Fullers360 reduces Waiheke Island off peak fares by 50%.
From 2 April 2023 and ahead of the Easter holiday, visitors travelling to Waiheke Island can benefit from a 50% reduced ticket price of $24.75 during off-peak times. This applies to full price adult return fares purchased online more than 24 hours in advance.
Off-peak times cover sailings to Waiheke after 1pm and return sailings from 7pm.
Fullers360 CEO Mike Horne says this is the lowest adult return fares have been in more than 15 years.
“The ongoing shortage of skilled maritime crew in New Zealand means that we do not have the skippers and deckhands needed to increase the number of sailings to meet the high demand for our services.
“While we are urgently progressing a number of actions to address this issue, we expect the pricing reduction will help steady demand for our services throughout the day and improve the overall experience for all those who rely on our services.”
Due to the shortage of skilled maritime workers, Fullers360 has been operating a reduced summer timetable, which has resulted in some long queues for the Waiheke Island ferry service during peak times.
“The further challenge is that in an average week only about 30% of the seats on the Waiheke Island service are used and then on weekends during peak times, from 9am – 12pm and 4pm – 7pm, demand jumps to 200%. Pre-COVID-19, the solution was simple – operate more boats to meet demand. Unfortunately, right now the reality is we don’t have the people we need to run additional services.
“While we continue to upskill our teams and engage with Government to seek changes to immigration settings, we anticipate these changes to our off-peak ticket pricing will make a positive difference for our passengers, Waiheke Island business owners, and tourism operators”, says Horne.
Waiheke Island off-peak ferry tickets will be able to purchase from fullers.co.nz from Sunday, 2 April.
