B.C. Ferries’ plans for the upcoming peak summer season will account for islanders travelling to Vancouver for FIFA World Cup games.
Seven FIFA World Cup soccer tournament games are scheduled for B.C. Place, including Canada-Qatar on June 18 and Canada-Switzerland June 24, and people from Vancouver Island are anticipated to head to the Lower Mainland to take part in festivities. At a press conference Wednesday, May 13 at the Tsawwassen terminal, B.C. Ferries’ officials detailed the strategy for the coming months.
In an e-mail, B.C. Ferries said there will be extra sailings to accommodate soccer fans, with 1,800-plus round-trip sailings between the Tsawwassen-Swartz Bay, Horseshoe Bay-Langdale, Tsawwassen-Duke Point and Tsawwassen-Southern Gulf Islands. Of those, 230 sailings will be on the Tsawwassen-Duke Point run.
Melanie Lucia, B.C. Ferries’ vice-president of customer experience, said more staff will be on hand to deal with the expected surge in traffic.
“You will see additional crew in our ticket booths to make sure that we’re flowing traffic through those ticket booths,” said Lucia. “You will see additional staff out and about on our terminals to help with wayfinding and support customer questions. We’re bringing in extra security. We’re … connecting with our local transit folks to make sure that those people that are going to be travelling by foot are able to connect through buses.”
New ferries are en route to service people on the Island, including those going from Gabriola Island and downtown Nanaimo, which will allow current vessels to be redeployed to other areas of the system, allowing for better service and building resiliency, according to the Brian Anderson, vice-president of strategy and planning.
“Four new island class vessels are arriving soon and will serve the routes between Nanaimo and Gabriola and … Campbell River and Quadra Island,” Anderson said. “One of those vessels … just arrived in B.C. waters after sailing from Romania. Once all those island-class vessels are in operation, they will represent a 70 per cent increase in vehicle capacity and 135 per cent increase in passenger capacity on the routes they serve.”
Anderson said fuel prices are being monitored and any implementation of a fuel surcharge “would be temporary and communicated in advance, so customers have time to prepare.” Based on current fleet numbers, which include 37 vessels on 25 routes and 47 terminals, there is little margin for error, he said.
“I’ll borrow a soccer analogy,” said Anderson. “Our peak season is a bit like playing the full 90-minute match with no substitutes. All our ships will be in service every day, and in the event there’s an injury that puts us down a player, or a ship in this case, we can’t bring a replacement in from the bench.”
According to B.C. Ferries’ Summer Service 2026 Contingency Plan, should there be service disruption, it would re-route or notify customers of the disruption while assessing the ferry’s issue. It would start repairs and while it depends on how severe the issue is, “most mechanical issues are resolved within hours with more minimal impact on service.”
During the 2025 peak season, B.C. Ferries transported 10.3 million passengers and 4.1 million vehicles, and those numbers are expected to increase this year.