Adele Wilson: KiwiRail Chief Customer and Growth Officer on the Aratere ferry getting retired ahead of Picton port upgrade

Interislander is reducing its Cook Strait ferry fleet from three to two.

The Aratere will retire when demolition begins on its decaying dock - late this year or early the next - to add infrastructure for new ships.

Two new ferries are due in 2029.

KiwiRail's Adele Wilson says it would've cost about $120 million to have an interim dock.

"The idea of the temporary wharf is one of those things that is not possible if we want to bring this project in on budget and on time and at a level that's affordable." 

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Afternoon. Kiwi Rail has announced the Artiteta inter Island a
faery will be retired this year. Now that leaves us
with just two inter Islander fairies to operate until the
new fairies arrive in twenty twenty nine. Adele Wilson is
Kiwirail's Chief Customer and Growth Officer and with us, hey
it l.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hi Heather, good afternoon, Why are you retiring it? What
we're announcing today is the news that the Raitarisok Wharf
and Picton is going to need to be deconstructed sometime
between October. Earliest time October this year and probably the

(00:38):
latest time is March twenty twenty six. And that Auditary
requires specialist loading equipment, so when her warf goes, that
means there's no way for the arditelly to operate. And
that's why today we're giving the market the news that
the Auditory will be retired some time this year.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
So will you run her until the very last I
mean if you have to start, if you only start
the work March next year, will you run her till then?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Look, we're working. That's why we've come out with the
news today because we need to be well advanced with
our planning for a two ship scenario. That's been clear
that we would need to manage that, you know, for
some time. But we are working on those final operational details,
including the final date of the attorney's retirement, and that

(01:35):
you know requires us to look at maintenance requirements and
the maintenance regime preshship and what work needs to be
done and which ship we need on the water.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Through to that time, it was possible, wasn't it to
actually kind of build in a little bit of infrastructure
to be able to keep running her. That would have
cost about one twenty million, right.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
That's right here. Yes, there was. In the former project,
there was a plan to build a temporary wharf at
a very large cost of one hundred and twenty million dollars.
But look, you know, it's been well signaled that this
new project needs to be done for a more appropriate price,

(02:20):
and you know, the idea of the temporary wharf is
one of those things that is not possible if we
want to bring this project in on budget and on
time and at a level that's affordable for New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
What's going to be the impact on the number of
sailings and the number of passengers that you can get
across the cook Straight.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Sure. So the Artaria at the moment is capable of
carrying six hundred and fifty passengers and the other tary
has does four sailings each way per day, so that's
two from Wellington and too from Pacton. So look, we
there is no doubt that capacity across the Cook Straight

(02:59):
for the transition period until we get our new ship
is going to be tighter and we're very confident that
we can manage the task.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Are you going to prioritize goods because if this is
the fairy that's basically been used to transport goods across
the cook Strake, you're going to have to check it
on the other fairies. Does that come before passengers?

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, it's a balance, Heather, And we've got to think
about New Zealand and as a whole. We have to
manage the freight task, but we also have to look
after our families and our international passengers that use the
cook Straight for recreation, but.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Also do you prioritize the freight or the passengers.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
We look at the different sailings and the allocations and
how we allocate those are different across the air and
at different peak times. So for example, at Christmas time,
generally the freight task is lower, so at that point
in time, we will be looking to allocate more space
to passengers because that's the peak passenger time and that's

(04:02):
how we'll manage it. So it's not an easy task.
We do it literally day by day. Now, we look
at historical patterns and we make our allocation decisions based
on that. But I will say, and it's important to
be clear about this, that there's no doubt through this
transition period on our peak days there is less capacity.
So people may have been used to being able to

(04:24):
travel in their favorite time slot and a lot of
people like to go at eight o'clock in the morning.
Not everybody that has been able to travel them will
still be able to travel them, So people may have
to travel in other time gates, and people may have
to travel slightly earlier outside of those really peak holiday
travel days. So I want to be clear about that

(04:45):
and rare about that, and you know we would recommend
to book early.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, all right, Adelle, thanks very much, appreciate it. Adele Wilson,
chief Customer and Growth Officer at KEE We Rail.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
For more from hither Duplessyell and Drive.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Listen live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio