Spike in ferry trips with zero passengers on south coast

Five ferries on Newfoundland's south coast are making fewer trips, and more of those crossings have no passengers.

Data obtained from the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure show the Gaultois-McCallum-Hermitage ferry made 1,012 one-way trips with no passengers in 2020-21, mostly to McCallum — a 26 per cent increase over the previous year.

On the Rencontre East-Bay L'Argent-Pool's Cove route, the ferry made 391 trips with no passengers aboard, a 34 per cent jump. Runs without passengers on the La Poile-Rose Blanche ferry nearly doubled, from 45 to 84, over the same period. 

No-passenger trips were up 60 per cent on the François-Grey River-Brugeo ferry, increasing from 174 to 279. The ferry service in South East Bight recorded 296 trips with no one except the crew, up 22 per cent from 243 the year before.

The five ferry services accounted for about 2,060, or 59 per cent, of the more than 3,500 no-passenger trips taken by the province's 12 intraprovincial ferry routes in 2020-21. While the other ferry services also recorded trips with zero passengers last year, the number of passengerless trips they made went down during the pandemic.

The data for the five south coast ferries are also particularly striking given that overall, Newfoundland and Labrador ferries made about 7,000 fewer trips in 2020-21, as the pandemic forced cuts to schedules. Total trips dropped from 37,500 to 30,800.

Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Elvis Loveless said pandemic restrictions on travel and population decline in rural communities are the main culprits for the increase in trips without passengers on the south coast.

"COVID-19 certainly played a role in ferry traffic," Loveless said. "When you have a reduction in the population in communities, then the likelihood is you're going to see a reduction in traffic."

McCallum mayor Everett Durnford said ferries often make runs with multiple stops where individual legs are empty. He also said ferries transport emergency vehicles, and even when no passengers are aboard, the boats may carry freight or mail.

"During the fishery season, there might not be any passengers on that boat, but in these communities there could be $50,000 worth of lobster going down there and another 10,000 or 15,000 halibut or other ground fish. And every drop of fuel that's burned here is shipped on that ferry," Durnford said.

Loveless warned against equating cutting trips with fixing ferry services.

"If you're going to reduce runs, you know, there is a savings of fuel money, but we still have staff that are servicing these vessels," he said.

But he said "joint solutions" on ferries, created in consultation with affected communities, will be announced "in the coming weeks."

"We have to change. There will be change coming in," he said.