Frustrated travellers faced long lineups and sold-out sailings on major B.C. Ferries routes over the Canada Day long weekend, cancellations on smaller routes, overflowing parking lots and intermittent issues with its online booking system.

That’s the new reality of travelling over the long weekend, said B.C. Ferries CEO Nicholas Jimenez, and persistent staff shortages mean the situation is unlikely to improve any time soon.

“I think you saw the system behave as we would expect, in this moment, over the course of a long weekend,” Jimenez told Postmedia News on Monday. “We don’t have the resilience we used to have, and we’re going to be at risk for the foreseeable future when it comes to dealing with peak demand. And (customers) have to remember … the July long weekend and August long weekend, those are absolute peak moments of the summer and so the system gets very stressed very quickly when there’s that kind of demand against the business that is running a little bit thin right now when it comes to relief crews.”