WSF weekly report

||| FROM PATTY RUBSTELLO for WASHINGTON STATE FERRIES |||

Service restoration update

While there are no significant changes in this week’s Service Restoration Plan Progress Report, we recently shared a timeline on when we’ll be able to restore service on routes that are not yet back to pre-pandemic levels. As I mentioned last week, our current crewing and vessel availability constraints prevent us from restoring service on our next prioritized route, Edmonds/Kingston, until late this year. As far as the next three routes – Fauntleroy/Vashon/Southworth, Seattle/Bremerton and Port Townsend/Coupeville – they likely won’t be restored until next spring at the earliest. Finally, our international route between Anacortes and Sidney, B.C. is suspended until at least summer 2023.

We currently have a class of nine oilers going through new engine employee orientation. Here are a few of them with our engine simulator at our warehouse talking to chief engineers Felix Tapley and Chris Schneider.

New engine room employee Daniel Radosevich reassembles a fuel oil purifier during training at our warehouse.

Thanks to support from the Governor and the legislature, we’ve brought on a lot of new crewmembers now that we hire continuously instead of seasonally. We’ve also started to provide funding for employees to receive their required credentials. Again though, our biggest constraint is a lack of licensed deck officers (captains and mates), who require significant training time. We have adjusted some of our policies to encourage and more efficiently develop and promote our existing crewmembers, but are still struggling to fill all the positions we need for full service systemwide. We will continue to remain transparent as we keep the public updated on our service restoration efforts.

WSDOT Budget Office tours Colman Dock

We hosted the WSDOT Budget Office on Tuesday for a tour of construction progress at our Seattle terminal on Colman Dock. This was a great opportunity for our colleagues to see one of the many projects that they have worked on from the finance side. The final portion of the terminal building will open this summer and the entry building and elevated pedestrian connector that links it to the terminal building will open in 2023.

Our Colman Dock Project staff members connected with colleagues from the WSDOT Budget Office during a tour at our Seattle Terminal.

Celebrating pride

Seattle Pride will bring hundreds of thousands of people to the region this weekend to celebrate inclusion, tolerance and diversity. In support of the annual event, we are joining regional landmarks in flying the rainbow flag on our downtown Seattle ferries and Colman Dock terminal tomorrow, June 24, through Sunday, June 26.

“[…] Big props to [Deckhand Steffen Nielsen] on the Yakima ([o]ut of Anacortes) who was amazingly kind and helpful when our van broke down on the [f]erry.  Stef calmly helped us troubleshoot, assess our options and ultimately get us turned around and onto land where we could sort things out. Thank you for your service, Stef on the @wsferries Yakima.” -Anacortes/San Juan Islands customer on Twitter